There is no greater threat to global security than the diffusion of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons expertise and materials. Without an integrated approach to securing the large inventories of WMD materials and expertise around the world, the United States will have failed to accomplish its primary national security goal to keep the “world’s most dangerous weapons out of the hands of the world’s most dangerous people.” The Cooperative Nonproliferation programs of the US Government have been remarkably successful in the past fifteen years, but they have never been used to their full potential to help reduce the WMD threat.
Brian Finlay and Elizabeth Turpen of the Cooperative Nonproliferation Program articulate a series of pragmatic, politically viable steps that must be taken to ensure the full and effective implementation of these critical national security programs and maximize the return on investment in these programs. It also offers policymakers, program mangers, and their private sector counterparts an innovative guide for reinvigorating Cooperative Nonproliferation efforts, making them sustainable and leveraging their impact across the full spectrum of foreign policy goals, from economic development to international public health. This publication accompanies a more extensive discussion of the history and obstacles to the Cooperative Nonproliferation programs published by the Stimson Center in January 2007 and entitled, Cooperative Nonproliferation: Getting Further, Faster.