Film Recommendation: Countdown To Zero

Nothing should offend Global Citizens more than the existence of nuclear weapons. The fact that science has been perverted into creating weapons so powerful that they could destroy human civilization itself should leave us stunned and outraged. Indeed, it's difficult to see any issue which we should consider more important than this.

The recently-released documentary Countdown to Zero is a must-see film for all Global Citizens. It reveals, in a blunt and even frightening manner, the dangers the world faces from nuclear weapons. Although the numbers of nuclear weapons have thankfully declined since the end of the Cold War, the possibility of such weapons actually being used has probably increased significantly since 1989. As the film lays out, whether through the actions of rogue states, through terrorism, or through simple accidents, nuclear weapons are a greater threat to the world today than they have ever been. Even worse, the issue is not being discussed nearly as much as it needs to be discussed, allowing most citizens to act as though the danger simply does not exist.

This issue is perhaps more poignant at this moment, because the United States Senate is soon to began the debate over whether to ratify the New START agreement with Russia, which will require both sides to reduce their deployed nuclear weapons by about 30% and institute a rigorous verification regime that will allow both sides to inspect one another's nuclear weapons facilities. This is not nearly a big enough cut as is desirable (this blog has previously called for a reduction of the American nuclear arsenal to 350 warheads, deployed entirely on submarines). But the New START Treaty is certainly a step in the right direction, and all Global Citizens in the United States should contact their representatives in the Senate to urge immediate ratification.

President Obama is far from a perfect president, but he deserves full credit for tackling the issue of nuclear proliferation and making the reduction of nuclear weapons a foreign policy priority. It may well be that, when scholars come to write the history of the Obama presidency, his speech on nuclear disarmament in Prague will have become his most celebrated. But this is not a liberal-vs-conservative question. President Ronald Reagan himself spoke often and eloquently about his dream of a world completely free from nuclear weapons.

See this movie. Encourage your friends and family to see this movie. Organize showings of this movie at places of worship or other community centers. If it's not showing in your area, try to figure out how to get it there. Spread the word in any way you can. There is not a single more important issue facing the world today than the need for nuclear disarmament, and this excellent documentary can be a tool for making a difference.