People looking for clues about the nuclear policies of the incoming Obama Administration tended to draw overly-broad implications from the big-dog appointments announced a few weeks ago: Sen. Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, Robert Gates continuing as Secretary of Defense and General Jim Jones as National Security Advisor.

It is the next level of appointments that will tell us more about the direction of Obama’s nuclear policies.

While you were away (or still are) celebrating the holidays, the first key appointments below the cabinet-level have been made and the news is good.

Take the announcement of Dr. John Holdren as the President’s Science Adviser.  Holdren is a leading expert on nuclear arms issues.

A 1997  he chaired a National Academy of Sciences report entitled “The Future of Nuclear Weapons Policy” that recommended reducing U.S. and Russian nuclear forces to 1,000 total warheads and exploring going below that number, taking nuclear weapons off hair trigger alert and adopting a no-first use policy.

In a 2005 Arms Control Today article, Dr. Holdren argued that the 1997 proposals were still relevant and recommended ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, moving to very deep reductions of nuclear weapons to a few hundred on each side, and trying “create the conditions that would make possible a global prohibition of nuclear weapons along the lines of those already in force against chemical and biological weapons.”

James B. Steinberg, who has served in other government positions, has been named to the number two position at the Department of State. He too has long been involved in nuclear issues.

On January 1, 2008, he wrote “Washington must begin devaluing nuclear weapons.”

In a November 2007 speech, he praised the Kissinger, Shultz, Perry and Nunn proposal for a world free of nuclear weapons and applauded some of their endorsed steps, including ratification of the test ban treaty, a fissile material cut-off treaty and a reopened debate on missile defenses.

In a 2006 OpEd, he suggested that the U.S.-India deal “will seriously undermine the longer-term effort to rein in the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons programs.”

Antony Blinken, most recently staff director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has been named Vice President-elect Joseph Biden’s Assistant to the Vice President for National Security Affairs.

Blinken joined with Steinberg — and a number of other authors who could well be appointed to key Obama Administration positions — in a July 2008 Center for New American Security report that recommended: “The next president should reaffirm that America seeks a world free of nuclear weapons.”

The report suggested a number of steps in that direction, including:

“The United States should propose to Moscow new negotiations that would reduce their respective nuclear inventory to 1,000 weapons of all ranges. The inspection and transparency provisions of existing arms control agreements that are due to expire in 2009 would be maintained. And remaining forces would end their reliance on hair-trigger alerts to ensure survivability. In addition, the United States should ratify the CTBT at the earliest practical opportunity and propose to negotiate a worldwide, verifiable ban on the production of fissile materials for weapons purposes.”

While there are many other key appointments to be made, these first appointments are a good start and presage significant progress on nuclear issues.

Click here for the full list of open key positions, including transition personnel.

What’s on Obama’s plate?

We’re not talking chicken or fish, we’re talking more like nuclear terrorism and the war in Iraq.

When Obama gets sworn in on Jan. 20, 2009, he’ll have more than a full plate of items to deal with, addressing issues like the war in Iraq,  the U.S. and now global economic crisis, global climate change, energy, terrorism, health care, the list – unfortunately – goes on and on, and on.

The Council for a Livable World’s research center has prepared – along with 60 leading national security experts – a transition report on how the Obama administration can effectively address the gravest threat to U.S. security: the spread of nuclear weapons and materials.

The executive summary and full report is available here.

The Council believes that given the rise of terrorist networks and the amount of unsecure nuclear weapons material worldwide, the proliferation of nuclear weapons and nuclear terrorism is one of the gravest threats to U.S. and international security.

“Every presidential candidate since 2000 has said that loose nuclear weapons are the most serious threat to international security. Yet for the past eight years we’ve done very little to address loose nukes seriously,” said John Isaacs, executive director of the Council and our research Center in a press release today. “What we need now is strong leadership as promised by President-elect Obama during the campaign.”

Besides unsecure nuclear weapons materials, we also have actual weapons to deal with. Almost twenty years after the end of the Cold War, Russia and the United States continue to maintain about 16,000 nuclear weapons. The arms control process has been stalled since the late 1990s when the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty was rejected by the Senate.

The experts in the report recommend that Obama Announce intent to seek ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and begin working to build the bipartisan support in the Senate needed for approval.

Basically, the Bush administration was not only was sleeping (though we wish it was only that) on arms control issues, it actually reversed arms control gains made in the past 40 years. When Obama and the 111th Congress gets in office, they’ll have an historic opportunity to provide some real leadership on the most serious component of our national security.

Now you know our priorities, what are yours?

We thought we had deja vu…

Last week at work, we watched a great beach scene with crashing waves and a tall man wearing polarized BluBlockers. It wasn’t a steamy Baywatch re-run, however, or even The Dude’s tribute to Donnie.  

It was the video trailer for the Heritage Foundation’s 33 Minutes campaign aimed at convincing “moms, dads and citizens across the country” (their words) that the United States is in dire need of a missile defense system. “33 Minutes” refers to the amount of time it would take an imaginary Iranian or North Korean nuclear-armed missile to reach the United States (‘imaginary’ because such a missile doesn’t exist yet and probably won’t exist for a decade or more).

You may remember the Heritage Foundation from such disastrous political epochs as the Reagan administration, the Bush I administration, and the Bush II administration. Well, now that they’ve got a Democratic president they get to spend the next eight years hating on, these Heritage guys are pumped.

Brace yourself and watch the clip here.

Where to begin, really? We have never seen more dramatic, ridiculous, and fear-stirring PR for a “defense” priority in our lives…er, except for that whole Iraq war thing.

I mean, how about that intro? Pure genius if you ask us.

What better way to scare the American public than to put a woman singing the Muslim call to prayer over images of New York City and the word “missile.” Stereotyping is so much fun!

In the lovely beach scene, a very serious Heritage expert strolls leisurely along with his shirt flapping in the wind and explains what a WMD attack would do to the United States. “Life in America,” the guy who in all likelihood has never been to the beach before says while motioning to a Ferris wheel, “would never be the same.”

OH NO! NOT THE FERRIS WHEELS! PLEASE GOD ANYTHING BUT THE FERRIS WHEELS! WHERE OH WHERE WILL WE MAKE OUT NOW?!?

Disclaimer: Council for a Livable World is not categorically opposed to policy wonks walking on the beach. In fact, we would support some defense policy nerds walking on a beach (near us) very soon. We will not name names.

One of the sweetest things about the video – besides Margaret Thatcher – is how it offers a solution that doesn’t solve the problem. “My number one concern today is a terrorist with a nuclear weapon,” Robert Joseph says in the clip. We whole-heartedly agree. The issue, of course, is that missile defense won’t stop nuclear terrorism. Experts agree that the most likely nuclear terrorist attack will come from a suitcase bomb or some other easily smuggled package. Missile defense will be useless against these types of threats.

Oh, and those 20 countries they mention that have ballistic missiles? Most are either allies of the United States or possess only short-range missiles that would threaten their neighbors, not the United States.

One more thing. Missile defense doesn’t work. Know how we know? Dolores Landingham told us, as did this high-powered multi-billion dollar combat simulator and some really sweet nerds at GAO.

Perhaps the greatest part of the video, however, comes at minute 6:15: the fireball-mushroom-cloud-reflection-in-the eye. How poignant. Watch below.

Now, we wouldn’t dare begrudge Heritage a little mushroom cloud action. I mean, we throw a mushroom cloud on everything that moves. There is a reason arms control is known as “the sky is falling profession.” But we’ve never done the whole “exploding eye” thing and, frankly, we love the dramatic effect.

So, Heritage, we have a fantastic idea for how you can make your campaign really hot: contact lenses with fireball-mushroom clouds on them. If you wear them, everyone will think a nuclear weapon just detonated behind you! How could they not support missile defense after they see that! (Please see picture associated with this blog post for the full visual effect.)

In all fairness, we should probably split the profits 50-50, right guys?

Anyways, it’s time to get ready for fear campaign 2009. While deterrence, containment, and diplomacy have been and will continue to be far more effective weapons against ballistic missiles than interceptors, conservatives have a theological commitment to missile defense they won’t give up anytime soon.

Remember that when hysterical conservative start screaming for more money for missile defense in 2009.

We almost forgot: Long live Ferris wheels.

If you want more info about problems with Heritage’s video, check out Lt. General Robert Gard’s new commentary on Huffington Post.

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