Perspectives

Obama's drive for abolition of nuclear weapons could help U.S. regain global trust

The Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) that is set to kick off on Monday in New York will mark the final stage of the first round of U.S. President Barack Obama's three-part nuclear threat initiative.

A year after he announced his nuclear initiative toward "a world without nuclear weapons" in Prague, Obama scaled back the role of nuclear weapons in the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) presented on April 6. Two days later, he and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev signed a new nuclear arms treaty toward nuclear disarmament. Less than a week later, on April 12 and 13, Obama hosted a 47-nation nuclear security summit.

U.S. Ambassador to Japan John Roos's trip to Hiroshima last October -- during which he offered flowers for atomic bomb victims at a memorial in the peace park and visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum -- must be appreciated within this context.

Obama's Prague speech laid out a long-term roadmap for the complete abolition of nuclear weapons, and the NPT review conference will serve to address the real issues surrounding nuclear proliferation. At the previous NPT conference in 2005, the U.S. delegation was headed by the assistant secretary of state, dispatched by then President George W. Bush, who did not view the NPT as a particular priority. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, however, is set to attend this time around -- a testament to Obama's commitment to the issue.

Other nuclear powers are ostensibly not opposed to the principle of nuclear abolition. For example, the U.K. and France say they are willing to scale back their arsenals if the U.S. and Russia, who hold the majority of nuclear warheads, eliminate a certain number of their weapons. "Experts agree that nuclear abolition will benefit the U.S., because as a nation with an enormous military-industry complex, it is at an overwhelming advantage in terms of conventional weapons," said the French newspaper Le Monde on April 16. "For other nuclear powers, especially China, nuclear abolition holds no appeal."

Obama's nuclear initiative, however, has reached out to people all over the world. And to me, it seems that this enthusiasm could potentially translate into a huge diplomatic asset for the U.S. in regaining trust and legitimacy.

In the post-World War II era, the U.S. was the last bastion of world order and stability for the Western world. Indeed, there were times when the U.S. seemed to go overboard. In general, however, the West trusted that U.S. actions had a goal of deepening and expanding freedom and democracy, and believed Washington's role to be legitimate.

The past decade, however, saw a wavering of that confidence and legitimacy. First, there was the unilateralism and the Iraq War of the previous administration, then the global financial crisis that began in the U.S. The world cannot shake the feeling that it is in fact the U.S. that is destabilizing the world.

But in combination with the new administration's general shift toward multilateralism, Obama's nuclear initiative has the potential of revamping America's recent image -- even if it is based on an initiative of unsentimental national interests.

Let's keep a close watch on how Obama handles the second round of his initiative. He most likely has a visit to Hiroshima somewhere in mind. (By Megumi Nishikawa, Expert Senior Writer)

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