The Hinckley Institute Radio Hour (Air date: November 19, 2014) – Nine countries possess more than 16,000 nuclear weapons. The United States and Russia maintain roughly 1,800 of their nuclear weapons on high-alert status – ready to be launched within minutes of a warning. Most are many times more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945, so a single nuclear warhead, if detonated on a large city, could kill millions of people with its dangerous effects persisting for decades.
Rose Gottemoeller, is Undersecretary of Arms Control for the U.S. Department of State. She says the failure of the nuclear countries to disarm has heightened the risk that other countries, or even terrorists, will acquire nuclear weapons. Gottemoeller spoke and answered questions on Oct. 22, 2014 at the University of Utah.
Gottemoeller was introduced by Utah State Rep. Jennifer Seelig, and former Republican Rep. Ryan Wilcox who co-sponsored a resolution in the Utah House of Representatives calling on U.S. lawmakers to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).
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