Former Senate defense leader on peace mission

The Cold War, which began almost immediately after nuclear fireballs over Japan effectively ended the hot one that had scorched the world since 1939, has been over for a quarter century.

The nuclear threat that, paradoxically, helped keep that war mostly "cold" (though veterans of Korea and Vietnam could justly say otherwise) hangs over us still.

Sam Nunn represented Georgia in the U.S. Senate for 24 years, and in that time carried on the legacy of his distinguished predecessor Richard Russell as one of the upper chamber's foremost political authorities on defense and national security.

But the longtime conservative Democrat now has another mission, as one of the founders and leaders of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a nonpartisan, non-ideological organization dedicated to reducing the danger of nuclear destruction.

It was in that role that Nunn just a few days ago addressed an audience in Moscow about the disheartening and potentially dangerous rift between the United States and Russia.

"Unless we change course together," Nunn said, "we risk leaving behind a more dangerous world for our children and our grandchildren than the one we inherited."

That's a sobering thought, given that the world Nunn alluded to was one of World Wars and a thermonuclear arms race.

What is especially frustrating is that in the years since The Wall came down (literally and metaphorically), there have been times Nunn would have been delighted with the communication between Washington and Moscow.

But this is the era of Putin, not Gorbachev or Yeltsin, and disputes over, among other things, Syria and Ukraine have led to "military forces deployed in close proximity and an increased danger of accident or miscalculation," Nunn said. "This is a high-risk situation in a region with a significant concentration of both conventional and nuclear forces."

A renewed U.S.-Russia arms race is not what most concerns Nunn and others involved with NTI. Rather, it is the reality of international terrorism: "Can our leaders and our citizens [of both nations] recognize that we are in a new era where nation-states no longer have a monopoly over weapons of mass destruction and disruption?"

Unless the world's two most heavily armed nuclear powers communicate and cooperate in the fight against violent extremists like ISIS, the danger of nuclear weaponry falling into the hands of such rogue fanatic forces only grows. "We are in a race," Nunn said, "between cooperation and catastrophe."

He's right. Communication must begin with the mutual recognition of our mutual interest in guarding against that catastrophe. Beyond that, Nunn said, talks can't be conditional: "'You upset us and we will punish you by not talking' is not a sound strategy for two countries that control 90 percent of the world's nuclear weapons and materials."

Over four terms in the Senate, Sam Nunn focused on protecting American security. Last week in Moscow, he was doing the same thing.

This story was originally published February 27, 2016 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Former Senate defense leader on peace mission."