Beyond the Nuclear Security Summit: What Remains on the U.S. Agenda

Coauthored with Martin Willner, research associate in the International Institutions and Global Governance program.

President Obama deserves praise for spearheading global efforts to address the threat of nuclear terrorism. As countries gathered for this week’s Nuclear Security Summit in The Hague, it was clear that countries had made real progress in securing the world’s most dangerous weapons.

But nuclear security is only one of seven nuclear weapons priorities the president outlined in his famous Prague speech of April 2009, and most of the others have stalled, despite some surprising successes with Russia and Iran.

The White House can take pride in its success, over three nuclear summits, in helping lock down the world’s nuclear weapons and fissile material. But as for the rest of the Prague agenda, it clearly remains a work in progress.