Thank you very much for raising that, because that was a fundamental shift in thinking in the United States. It provided the basis for President Obama to put forward the Prague speech and then follow through with a number of initiatives from the Obama administration on pursuing this goal of a nuclear-weapons-free world.
In that initiative from four former high-level officials from the United States, two Republicans and two Democrats, all former advocates of nuclear deterrence, all are saying that nuclear deterrence was required and was necessary during the Cold War, but it is failing to meet the security concerns of the 21st century and is creating risks that in a sense outweigh the benefits. So they are looking toward the possibility of achieving a nuclear-weapons-free world in order to eliminate those risks.
The Honourable Bob Rae is very correct that those risks they noted were the risks of proliferation, including to additional states and to non-state actors. In a globalized world, it's very difficult to control those unless you have globalized controls. That's why they see a comprehensive approach toward nuclear disarmament as necessary in order to prevent proliferation.
They're not the only former high-level officials of countries.... There have been another 11 initiatives similar to that from countries like Russia, the Netherlands, Norway, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Australia—I've missed a couple. There is a consensus now that this is the way to go. Yes, there are difficulties that need to be overcome, but they feel that it's time now to put the attention to those difficulties.
I thank you very much for the question.