We were talking about China when Mathew Burrows began to tell me about his mother. She had broken her pelvis at Christmas, and he was looking after her, working for the Stimson Center from home; everyone there, he said, had been very kind. I was caring for a parent of my own, and for a time the rivalry between the world’s two great powers waited while we talked about looking after the people who once looked after us. She was mending well, and he was grateful to be with her.

He owed her a great deal, he told me, above all his love of learning. When he was a child, he asked a librarian for another book on the French Revolution, and the librarian was surprised enough to mention it to his mother. I liked that word, “another.” Even then he suspected that one account could never be the whole story. His mother encouraged him to read about history, about other countries and the lives people led in them, and he spoke of that encouragement the way others speak of an inheritance.

A Commission report was completed in February 2012 on moving to global zero for U.S. nuclear weapons. It was chaired by former Senator Chuck Hagel from Nebraska who became Secretary of Defense in 2013. This was two years after the 2010 New START treaty reduced U.S. warheads deployed for strategic forces to 1550, although special treaty rules allowed a warhead count closer to 2000. A review of that report from January 2013 prepared by the RSC of the Senate notes: “The Global Zero organization was created in 2008, and proposed a 75% reduction in U.S. nuclear weapons,” [or roughly leaving the U.S. at the 500, warhead level]. Perhaps it is not coincidental, but an October 2025 bill by Senators Warren, Sanders and Markey proposed the U.S. unilaterally act to keep only 150 Minuteman missiles (150 warheads) and as few as 4 submarines with an estimated 300 warheads, (4 subs each with 16 missiles, each carrying 5-6 warheads), implying a total strategic nuclear force of roughly 500 warheads as well. Perhaps reflecting this idea, one current candidate for Senate called for all $200 billion in nuclear weapons spending to be cut annually from the defense budget, although total strategic nuclear DoW and NNSA related spending is roughly $60 billion.

The 2013 Senate report continued: “According to its web site, the Global Zero movement advocates the elimination of nuclear weapons. In furtherance of that goal, Senator Hagel and others issued a report last year for this organization proposing a U.S. nuclear force posture and policy for the 21st century. This past Monday, co-authors of that report issued a press release purporting to set “the record straight on Chuck Hagel’s global zero position on nuclear weapons.” Of critical importance, the Commission report characterized itself as “not unilateralist.” The RSC explains further the Commission post-report press release goes on to say the authors only support bilateral, negotiated, verifiable U.S.-Russian arms reductions, to be followed by multilateral negotiations, as it recommends a 75 percent reduction in the number of deployed nuclear warheads. But page 1 of the Global Zero report itself reads as follows: “These steps could be taken with Russia in unison through reciprocal presidential directives, negotiated in another round of bilateral arms reduction talks, or implemented unilaterally.” The report also reads: ‘The reductions and de-alerting proposed under this illustrative plan could be carried out in unison by the United States and Russia through reciprocal presidential directives, negotiated in another round of bilateral arms reduction talks, or implemented unilaterally.”

Kyle Balzer, In the Eye of the Beholder: Deterrence Gaps, Real or Imagined?, No. 672, October 29, 2026

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