Making Our World Safer
The greatest security threat Americans face is the reality that terrorists and rogue states seek to acquire weapons of mass destruction to use against Americans. Dick Lugar fights to keep our families safe. A decade before 9-11, Dick Lugar had the foresight to stop dangerous nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. His work to beat the global threat continues today.
The Nunn-Lugar Global set of programs work in many countries, including Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Kenya, Burundi, Uganda, and China, to successfully reduce threats from nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
Nunn-Lugar is making Americans safer each day. To date, Nunn-Lugar has:
- Deactivated 7,601 strategic nuclear warheads
- Destroyed 2,366 missiles
- Eliminated 674 missile launchers
- Destroyed 33 nuclear submarines capable of launching ballistic missiles
- Secured 19 pathogen disease facilities
- Eliminated 155 bombers
- Secured 24 nuclear weapons storage sites
- Built and equipped 34 disease surveillance stations
- Destroyed 2247.3 metric tons of chemical weapons nerve agent
- Eliminated 819,400 rounds of chemical munitions
Perhaps most importantly, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus are nuclear weapons free as a result of cooperative efforts under the Nunn-Lugar program. Those countries were the third, fourth and eighth largest nuclear weapons powers in the world.
Dick Lugar is pushing for Nunn-Lugar to expand globally to address threats no matter where they exist. In November 2010, Dick Lugar traveled to East Africa to monitor and secure biological threats. Diseases housed in these labs, such as Ebola and Marburg, are easily accessible to terrorist groups in the region aimed at hurting the United States. Dick Lugar constantly works to ensure these weapons never reach the United States.