Poll: American and Russian Public Supports Elimination Nuclear Weapons

November 9, 2007
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A new poll, conducted in the United States and Russia, finds robust support for a series of cooperative steps to reduce nuclear dangers and move toward the global elimination of nuclear weapons.

Large majorities of Americans and Russians favor taking nuclear weapons off high alert, sharply cutting the numbers of nuclear weapons, banning the production of weapons-grade nuclear material, and—once advanced methods of international verification are established—undertaking the complete elimination of nuclear weapons.


These steps correspond to key elements of a plan for “A World Free of Nuclear Weapons,” developed by a bipartisan group that includes two former secretaries of state (George Schultz and Henry Kissinger), a former defense secretary (William Perry) and the former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee (Sam Nunn)—sometimes called the “Reykjavik Revisited” plan. Some have been included in recent legislation, such as a bill introduced by Senators Chuck Hagel and Barack Obama (S.1977). A systematic, global endeavor to eliminate nuclear weapons has also been endorsed by former Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev, former British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett, and US Presidential candidates.


The WorldPublicOpinion.org poll was developed in conjunction with the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland (CISSM) and fielded by Knowledge Networks in the United States and the Levada Center in Russia.