A figure like Senator Richard Lugar is needed to face current challenges | The Indian Express

A figure like Senator Richard Lugar is needed to face current challenges | The Indian Express

Written by C. Uday Bhaskar |Updated: May 2, 2019 10:39:09 am

The writer is Director, Society for Policy Studies, New Delhi.

A figure like Senator Richard Lugar is needed to face current challenges

The preliminary deliberations at New York indicate that the NPT cannot deal with the current global nuclear challenge and some radical initiatives in the Richard Lugar mode are urgently called for. Alas, the US and global bench strength of perspicacious and committed nuclear policymakers is very modest.

In an unintended coincidence, Senator Lugar passed away a day before the global community (excluding India) began the preparatory deliberations for the NPT (nuclear non-proliferation treaty) Review conference of 2020. (AP)

With the passing away of Senator Richard Lugar (born 1932) on April 28, the US and the global community have lost a stoic and amazingly effective legislator-cum-sherpa of complex nuclear issues. The greater pity is that even as the world is grappling with more urgent and alarming nuclear-related exigencies, there appears to be nobody in the current generation of US (and global ) legislators and policymakers who can envision making the kind of contribution that Lugar and his colleague Senator Sam Nunn did in the 1990s.