Bio
Joseph Cirincione
Joseph Cirincione is President of Ploughshares Fund, a global security foundation. He has served as Vice President at the Center for American Progress and Director for Nonproliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
He is the author of Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons and Deadly Arsenals: Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Threats. He teaches at the graduate School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Cirincione worked for nine years in the U.S. House of Representatives on the professional staff of the Committee on Armed Services and the Committee on Government Operations. He is the author of hundreds of articles on nuclear weapons issues, the producer of two DVDs, a frequent commentator in the media, and he appeared in the film, Why We Fight.
He has held positions at the Henry L. Stimson Center, the U.S. Information Agency, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
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Encyclopædia Britannica Article
- Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT)
International agreement intended to prevent the spread of nuclear technology. It was signed by the U.S., Britain, the Soviet Union, and 59 other countries in 1968. The three major signatories agreed not to assist states lacking nuclear weapons to obtain or produce them; the nonnuclear signatories agreed not to attempt to obtain nuclear weapons in exchange for assistance in developing nuclear power for peaceful purposes. France and China, both nuclear powers, declined to ratify the treaty until 1992, and some nuclear powers, including Israel and Pakistan, have never signed it. In 1995, when the treaty was due to expire, it was extended indefinitely by a consensus vote of 174 countries at the United Nations. See also Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty.
- Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) on britannica.com
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