As nations supporting Ukrainian resistance hurry to deliver military weaponry to the front, and as volunteer soldiers join the fray from around the world, promising to defend democracy by fighting fire with fire, the nuclear nations of the world — specifically the U.S. — have an unprecedented opportunity to practice peace, to try and change the violent course of history. Joining with Nobel Peace Prize winners Dmitry Muratov (2021 Nobel Peace Prize) and the International Committee to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN, Nobel Peace Prize 2017) , the U.S. can lead the world on a path towards peace, offering an alternative to the bloodbath happening today in Ukraine.

The U.S. can lead by example and commit immediately in writing to dismantling its nuclear weapons currently in Europe — in Germany, Belgium and Italy — and then publicly dismantle those nukes and show Putin how it is done. If Reagan and Gorbachev could agree to taking steps towards denuculearization thirty years ago, then so too can Biden and Putin today, demonstrating real “superpower” mettle.

As the two aforementioned Nobel Prize winners noted in a recent joint statement: “As long as nuclear weapons exist, the threat of their use persists. The world cannot continue to hold its breath and count on the good sense of the handful of world leaders with the power to destroy us all. We must eliminate these weapons of mass destruction. We urge all governments to join the TPNW [Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons] without delay. We urge them to choose peace over war and reason over madness. We urge them to support democracy and freedom of speech all over the world. The time to act is now. We may not survive the next nuclear crisis.” America, dare to make bold peace in the face of Russia’s war, and show the world a path to a livable future.