Former U.S. senator Jake Garn wants to phase out nukes by 2030

On Jake Garn's to-do list: Get rid of every last nuclear weapon on the planet.

It's a tall order. "But if you don't try, you're guaranteed failure," says the former U.S. senator from Utah, whose pedigree as a conservative Republican, retired Air National Guard brigadier general and one-time supporter of the MX missile makes some fellow conservatives surprised at his latest agenda.

His background would also seem to make him an odd partner with nonviolence activist Deb Sawyer. But both Salt Lake residents are active proponents of Global Zero, whose goal is the total elimination of the world's nuclear weapons by 2030.

Global Zero begins a worldwide summit in Paris on Feb. 2, which Sawyer will be attending because of her work with groups such as the Utah Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons and Salt Lake's Gandhi Alliance for Peace.

Garn's philosophical journey to Global Zero began in 1985, when he orbited the Earth aboard the Space Shuttle. It was the vastness of endless galaxies, and the way it was impossible to see the borders between countries on the tiny blue and green planet down below, that made him understand how senseless war is, Garn says.

It is his current assessment of the world's nuclear arsenal that makes him worried about what could happen if that arsenal isn't eliminated.

The notion that the United States needs nuclear weapons as a deterrent is outdated and harmful, Garn and Sawyer agree. Such a posture encourages more and more countries to create their own nuclear weapons program and increases the chances that a rogue state or a terrorist group will get its hands on a nuclear bomb.

The idea of Global Zero, as the name implies, is to not just slow down the arms race between the superpowers, but to encourage every country to eradicate all nuclear weapons.

According to Global Zero, which was launched a year ago by 100 former world leaders, there are now 23,000 nuclear weapons in nine countries (96 percent of them in the United States and Russia), and during the past two decades there have been 25 instances of "nuclear explosive materials lost or stolen."

Garn says his biggest opponents to the Global Zero idea are fellow conservatives. But it's also hard, he says, to convince people at the other extreme "who would agree to anything without the ability to verify and enforce."

Both verification and enforcement are crucial, Garn says.

Global Zero's 20-year plan includes four phases: