President Barack Obama delivers remarks to the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction symposium held at the National Defense University at Fort McNair in Washington, D.C., Dec. 3, 2012. Joing the President on stage are, from left: Defense Secretary Leon Panetta; former Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga.; and Sen. Richard Lugar, R- Ind.(Official White House Photo by Sonya N. Hebert)

On Monday, President Obama traveled to the National Defense University to mark the 20th anniversary of what he called “one of the country’s smartest and most successful national security programs” — the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program for the destruction of weapons of mass destruction in the former Soviet Union.

And after celebrating some of the accomplishments of that program, the President discussed the need to continue that nonproliferation work in the decades ahead.

“We simply cannot allow the 21st century to be darkened by the worst weapons of the 20th century,” he said. “And that’s why, over the past four years, we’ve continued to make critical investments in our threat reduction programs -— not just at DOD, but at Energy and at State. In fact, we’ve been increasing funding, and sustaining it. And even as we make some very tough fiscal choices, we’re going to keep investing in these programs —- because our national security depends on it.” MORE