The debate over the abolition of nuclear weapons (reviewed by Steven E. Miller in the June 1999 issue of ISR)is developing into a discussion of the feasibility of getting agreement on an international convention that would outlaw nuclear weapons, along with other weapons of mass destruction. This discussion is beginning to focus on a draft text for such a convention and on the programme of action required to put it into effect. Whether or not the ultimate objective is a nuclear weapon free world, or the ‘low salience’ nuclear world tacitly assumed in many official statements, current nuclear weapon policies can best be appreciated as possible steps along such a ‘path to zero’, spread over a period of 25 years or so. The discussion can conveniently be organised into its military, industrial, diplomatic, security, and political ‘frames’. These frames interact, and scientists have interdisciplinary roles to play in all of them.