Unilateral disarmament is a policy option, to renounce weapons without seeking equivalent concessions from one's actual or potential rivals. It was most commonly used in the twentieth century in the context of unilateral nuclear disarmament, a recurrent objective of peace movements in countries such as the USA and the UK.

Nations do not often choose to dismantle their entire military capability. Unilateral disarmaments are usually sought in one technical competency, such as Weapons of Mass Destruction. Non-violent political movements from that of Mahatma Gandhi to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament have recommended unilateral disarmament as a simple step toward world peace.

The only recent candidate for having performed an act of complete disarmament is Costa Rica, which unilaterally disarmed itself in 1948, writing its non-military status into its constitution in 1949. In a public ceremony to mark the occasion, the existing Commander-in-Chief handed the keys to Army HQ to the Minister of Education, for use as a school. Since that time, Costa Rica has been briefly invaded once, by Nicaragua, but has maintained its territorial integrity through reliance on diplomacy within international structures such as the OAS. Costa Rica's peace dividend has been reinvested well, as evidenced by infant mortality rates, life expectancy and literacy rates that are on a par or better than those of most developed countries.

Hugh Todd Naylor Gaitskell, CBE (9 April 1906 – 18 January 1963) was a British Labour politician, who held Cabinet office in Clement Attlee's governments, and was the Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition from 1955 until his death in 1963.

He was born in Kensington, London, the third and youngest child of Arthur Gaitskell (1870–1915), of the Indian Civil Service, and Adelaide Mary Gaitskell, née Jamieson (died 1956), whose father, George Jamieson, was consul-general in Shanghai. He was educated at the Dragon School from 1912 to 1919, at Winchester College from 1919 to 1924 and at New College, Oxford from 1924 to 1927, where he gained a first class degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics in 1927.

His serious interest in politics came about as a result of the General Strike of 1926, and he lectured in economics for the Workers' Educational Association to miners in Nottinghamshire. Gaitskell moved to University College London in the early 1930s at the invitation of Noel Hall, and became head of the Department of Political Economy^{[citation needed]} when Hall was appointed Director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research in 1938. He also worked as a tutor at Birkbeck College.

Nicola Sturgeon (born 19 July 1970) is the Deputy First Minister of Scotland, Cabinet Secretary for Health, Wellbeing and Cities Strategy, Depute Leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP) and Member (MSP) for Glasgow Southside.

Nicola Sturgeon became an MSP in the first elections to the Scottish Parliament in 1999, becoming the SNP's spokeswoman on justice, and later on education and health. In 2004, she announced that she would stand as a candidate for the leadership of the SNP following the resignation of John Swinney. However, she later withdrew from the contest in favour of Alex Salmond, but stood as Depute Leader on a joint ticket with Salmond. Both were subsequently elected and Sturgeon led the SNP in the Scottish Parliament from 2004–2007 until Salmond was elected back to the Scottish Parliament in the 2007 election.

The SNP won the highest number of seats in the Scottish Parliament following the 2007 election and Salmond was subsequently appointed First Minister of Scotland. He appointed Sturgeon his Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing.

Ronald Ernest "Ron" Paul (born August 20, 1935) is an American politician who has been the U.S. Representative for Texas's 14th congressional district, which includes Galveston, since 1997, and a three-time candidate for President of the United States, as a Libertarian in 1988 and as a Republican in 2008 and currently 2012. He is an outspoken critic of American foreign and monetary policies, including the Military–industrial complex and the Federal Reserve, and is known for his libertarian-leaning views, often differing from his own party on certain issues.

A native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Paul is a graduate of Gettysburg College and Duke University School of Medicine, where he earned his medical degree. He served as a medical officer in the United States Air Force from 1963 until 1968. He worked as an obstetrician-gynecologist from the 1960s to the 1980s, delivering more than 4,000 babies. He became the first Representative in history to serve concurrently with a child in the Senate when his son Rand Paul was elected to the United States Senate for Kentucky in 2010.

John Forbes Kerry (born December 11, 1943) is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, the 10th most senior United States Senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2004 presidential election, but lost to then President George W. Bush.

The son of an Army Air Corps serviceman, Kerry was born in Aurora, Colorado. He attended boarding school in Massachusetts and New Hampshire and went on to graduate from Yale University class of 1966, where he majored in political science. He enlisted in the Naval Reserve in 1966 and, during 1968-1969, served a four-month tour of duty in South Vietnam as officer-in-charge (OIC) of a Swift Boat. For that service he was awarded several combat medals that include the Silver Star, Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts. After returning to the United States, Kerry joined the Vietnam Veterans Against the War in which he served as a nationally recognized spokesperson and as an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam war. During that period, he appeared before the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs where he deemed United States war policy in Vietnam to be the cause of "war crimes".