Common Purpose: Financial Times

By James Blitz and Stefan Wagstyl
[Excerpt]

The drive to reduce nuclear stockpiles is, however, the pre-eminent theme of this summit, the subject where the US and Russian leaderships have a chance to demonstrate a spirit of common purpose. Arms control is one of the few issues in global politics where they know they dominate the agenda. The two hold 95 per cent of the world’s nuclear arsenals between them and – in the 1970s and early 1990s – they went a long way to reducing their stockpiles...

 Monday, however, marks a sea-change. The US and Russia will reach a joint understanding on plans to sign a replacement for the 1991 Start pact, which allows each side to verify the other’s nuclear arsenals. They will want to finalise agreement on this before the end of the year, when the pact will have expired. Moreover, they will move towards putting new limits on the number of nuclear warheads they possess, bringing them down from a maximum of 1,700-2,200 agreed in 2002 to around 1,500...

Joseph Cirincione of the Ploughshares Fund, a nuclear weapons policy foundation, [says]: “Both sides recognise that they don’t need these huge cold war arsenals. They also need to demonstrate a commitment to stop new nations or groups acquiring these weapons. That’s the fundamental change.”