U.S. Moves Rapidly Toward Implementing START Warhead Limit

The U.S. appears to be moving toward early implementation of the New START treaty signed with Russian less than one month ago, writes Ploughshares Fund grantee Hans Kristensen. "The rapid implementation is evident in the State Department’s latest fact sheet, which declares that the U.S. as of December 31, 2009, deployed 1,968 strategic warheads. The New START force level of 1,550 deployed strategic warheads is not required to be reached until 2017 at the earliest. But at the current downloading rate, the U.S. could reach the limit before the end of this year."