Russia and the U.S. are due to begin talks on a new treaty to reduce the number of nuclear weapons. The Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty, or START 1 [2], is due to expire in December. Daryl Kimball [3]of the Ploughshares-funded Arms Control Association [4]said, “I think what we are going to see in this new agreement is lower ceilings on the number of warheads that may be deployed on strategic delivery systems – the missiles and the bombers – and we are going to see lower ceilings on the number of missiles and bombers that may be deployed by each side. I think they will be looking for some revised rules and numbers on these issues in the new agreement.” Ploughshares Fund President Joe Cirincione [5]commented, "I think it will take a decade or more to go from hundreds of nuclear weapons down to a regime where we could very favorably get to zero.”
Links
[1] https://ploughshares.org/file/735
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/START_I
[3] http://ploughshares.org/expert/37
[4] http://www.armscontrol.org/
[5] http://ploughshares.org/expert/103
[6] http://www.russiatoday.com/Top_News/2009-05-18/Russia-US_START_talks_underway.html