It is tempting to dismiss the latest arms control treaty between the United States and Russia as more flash than bang. After all, it leaves thousands of weapons in each country's arsenal, eliminates weapons that both governments would have likely cut anyway and there is no guarantee that either legislature will agree to the deal.
Resist that temptation. The treaty reduces deployed nuclear arsenals by 30 percent. More important, it provides a much-needed boost to arms control efforts and injects momentum into global negotiations that will be under way this spring. As U.S. President Barack Obama noted at the conclusion of the negotiations, the deal is "the most comprehensive arms control agreement in nearly two decades."
Mr. Obama took office determined to reshape his country's thinking about nuclear weapons. His new approach was revealed in the speech he delivered in Prague in April 2009 in which he outlined his vision of a world free of nuclear weapons. His Russian counterpart, President Dmitry Medvedev took up the challenge and the two men resumed negotiations on reducing strategic nuclear arsenals. Details proved difficult as ever, and a deal that was to have been concluded by year's end — when the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) expired — remained out of reach until a few weeks ago.