RUSSIA and the United States have agreed a new strategic arms treaty, slashing the number of nuclear weapons each side has by the biggest margin in a generation.
The deal, which cuts each side's weapons by about 30 per cent, was sealed in a phone call yesterday morning between US president Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev.
Mr Obama said: "With this agreement, the US and Russia, the two largest nuclear powers in the world, also send a clear signal that we intend to lead. We strengthen our global efforts to stop the spread of these weapons and to ensure that other nations meet their own responsibilities."
The two men will sign the treaty in Prague on 8 April, the anniversary of Mr Obama's call last year for united action to work towards a nuclear-free world.
A Kremlin statement said: "The presidents agreed that the new treaty marks a higher level of cooperation between Russia and the United States in the development of new strategic relations."
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The treaty limits both nations to 1,550 nuclear warheads each. It also limits to 800 the number of deployed and non-deployed intercontinental ballistic missile launchers, submarine-launched ballistic missile launchers and heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments.
It will replace the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty and is an improvement on previous agreements that envisaged each side having a maximum of 2,200 warheads by 2012. A seven-year window after ratification is given to make the reductions.
For Russia, the deal is a rare chance to stand shoulder to shoulder with the US. Moscow's status as a superpower is long gone, its economy dwarfed by that of the US, but it remains, with Washington, the owner of the bulk of the world's nuclear weapons.
The Kremlin will also be pleased that, in return for co-operating on the treaty, it won agreement from the Obama administration to delay deployment of a proposed missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.
The US has not renounced the anti-missile plan, and Russia has inserted a provision that it can break with the treaty if such a system goes ahead.
The US, in turn, won Russia's agreement the new treaty would include the sharing of data on new weapons systems, in particular Moscow's development of a series of ballistic nuclear missiles. Diplomatically, the pact signals a cooling of tensions that flared between the two nations after Russia invaded Georgia in 2008.
Washington has tempered its calls for Georgia to be admitted into Nato, while
Moscow has indicated a willingness at the United Nations to co-operate on issues including Middle East peace and opposition to Iran's development of nuclear weapons.
The deal comes days after the signing of Mr Obama's healthcare bill, a priority for the president. White House officials are hoping the two deals will end criticism that he was incapable of turning his lofty goals into reality.
Mr Obama hopes to use the treaty, and his meetings with Mr Medvedev, as the springboard to obtain global consensus for a new non-proliferation agreement.
Yet the treaty still leaves both powers with the capacity to destroy one another many times over. The logic of nuclear deterrence – Mutually Assured Destruction – remains in place.
