THE DEPROLIFERATOR — Most who champion nuclear disarmament were heartened by the election of Barack Obama. His apparent abhorrence of nuclear weapons seemed forged in The Day After eighties. Hopes soared after he delivered his celebrated Prague speech in April outlining his vision for a nuclear-free world.
The first step — negotiations on a treaty to continue the work of the recently expired Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) — may not have met the December deadline, but the treaty’s conclusion is seen as imminent. The new, improved model of START, the New York Times reports, “would require each side to reduce deployed strategic nuclear warheads to roughly 1,600 [and] strategic bombers [and] missiles to below 800.” Still, “Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov of Russia said on Thursday that there had been ‘some slowing down’ in negotiations by the other side.” Full story »
