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...thermonuclear weapons primed and ready to launch. As Andreasen says, "The key to deep cuts is not deep control treaties; rather, it is to deepen and widen the consensus that our security will be enhanced by further reducing the role of nuclear weapons in security policies. The new START agreement is one step in that process - but many more, and more urgent, steps are needed...
...Discussion of such nightmare scenarios may have gone out of fashion with the end of the Cold War, but the fact that Washington and Moscow maintain thousands of nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert explains why even the modest successor to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) that was agreed on last week proved so elusive. And it also serves as a reminder of how dauntingly difficult it will be to achieve cuts deep enough to remove what President John F. Kennedy once called "Damocles' sword" hanging over humanity. (See pictures of President Obama in Russia...
...According to the White House, the START follow-on will cut deployed warheads - those mounted on intercontinental missiles or bombers - to 1,550 for each side, which is about 30% below current levels. The total number of missiles and bombers available for launch at any given time will be cut to 700, less than half of current levels. That still leaves more than enough firepower to destroy the infrastructure and war-fighting capacity of both nations many times over. What's more, the treaty focuses only on deployed warheads, and does not limit the amount of warheads, missiles and bombers...
...START reintroduced nuclear parity as a central element of U.S. and Russian strategic relations," says Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists. "Both countries have to be careful that it doesn't lock them into strategic postures that are too dependent on the other side...
...biggest obstacle to further unilateral cuts may lie not in Russian missile silos, but in the U.S. Congress. Republicans have already expressed concern that the Obama Administration seeks to undermine the U.S. nuclear deterrent. Last December, Senate Republicans signed a letter warning that they would not ratify a new START agreement until Obama pledged to "modernize" the U.S. nuclear arsenal - shorthand for a Republican-supported plan to build a new generation of nuclear weapons. Many disarmament advocates are no longer expecting dramatic cuts to be proposed in Obama's nuclear-posture review, which is due in April. Dramatic unilateral reductions...