Russia-U.S. START talks underway

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, is due to expire in December. Daryl Kimball of the Ploughshares-funded Arms Control Association 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 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.”