One of the urgent tasks is slashing tactical weapons Even after the herculean effort required to win Senate ratification of the New Start treaty, President Obama has no time to rest, The New York Times said in an editorial. Excerpts: The treaty, which mandates modest cuts in long-range nuclear weapons, is on its way to approval by the Duma, the lower house of Parliament in Russia. Once that happens, Washington and Moscow should quickly begin discussing other, more far-reaching agreements. Two decades after the end of the cold war, the United States and Russia still have many thousands of nuclear weapons. The two countries cannot credibly argue for restraining the nuclear ambitions of Iran, North Korea and other wannabes unless they keep working to bring their own numbers down. One of their most urgent tasks is slashing — or better, doing away with — their tactical nuclear weapons. These smaller arms, with a 300- to 400-mile range, have no military utility or deterrent value. They also have never been the subject of a treaty, or of any verification. That is what makes them so particularly frightening. The United States has about 500 tactical nukes, including 180 in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey. These weapons are considered secure. But Russia's arsenal is much larger — between 3,000 and 5,000 — and, likely, vulnerable to covert sale or theft. Whether Russia would give up its “advantage” in tactical weapons is hard to gauge. Moscow had said it wouldn't negotiate until Washington removed all of its tactical weapons from Europe. More recently, Russian officials appear more open to discussions. The two sides cannot stop there. They also need to reduce their number of stored warheads — their “hedge.” Russia and the United States are each estimated to have around 2,000 stored weapons. Some spares are needed as replacements in case of catastrophic failure in deployed warheads or cheating by the other side, but these huge reserves are far more than necessary. Russia will want to include missile defenses in any negotiations. That doesn't need to be a deal breaker. The administration has already made important progress by persuading Moscow to cooperate with NATO in jointly developing a system intended to intercept short- and medium
