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It
was an uncharacteristically warm
day in Prague on April 8, 2010,
when then-American President
Barack Obama and Russian
President Dmitri A. Medvedev sat
beneath gilded molding in the
city’s ancient castle.
Both parties signed off on the
New START Treaty, which served
two key functions: It
established an upper limit on
the number of long-range nuclear
weapons each nation could
produce—up to 1,500 warheads and
700 long-range launchers—and set
expectations for a mutual
monitoring system via
on-the-ground inspections to
ensure compliance. These are
nuclear weapons of a size and
scale that are meant to destroy
centers of power across the
world from where they are
launched.
At the time, the treaty was
applauded for making headway on
arms talks with Russia. Still,
there was also plenty of
criticism, says John Erath,
Senior Policy Director for the
Center for Arms Control and
Non-Proliferation. The upper
limits of weapons and launchers
were still high, and many
advocates hoped that the
threshold would be lower and
force both countries to reduce
their nuclear weapons
stockpile.
“There
was disappointment with START at
first, but now a lot of people
feel that it’s very important,
and don’t want to live without
it,” Erath says.
Soon
enough, everyone will have to.
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