The headline is a new arms treaty out of the American Russian meetings in Moscow.  Russian President Obama and U.S. President Obama signed a framework treaty to lower existing agreements on nuclear warheads by a third to as low as 1500 each.

But did you know that our arms agreements with the Russians only involve nukes that reach the U.S. on ballistic missiles instead of so called tactical nukes that can be fired by artillery or cruise missile, for example at an American aircraft carrier from a Russian sub.  There are several thousand held by both sides. Smaller and much more easily sold or stolen by terrorists.  And … in Europe the U.S. still has about 200 tactical nukes at a handful of NATO bases.  They were originally there in case of war with the Soviet Union and still 20 years after the Cold war remain there.

Wisely the Obama administration is attempting to include tactical nukes in a new arms agreement to replace START which expires in Dec.

An insider on the American arms negotiating team tells me what was very important in these meetings with the Russians – the Russians agreed to have discussions to develop co-operation on missile defenses – huge because the Russians agreed to that directly with the President.They had been refusing until American got rid of the 3rd site (Radar in the Czerch Republic and Missile launchers in Poland)  to even discuss co-operation.

So now there are two tracks – The follow on agreement to Start and then discussions departmentally on how to solve the missile defense shield issue.

It all has to be done by December when Start expires.  And the Russians will never approve a new arms deal unless the ABM issue is solved.