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President Barack Obama reached a nuclear arms reduction agreement on Friday with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. The United States and Russia, who together hoard the vast majority of the world’s nuclear arms stockpiles, came to terms after lengthy negotiations following the expiration of the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty or START last year. Daryl Kimball of the Arms Control Association has called the announced commitment “the first truly post-Cold-War nuclear arms reduction treaty.” The new agreement between the two countries, which still needs to be ratified by the U.S. Senate and Russia, calls for the reduction of their respective stockpiles down to 1,550 strategic warheads within the next seven years. That’s almost a 50% reduction. Both the U.S. and Russia, however, are estimated to retain thousands of nuclear weapons even after terms of the agreement take effect. In addition to that, several other points of contention remain ahead of the treaty’s symbolic signing scheduled for April 8th, in Prague, Czech Republic. Here in the US, a number of Senators have threatened to block ratification of any language deemed as binding to future plans for a so-called missile defense system.

GUEST: Alice Slater, Director of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

For more information, visit www.abolition2000.org, and www.wagingpeace.org.