U. S President Bush has signed a a treaty with Russia to remove two-thirds of long-range nuclear warheads from missiles, bombers and submarines and "liquidate the legacy of the Cold War." Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomed the deal. It gives Moscow a binding treaty politically important to Putin, and gives Washington flexibility to hold weapons in storage rather than dismantle them and withdraw from the pact on short notice.

"What you have here is a deal in which Russia got a treaty and we got everything else," said Ivo Daalder, arms control analyst with the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington. The treaty must be ratified by the U. S. Senate and the Russian
parliament.

Bush said, "It will make the world more peaceful and put behind us the Cold War once and for all." Under the new arms treaty — unusually slim at three pages — the world’s biggest nuclear powers are to cut their deployed strategic nuclear warheads by the year 2012 to 1,700 to 2,200 from current levels of about 5,000 to 6,000. The pact "moves beyond" the 1993 START 2 arms treaty that mandates ceilings of 3,000 to 3,500 warheads. Compliance would be based on verification terms of the 1991 START 1 arms deal, requiring steps such as peering into submarine launchers and counting warheads. A new commission would seek additional measures, he said.

Either side could pull out of the treaty on three months’ notice — half the length of earlier agreements. "The treaty is strategically virtually meaningless ... given the fact that this administration has shown no compunction about withdrawing from treaties," Daalder pointed out.

He cited Bush’s notification last December of plans to quit the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty with Russia by June to deploy a missile defence system. But the deal also demonstrates that Russian objections to a missile defence system would not block arms control progress, analysts said. Putin had denounced the missile defence plans as a "mistake," and critics had said there could be no arms deal while Washington pursued missile defence. Secretary of State Colin Powell said the treaty lets each side decide how to cut their weapons, either by dismantling them, placing them in storage, or keeping them as "spares or for test purposes." "The treaty does not tell either side what they have to do with those warheads," he said. Russia, concerned that stored weapons could be re-deployed, had wanted them eliminated. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer pointed out said the storage terms were in line with earlier arms control deals and not a sign of U.S. interest in future redeployment.

"Another U.S. official said the agreement allows Washington to deal with "an uncertain security environment in the future," but one in which Russia is not an enemy.

Shortly after Bush took office in January 2001 he said he would make arms cuts unilaterally if necessary and made clear he would move beyond the ABM treaty’s limitations to deploy a missile defence system regardless of Russia’s position. He nevertheless struck up a warm personal relationship with Putin, and the two leaders continued talks on a new strategic relationship in Europe and at Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas. Russia has muted its criticism of the missile defence plans. Meanwhile, analysts have pointed out that while politically important, this week’s
U. S.-Russian accord to remove thousands of nuclear warheads from operational deployment is unlikely to make the world a markedly safer place. They felt that the Bush administration deserves credit for simply achieving an agreement to scale back offensive nuclear weapons, while also moving ahead with missile defence - breaking the inertia over U. S.-Russian strategic arms reductions under Clinton’s presidency.

In terms of sheer numbers, experts agree that a marginal gain in safety will result if the U. S. A. and Russia each lower the number of deployed nuclear warheads from about 5,000 to 6,000 to between 1,700 and 2,200 by the year 2012. "The fewer nuclear weapons there are, the less chance of accidents and miscalculations," says Joseph Cirincione, a nuclear-proliferation expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Declining numbers, in turn, "will produce some very modest progress with respect to each side’s confidence about the direction of their cold-war nuclear arsenals," says Darryl Kimball, director of Washington’s non-profit Arms Control Association.

Although some experts pointed out that overly deep cuts could prove destabiling ___ by enabling a missile-defence system to effectively neutralie another nation’s offensive weapons ___ virtually all concluded that this week’s accord is too cautious in cutting warheads.

Moreover, the Bush administration’s insistence on a highly flexible treaty limits its strategic impact, experts say. The treaty does not set a timetable for cuts or require that the warheads taken out of service be destroyed. In fact, it has a 90-day withdrawal clause and expires in 10 years, freeing either side to rebuild.

THE five established nuclear
powers ___ the United States, of
america Russia, China, France and Britain ___ possess enough nuclear warheads to obliterate the world many times over. Yet it is more than 30 years since they signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which includes a commitment to dismantle these weapons.

In the intervening period, the Cold War has ended but new nuclear threats have emerged.

Nuclear Disarmament

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, signed in 1970, is the most widely accepted arms control agreement.

A total of 187 states have now signed the agreement, with exceptions being Cuba, Israel, India, and Pakistan.

The treaty obliges the nuclear powers never to transfer their nuclear technology to other countries, and forbids other countries from acquiring nuclear capability.

In turn, the nuclear powers are supposed to work towards the elimination of their stockpiles.

The Nuclear Power Club

There are five countries that have admitted to having nuclear weapons and signed the NPT and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which bans nuclear test explosions.

New Nuclear States

India and Pakistan both exploded nuclear devices in 1998, openly declaring themselves to be nuclear powers.

Unlike the other nuclear powers, neither country has signed the CTBT or the NPT, and they are therefore not considered to be official nuclear states by the original five nuclear powers.

Suspected Nuclear Aspirants

These countries have all signed the NPT, but they are nevertheless suspected of secretly trying to develop their own nuclear arsenals.