As of February 5, the day the treaty came into force, Russia already was below the ceilings mandated by the treaty both for deployed strategic nuclear launchers and for warheads. On the first day of the treaty, the number of Russian launchers stood at 521, well below New START’s ceiling of 700, and the number of accountable warheads stood at 1,537, below the new ceiling of 1,550. Rather than reducing its forces, Moscow would have to build them up to reach the new limits. In fact, according to the Russian defense minister, Anatoly Serdyukov, Russia will strive until the year 2028 to build up to New START’s limit on strategic launchers. In contrast, the United States must make reductions, including a 25 percent cut in deployed strategic launchers.
Senior members of the Obama administration denied this inconvenient truth for many months leading up to the Senate’s ratification of New START in December 2010.
Yeah, Neanderthals like me said it was so, but the administration and their defenders ridiculed the very notion that Russia could build up to their limit while only we have to dismantle nukes. This was a transparently false claim on the administration's part, but our press corps never called them on this claim and let them get away with the falsehood.
Admittedly, it isn't like the Cold War is raging. So this isn't deadly. But the administration repeatedly said this treaty was in our interests. If the administration believes it got something from Russia outside of nuclear issues in exchange for our reductions in nukes, I'd like to know what advantage they think we received. Because I sure haven't seen it.
