The US is also said to have some 3,000 warheads in reserve, while Russia hasabout 11,000 in non-operational stockpiles. Source: Pap Blog December 2008
From The Washington Post:
In an Obama administration characterized by youth, they are a Cold War throwback, the aging arms-control experts who haggled with Soviet officials over nuclear weapons and testing.
Suddenly, arms control is back.
"Our leadership in the area of arms control and nonproliferation is of such profound global concern that that is at the top of the list" in U.S.-Russian relations, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said after meeting yesterday with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
In New York yesterday, senior U.S. and Russian negotiators sat down to start work on renewing the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, the 1991 pact that cut in half the superpowers' stockpiles of nuclear warheads. The talks are the first step in the administration's effort to seek "a world without nuclear weapons," as President Obama vowed last month in Prague.
Read more ....
My Comment: The Russian Government's focus is on missile defense. While President Obama may be skeptical on the effectiveness of the program, the Russians are not. Another point of contention will be on what levels will both sides maintain their nuclear arsenal. The Russians have just finished a major overhaul and modernization program, the Americans still have to formulate and implement a plan for modernization.
I know that these are just details that will need to be worked out .... and I am still optimistic that force reductions will still be agreed upon and implemented.