New START: US finally achieves unilateral disarmament

This is a new web log, so I can only attest to the fact that I've held the New START Treaty to be a one-sided deal, with only the US ending up cutting its nuclear weapons & delivery inventory.  There is legitimate debate about whether lessening our inventory could actually be an advantage or not, such as allowing us to more easily update the quality of our inventory, or allowing that our strides in more precise targeting (such as our cruise missiles blowing through the front door) means that we may not need as many weapons with a Circular Error of Probability that can be measured in kilometers.

But what brings the argument to my table is the stance adopted early on by the State Department, that both sides would see a reduction of some 30% in their respective inventories.  Despite protests of high dudgeon to the contrary, it turns out that the State Department had to admit that its critics were right.

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. . . . Secretary of State Clinton denied this now-obvious fact before the Senate Armed Services Committee and charged that American treaty skeptics making such observations “just don’t believe in arms-control treaties at all and from my perspective are very unfortunately slanting a lot of what they say.” . . . “The Treaty does not force the United States to reduce unilaterally.”

But:

The results of the . . . New START treaty were released by the State Department on June 1. They demonstrate conclusively the truth of what treaty skeptics had said for months: The treaty brought the United States nothing in terms of lowered Russian force numbers.

I hate to say I told you so.  No really, in cases such as this, I really hate it.