THE nuclear arms cuts announced by Presidents George Bush and Vladimir Putin
last week were hailed around the world as historic. But the promises are no
better than commitments made four years ago by Bill Clinton and Boris
Yeltsin—and in some respects they are worse.
The reductions are “less than meets the eye”, says Matthew Bunn, a nuclear
policy adviser to Clinton. Although Bush’s offer to reduce the number of US
“operationally deployed” weapons from around 7000 to below 2200 may look
substantial, it is a cut of only 300 more than Clinton agreed to in Helsinki in
1997.…
