Official White House Photo by Pete Souza

Update: On December 22, 2010 the Senate voted 71-26 to ratify the New START Treaty! This was a huge victory for bipartisan policy-making, with 13 Republicans rejecting partisan politics and supporting international arms control. New START is the first major international agreement to be ratified by the Senate since the end of the Cold War, and we send our thanks and congratulations to all of our partner groups that worked so hard for many months to get this treaty ratified.

Our work for disarmament is not done, but this victory sets us up with many opportunities for further progress in 2011. Go to our Act page to learn more about our campaign priorities for 2011 and get materials and resources to join the movement for a nuclear weapons free world.

President Obama and Russian President Medvedev signed the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) on April 8 to reduce both countries’ large nuclear arsenals. New START also provides for verification measures such as on-site inspections and data exchanges. The treaty includes the following reductions:

* 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear warheads
* 800 total deployed and non-deployed missiles and bombers
* 700 deployed missiles and bombers

Now the treaty needs the support of 67 senators in order to be ratified and enter into force. To hit that threshold, at least 8 Republican senators will need to support New START.

Coalition partners can go to our New START page for updated resources and tools. It’s important that we all push our supporters to keep contacting their Senators, and telling them to vote Yes on New START.

If you are not already a coalition partner, and want to see what you can do to help, visit our list of local and national organizations. You can click on the name of the organization and be directed to its website to see how to take action or find resources on New START.

Tags: New START, Nuclear Weapons, Obama, treaty

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 15th, 2010 at 4:29 pm and is filed under New START, New START treaty, Obama, Obama on Nuclear Weapons. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.