Yesterday, President Obama and Russian President Medvedev met for the first time and made important commitments to work together on nuclear weapons issues. Significantly, they pledged their countries to “achieving a nuclear free world” and committed to negotiating a replacement agreement for the Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty (START) to ensure verifiable reductions to both countries' nuclear stockpiles.

Their agreement comes while the clock ticks down to the expiration of START in December of this year, creating an urgent need for a follow-on agreement to START. The historic 1991 START agreement allowed both Russian and the US to reduce their stockpiles and contained provisions that allowed for inspections and verification efforts.