Letter of May 14, 2010 at the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference (signatories listed below):

As the United States and Russia negotiate reductions in their arsenals of strategic nuclear weapons, the world is at an historic moment that provides unique opportunities to withdraw from deployment, reduce and eliminate the particularly destabilising class of short-range nuclear weapons variously described as non-strategic, sub-strategic, tactical or battlefield weapons.

The stage is set for the signing in Prague of the first arms control treaty of the Obama era. It is the initial step on the road to the US President's declared goal of a world without nuclear weapons, which he vibrantly described in the Czech capital a year ago.

But now that the applause has died down after the US and Russia reached agreement on capping their deployed long-range nuclear weapons in the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start) follow-on pact, the treaty's limits have become apparent. T

Keith Payne, a member of the US Strategic Posture Review Commission, has decried as folly the ongoing Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) follow-on negotiations between the United States and Russia.