"Arms Control Deal With Russia"

Is this meaningful?:

Obama Finalizes Arms Control Deal With Russia, by Peter Baker and Helene Cooper, NY Times: President Obama finalized a new arms control treaty with Russia on Friday that will pare back the still-formidable cold war nuclear arsenals of each country. ...

The new treaty will reduce the binding limit on deployed strategic nuclear warheads by more than one-quarter, and on launchers by half. It will reestablish an inspection and verification regime, replacing one that expired in December. But while the pact recognizes the dispute between the two countries over American plans for missile defense based in Europe, it will not restrict the United States from building such a shield. ...

While it will require that hundreds of weapons be shelved or destroyed, perhaps more important are the tangible evidence it offers of a new partnership with Russia and the momentum it creates toward a revamped nuclear security regime.

Mr. Obama hopes that signing the treaty with Mr. Medvedev will strengthen his hand heading into two back-to-back nuclear summit meetings, where he wants to push toward the nuclear weapons-free world he envisions. At the two meetings, Mr. Obama hopes to forge an international consensus to limit the spread of weapons and secure materials that could be vulnerable to terrorists...

The specific arms reductions embedded in the new treaty amount to a continuing evolution rather than a radical shift in the nuclear postures of both countries. ...

The Obama administration readily acknowledges the limitations of the new treaty. But from the beginning, the White House described it as an effort aimed especially at building a foundation of trust with Moscow and establishing an inspection regime... After a successful first round, Mr. Obama plans to open another round of negotiations to cut arsenals even further... And eventually he envisions bringing other nuclear powers like China, Britain and France into discussions. ...

Nikolai Sokov, a former Soviet arms negotiator now at the Monterrey Institute of International Studies in California, said the new pact was “both modest and essential” to more lasting accomplishments.

“So much effort has been spent in the last several months that there is a tendency to see it as a major step forward,” he said. “I think 10 years from now, we will see it for what it is — a small bridge treaty, without which subsequent, much bigger achievement would not have been possible.”