Although less is known about it, Russia's tactical arsenal is assuredly less secure. The United States has provided over $12 billion for security upgrades to Russia's permanent nuclear storage sites -- but these resources have only gone to the facilities that house its inactive reserves, not the bases that maintain Russia's operationally deployed tactical arsenal of some 2,000 warheads. Consequently, those weapons most equipped for use are least secure.

Limiting tactical nuclear weapons represents the final frontier of arms control. The first step must be to assuage Russian concerns about NATO's conventional superiority. To do so, Washington and its allies must agree with Moscow on an updated Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty, which placed verifiable limits on NATO and Warsaw Pact offensive conventional weapons. An updated CFE Treaty would mitigate NATO's conventional predominance by further reducing offensive weapons, such as tanks, artillery, and attack helicopters, through an inspection regime that allays Russia's European security concerns.

Washington and Moscow must then turn to the hard work of forging a bilateral agreement that establishes a verifiable regime combining cuts to each countries' tactical nuclear weapon arsenal and confidence-building measures between the parties. Specifically, a treaty must include three components.

First, each country should reveal its tactical nuclear weapons inventory, location, and operational status, publicly or through a private data-exchange mechanism. Cryptographic technologies exist that permit Washington and Moscow to securely exchange detailed stockpile data between each other while denying access to countries not party to the treaty.

Second, both sides would need to establish methods to verify implementation of the treaty. Verifying limits on Russia's operational tactical nuclear arsenal would be challenging because of the inherent secrecy of the Ministry of Defense and armed services. However, U.S. officials closely involved in the negotiation and verification of previous nuclear-weapons treaties with Russia think that there are sufficient verification procedures -- including radiation detection, remote measurement, and tamper-indicating tags -- to ensure Russian compliance with treaty provisions.

Finally, Washington and Moscow must clearly differentiate between tactical nuclear weapons that are can be used in the near-term and those in storage. The two sides should draw up a list of bases housing only "operationally deployed" weapons, and another list for permanent storage. The United States and Russia each have a clear understanding of the differences between these sites. Ultimately, to make tactical nuclear weapons limitations permanent, both sides could verifiably dismantle non operational warheads at disassembly facilities.

The omission of these provisions from New START is, contrary to its critics' assertions, no reason to reject it. Rather, Senate approval of New START has proven the United States' commitment necessary to begin negotiations on this controversial -- but vitally important -- arms-control issue.

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