The New START Treaty with Russia signed today

Posted by Jesse Lee on February 2, 2011 at 2:26 PM EST

President Barack Obama signs the instrument of ratification of the New START Treaty in the Oval Office, Feb. 2, 2011.

Participants include, from left: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen; Energy Secretary Steven Chu; Defense Secretary Robert Gates; Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.; Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind.; Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.; Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss.; Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H.; and Vice President Joe Biden. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)

Today the President ratified a landmark nuclear arms treaty with Russia, New START.

As the President said during the end of the last Congress, the treaty is "a national security imperative" as well as "a cornerstone of our relations with Russia" as we continue to work with them on everything from Iran to Afghanistan.  With the Senate having approved the treaty with a strong bipartisan vote late last year, today's signing marks a final step in the process.

That process began when President Obama and President Medvedev initially signed the agreement in Prague last April, a fitting location given that one year before that President Obama had been there for a major speech commiting to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.

The last arms reduction treaty the US approved was the  SORT (Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty) AKA Moscow Treaty in 2002. 

You can read the Treaty (pdf) and Protocol (pdf) themselves, but here's a quick overview from the White House fact sheet. 

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