By Ariel Cohen, Ph.D., is Senior Research...

Washington and Moscow will restart talks with Washington on a new arms control treaty on Monday February 1. START was one of the very few foreign policy issued mentioned by President Obama in his State of the Union Address on January 27th. Obama, unusually taciturn on his foreign policy vision, suggested that we may be close to the conclusion of the talks. However, as I’ve written last month in the New York Times, the negotiations are stuck in the muck. The Obama administration has failed to complete the negotiation of a treaty to replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which expired on Dec. 5. The two superpowers are now in unchartered waters.

Moscow and Washington have stated that START still applies voluntarily. This is false. First, without the consent of the U.S. Senate, expired treaties are null and void. Second, the Russians already kicked out U.S. inspectors, thus scrapping a key provision of the now-dead treaty. Third, on Tuesday, Dec. 29, Prime Minister

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