No less dramatically, it would also reduce the total number of strategic warheads on both sides from today's 22,500 to a considerably safer 6,500.

We currently have 7,200 strategic warheads that could be launched against any potential enemy.

At Start, both sides have agreed to reduce the number of strategic nuclear warheads to 6,000.

Under the Administration's proposal, operational strategic warheads on both sides would be reduced to levels of 2,000 to 2,500.

The number of operationally deployed strategic warheads stands at 1,968.

As a result, in seven years we will have 5,000 strategic nuclear warheads instead of the 6,000 envisaged by the treaty.

That's down from over 20,000 strategic and tactical warheads each.

That is down sharply from more than 15,000 strategic warheads at the height the cold war.

The "reductions" will bring the number of Soviet strategic warheads to just about the same level as when the 1979 treaty was signed.