Monthly Archives: November 2012

On April 8th, 2010 President Barack Obama signed a nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russian Federation Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. The treaty is called “New START”: START for Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, and ‘New’ because this treaty is an updated version of previous nuclear arms reduction treaties between the United States and Russia. The United States Senate then ratified the treaty on December 22nd, 2010. The treaty needed 67 votes in order to be ratified and instead received 71. All 56 Democratic senators voted for ratification of the treaty, as well as both independent senators and 13 republican senators who crossed party lines to vote for ratification of the treaty. President Obama completed the ratification process of the treaty by signing the document on February 2nd, 2011.