<The deck is stacked. Russia is too broke to maintain its nuclear arsenal and delivery systems. It would be reduced dramatically on its own within a decade just from lack of funding. This is an opportunity for us to reduced our arsenal too and I hope we take it.

That's okay--taking credit for something that was going to happen anyway is one of the basic skills of a politician, and I'm sure Bush can do it as well as anyone.

Still, the record holder this year is probably Gray Davis, our esteemed governor, who is currently strutting around claiming credit for the lack of blackouts, which are actually the result of a long, lucky cool spell out here.

With an active missile defense system in place, the number of warheads required to maintain deterrence (and there will ALWAYS be a requirement to have warheads for deterrence) should be quite small, although I have no exact numbers. I would think that these should largely be submarine-launched, but this is politically unlikely considering the rivalry between the U.S. Armed Services. There will always be a "Triad."