India, Feb. 6 -- Nuclear armageddon may be the stuff of fiction, but the fact is that the world has been a safer place because of global treaties that have tried to restrict - with differing degrees of success - the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Take the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty or New START that the US and Russia signed in 2010, under which both agreed to cap their strategic nuclear warheads at 1,550 and limit strategic delivery vehicles to 800, including both deployed and non-deployed systems. It came into force in 2011, with compliance mechanisms, including annual on-site verifications, and promised a 30% reduction in warheads, from what had been promised in the earlier SORT agreement.

New START focussed on the legatees...