extension of start treaty

Looks like the weapons conversions will continue somewhat after 2012, although this will not change the fundamental gap between primary supply and demand.

Excerpt from an article in New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/23/world/europe/23treaty.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp

The New Start treaty lowers the ceiling on strategic weapons set by previous Russian-American treaties, which it will now supplant. Under the Treaty of Moscow, signed by President George W. Bush in 2002, each side was allowed no more than 2,200 strategic warheads as of 2012. Under the original Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or Start, signed by the first President Bush in 1991, each side was required to reduce launchers to 1,600 before the treaty expired last year.

The United States currently has 1,950 deployed strategic warheads and 798 deployed launchers, according to the Federation of American Scientists, while Russia has an estimated 2,540 deployed strategic warheads and 574 launchers. The technicalities of counting rules mean that not as many weapons may have to be shelved as those figures imply. The limits do not apply to the thousands of weapons kept in storage.

The treaty must still be approved by the Russian Parliament, an endorsement that the Kremlin had withheld while waiting for the Senate to act. Given the authoritarian nature of Moscows political system, that approval is seen as certain.