Terms of new START treaty would supersede these limits

As we noted in an earlier update, this promise was kept shortly after Barack Obama took over as president.

The Moscow Treaty, also referred to as SORT, was signed in 2002 and called for the United States and Russia to cut their number of deployed nuclear warheads to 2,200 by the end of 2012 -- a two-thirds reduction. That goal has been achieved. The Bush administration's progress gave Obama a major assist -- there were only 2,246 deployed warheads shortly before the new president took office and the number of U.S.-deployed warheads dropped below 2,200 just weeks after he was sworn in.

But it's worth noting that the Moscow Treaty -- which was more of an understanding between the two nations than an actual verifiable treaty -- looks like it will be superseded anyway by the more ambitious arms reductions limits agreed to on March 26, 2010, by Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in a "new START treaty."

Under the new treaty, the United States and Russia would reduce their number of deployed nuclear warheads to 1,550 warheads, 30 percent lower than the deployed strategic warhead limit of the Moscow Treaty.

The two presidents have agreed to sign the new treaty on April 8, 2010, in the Czech Republic. And it would still need to be approved by the U.S. Senate and the Russian legislature before it can enter into force. In the Senate, it would need to be approved by two-thirds of the members, 67 votes, not an easy task these days. Still, it appears that Obama is making progress toward well exceeding the goals set out in his campaign.

This continues to be a Promise Kept.