Writing in the New Republic, Barron YoungSmith debunks the argument coming from conservative opponents of the US signing a replacement for the scuppered START treaty with Russia out of the idea that it is aimed at constraining America’s ability to project conventional, not just nuclear, force.

Yet, based on the broad outlines that Moscow and Washington have laid out for New START, it looks like that concern is, like so many others, baseless. First of all, because of the way our nuclear forces have developed since the 1990s, it’s essentially inconceivable that any new reductions will require cuts from our bomber fleet or our land-based ICBMs. Instead, they will almost certainly be accomplished by deactivating a few of the 24 large missile tubes on each of our ballistic missile submarines–and those tubes don’t carry conventional weapons anyway.