A disarming President - Telegraph Seldom has the leader of a superpower volunteered a public admission that his armed forces are over-endowed with weapons. President Barack Obama provided an example of far-sighted statesmanship yesterday when he told an audience in South Korea that America has "more nuclear weapons than we need" and further cuts were necessary. Mr Obama's words were all the more striking given that America comes second in the global league of nuclear powers, deploying 1,950 operational warheads compared with 2,430 controlled by Russia. Under the "New START" treaty signed in 2010, both countries are bound to cut their arsenals to a maximum of 1,550 warheads by 2018. If that looks like a balanced arrangement, don't be fooled. Russia's nuclear arsenal is decaying anyway, with the number of deployed warheads falling year on year as they reach the end of their lives. Vladimir Putin will probably meet the ceiling in the existing treaty simply by sitting back and watching his stockpile decline at its natural pace. Without the "New START" agreement, America would have been on course to overtake Russia and become the world's biggest nuclear power. As such, the deal gave Mr Putin a free ride, while imposing a unilateral obligation on America. That was understandably controversial in the US, where Mr Obama had to work hard to secure the Republican votes needed for the treaty's Senate approval. The fact that he is willing to repeat the exercise shows that he is prepared to run risks in the interests of long-term disarmament, which is overwhelmingly in humanity's interests. Future security will depend on nuclear deterrence by the smallest number of warheads in the fewest possible hands. Mr Obama, at least, understands that.