The feeling of security generated by possession of tactical nuclear weapons will give states the political will to decommission standing nuclear arsenals.  Development and deployment of tactical nuclear weapons can be viewed as a suitable replacement for the thousands of strategic nuclear missiles and launchers being decommissioned as part of the recently ratified New START between Russia and the United States, which represents a major step toward non-proliferation of strategic nuclear weapons. The treaty exempts tactical nuclear weapons by omitting them from the language of the treaty, including as yet undeveloped miniature warheads, as both the United States and Russia have come to see the possession and deployment of tactical nuclear weapons as key to their national security. Replacing large numbers of strategic nuclear weapons with a smaller quantity of lower capacity tactical weapons marks a major movement away from proliferation of potentially world-destroying weaponry. Furthermore, the movement from proliferation of unusable strategic weapons to tactically viable, smaller nuclear weapons can be used as a means of allaying the fears of citizens in the United States, Russia, and other countries pursuing policies of non-proliferation that their countries nuclear defenses are not only still viable, but more practicable.