After a special closed-door session Monday, the Senate is set to vote on the New START treaty, which mandates the US and Russia to cut their stock of nuclear weapons. Jonathan Schell, The Nation‘s Peace and Disarmament Correspondent, talks with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! about the foreign policy implications of the treaty, and the serious consequences of not passing it.

"It [would send] a signal out to the rest of the world that we’re going to be living in a nuclear armed world, and proliferation begins to step up," Schell explains. Still, the majority of Republicans are opposing the bill. According to Schell, they’re trying to make the Democrats look weak by associating them with demilitarization.

Jonathan Schell is the author of The Seventh Decade: The New Shape of Nuclear Danger. You can read more of his thoughts on nuclear disarmament in the Obama era here.