Cutting Nuclear Weapons?

The START treaty is due to expire soon, and the US is negotiating with Russia to renew the treaty. President Obama has already made it clear that he envisions a nuclear free world, and I suppose this is the first important step in that process.

It is thought that both sides would be willing to drop down to around 1,500 tactical nukes from the current levels in the mid 2,000's, but I don't see these negotiations as revolutionary or even a big step towards Obama's goals. The idea of a nuclear free world is more a pipe-dream than anything else. The technology is already out there, we simply cannot disinvent these things. Furthermore, countries will simply not want to give up their nukes. Why would they want to significantly weaken their own security? 1,500 nukes on both sides (and that's not counting warheads in storage, which are not part of the reductions) is still plenty enough to do significant damage.

I would tend to agree with the archdeacon of realism, Ken Waltz, who talks about the positive effects of nuclear weapons. Although his theory is extreme in some parts, the basic message prevails. These weapons make conventional wars less likely to occur, and they prevent limited wars from growing into full scale wars (see the Kargil War and the Soviet-Sino Conflict for examples of this practice).