Little noticed amid the U.S.-Russian disagreement over Syria’s civil war, Presidents Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin reached a last-minute agreement Monday that may prove more vital to long-term global security. They salvaged the historic Nunn-Lugar threat reduction program that has been keeping us safe by keeping weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of would-be terrorists. For months, a proud and resolute Putin had seemed willing to let the program expire this month. Indeed, it was Obama who announced the agreement in their joint news briefing. Putin, who spoke first, didn’t mention it. The two leaders met for two hours in Northern Ireland at the annual summit of the Group of 8 industrialized nations. At issue: the Cooperative Threat Reduction program, more widely known by the names of the two former U.S. senators — Sam Nunn, D-Ga., and Richard Lugar, R-Ind. — who sponsored it two decades ago. After the Soviet Union collapsed, Nunn and Lugar concluded its weapons of mass destruction were poorly secured and vulnerable to theft. The Nunn-Lugar program has funded the safeguarding and often the dismantling and destroying of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons around the world. Eventually, Nunn and Lugar worked to extend the program’s reach to other nations. So far, for about $500 million a year, Nunn-Lugar has: deactivated more than 7,600 nuclear warheads; destroyed 902 intercontinental ballistic missiles; destroyed 33 submarines capable of launching missiles; removed nuclear weapons from Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus; destroyed 2,900 metric tons of Russian and Albanian chemical weapons agents. But last autumn, Putin began an aggressive effort to show the world Russia no longer needed or wanted to receive international aid. He expelled workers for the U.S. Agency for International Development, UNICEF and various nongovernmental organizations. Russia then announced it would not extend the Nunn-Lugar program. Russia said it wanted to secure its weapons arsenals, but didn’t need foreign aid to do it. Also, Russia was concerned about sharing nuclear security information. Putin said any future cooperative program would require a new, unspecified framework. Yet U.S. sources said that inside the Russian government, key atomic energy officials had strongly urged a continuation of the Nunn-Lugar effort. On Monday, Putin sat silently, staring straight ahead as Obama announced, “We’ll be signing here the continuation of the cooperation that was first established through the Nunn-Lugar program to counter potential threats of proliferation and to enhance nuclear security.” Obama chose his words carefully, because the program that is being extended with Russia will not have a number of the provisions of the original Nunn-Lugar program. Chemical and biological weapons will no longer be in the program, officials said, and the extensive defense cooperation will be vastly reduced. Still, Nunn told me he was pleased by the extension — which he looks at as a new starting point. “Overall, I’m very positive on it,” Nunn said. “But this has to be built on.” Nunn said a number of influential Russians remain concerned about the need to safeguard chemical and biological weapons. He added that cybersecurity safeguards need to be included in the new framework. Meanwhile, Nunn has been looking at a new generation of questions that go far beyond just an extension of his Nunn-Lugar safeguards and the comparatively minor squabbles that occupied Obama and Putin Monday. For the past two years, Nunn has worked with former Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and more than two dozen military, security and political experts from the United States, Russia and Europe on a report titled “Building Mutual Security in the Euro-Atlantic Region.” The report cuts through the usual geopolitical blather and warns: “The blunt truth is that security policies in the Euro-Atlantic region remain largely on Cold War autopilot: large strategic nuclear forces are ready to be launched in minutes; thousands of tactical nuclear weapons remain in Europe; a decades-old missile defense debate remains stuck in neutral; and new security challenges associated with prompt-strike forces, cybersecurity, and space remain contentious and inadequately addressed. This legacy contributes to tensions and mistrust across the Euro-Atlantic region and needlessly drives up the risks and costs of national defense at a time of unprecedented austerity and tight national budgets.” That should convince our leaders to focus on the tomorrow they are creating today by their every action — and mainly, inaction. Martin Schram writes political analysis for Scripps Howard News Service.

I recently toured the Johnson Space Center here, while vacationing with my retired, itinerant, sainted parents. The most striking thing at NASA’s legendary facility is a Saturn V rocket. It lies within a giant hangar, beneath incredibly bright lights. It is humongous and breathtaking. In large red letters, the words UNITED STATES appear proudly along the vehicle’s length. It brought tears to my eyes. I thought: This is what America did, back when America did things. Today, America has that no-can-do spirit. The U.S. now wheezes beneath the crushing weight of lawsuits, environmental impact reports, diversity consultants, a $17 trillion national debt, entitlement proliferation, lethargic economic growth, the lowest labor-participation rate since 1979, relentless Twitter distractions, and the mind-dissolving effects of Kardashianization. When another Saturn V sent Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the moon in July 1969, America was a serious country. Forty-four summers hence, not so much. U.S. astronauts headed for the International Space Station now must hitchhike there on Russia’s rockets. Fare: $70.6 million per seat. Beyond America’s downshift in space, innovation seems stuck in a lower gear. When did a new invention make you slap your head in astonishment, as was routine for decades? Smartphones do grow smarter. Aside from that. ... Yes, the Saturn V was a product of big government — but not as big then as today. When Armstrong took “one small step for man,” Washington, D.C., spent 19.3 percent of gross domestic product. By 2011, its share was 24.5 percent. Besides, big government used the Saturn V to accomplish “one giant leap for mankind,” as Armstrong declared. Here on Earth, that mission catapulted America well ahead of the Marxist Soviet Union. Compare that to big government today: $787 billion squandered on a stimulus that stimulated nothing; green jobs that, at best, cost $575,000 each, and an entitlement state that expands as poverty grows. On a smaller but also irritating scale, conference-going IRS employees have occupied $3,500-per-night hotel rooms. The tax agency also spent $17,000 so “motivational artist” Erik Wahl could paint pictures of Michael Jordan and Bono. Meanwhile, America devolves from constitutional republic to banana republic. Federal abuse of power, spying on journalists, politically discriminatory tax agents, and official impunity thrive beneath a tropical canopy of incompetence and economic stagnation. America is becoming Venezuela with atomic weapons. Thanks to the high stakes of the Cold War, the clench-jawed relentlessness of the Greatest Generation, or perhaps some other factor(s), America once exuded gravity. That largely has floated away. As common sense evaporates, for instance, Petrona Smith told her Bronx Spanish students that “black” in that language is “negro.” Some took offense, and she got fired. Now, she is suing for damages. Tracey Hannema, a Manhattan dyslexic, is suing for 50 percent more time so she can take a medical-school admissions test in a quiet, distraction-free environment where she says she could boost her score. Will she also demand such tranquility in a hospital emergency room? Instead of an Apollo-style celebration of achievement and individual excellence, standards slide. NBC News recently profiled Oregon’s South Medford High School and its 21 valedictorians. At Alabama’s Enterprise High, 34 students are “first in their class.” It’s important not to over-romanticize this picture. The best and the brightest who built the Saturn V also authored the food stamp program that burgeons today. Medicaid barely wobbles along, 48 years after its creation. And Washington shipped some 2.6 million GIs to Vietnam. Some 58,000 returned in body bags. Still, there is something truly inspiring even now about the words with which President John F. Kennedy launched the Apollo program in September 1962: “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” Imagine a president of the United States challenging the American people this way. These days, in a nation perpetually on break, it would seem almost rude. Houston, we have a problem. Deroy Murdock is a Fox News contributor, a Scripps Howard News Service syndicated columnist and a media fellow with Stanford University’s Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace.

ATLANTA — House Speaker David Ralston said Wednesday that changes are needed to Georgia’s forfeiture law to increase accountability and transparency and plans a serious look at legislation next year. Recent reports of questionable spending by two district attorneys have generated a significant amount of public interest in how the government handles money and property seized under the law, said Ralston (R-Blue Ridge). “Until we bring greater accountability and greater transparency then we’re not going to be able to shine the light on this issue enough to know what appropriate additional steps might be needed,” Ralston said in an interview. A Republican state lawmaker earlier this year withdrew a bill that would have made it harder for agencies to seize property and cash after meeting resistance from elected sheriffs, who argue existing law is sufficient to protect the public. That bill, which remains active for the 2014 legislative session, would also have penalized those agencies who fail to submit detailed spending reports. Ralston said the proposed bill merits additional scrutiny as well as recommendations that will be coming from the Criminal Justice Reform Council. Earlier this month, Gov. Nathan Deal said he would ask the council to study changes to the forfeiture system and report back before next year’s legislative session. Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills, president of the Georgia Sheriffs Association, said Wednesday the focus should be on enforcing current rules requiring law enforcement agencies to submit spending reports. “We have existing laws that address both accountability and transparency, and if a sheriff is misusing these funds then that sheriff needs to be indicted, arrested and sent to prison,” Sills said. “And we have a pickup truck full of laws that say what should be done and the people who are supposed to enforce that need to do that.” Sills said his group had objected to language in the proposed bill that would have raised the level of proof required before the government can take property. Currently, authorities only need to show probable cause that something was obtained illegally. “If they raise the burden of proof, then that’s only going to make it harder for the state and easier for the criminals,” Sills said, arguing current law and the current standard have been ruled constitutional by the courts. Sills said he supported efforts adding reporting requirements for district attorneys, who are currently not compelled to do so under state law. In recent weeks, a report by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution revealed that Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard had spent thousands of dollars in forfeiture funds for office parties, church donations and home security updates. Howard has defended the expenses and requested an independent review. Douglas County District Attorney David McDade has also requested an independent review after use of forfeiture money was questioned in a report by Atlanta’s Fox 5 TV. Ralston said he would support requiring any official or agency that receives funds through forfeiture to be required to submit detailed spending reports and said he hoped to work with the sheriffs’ group to find common ground on legislation. “I’m not sure what the obstacles are, but we’re going to identify them and move them out of the way,” Ralston said.