During the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama promised to "lead a global effort to secure all nuclear weapons materials at vulnerable sites within four years" and to "fully implement the Lugar-Obama legislation to help our allies detect and stop the smuggling of weapons of mass destruction."

We found that the administration has made significant progress since our last update.

The first part of the promise -- to "lead a global effort to secure all nuclear weapons materials at vulnerable sites within four years" -- would merit a Promise Kept on its own. Here are some of the major developments over the past year:

• The Nuclear Security Summit. Obama brought leaders of 47 countries to Washington in April 2010, all of whom signed on to the goal of securing all vulnerable nuclear material in four years. As the joint communique put it, "We welcome and join President Obama"s call to secure all vulnerable nuclear material in four years, as we work together to enhance nuclear security." The leaders also agreed that they would meet again in Seoul, South Korea, in April 2012 to check on progress and make whatever new commitments are needed. Some leaders made separate pledges. Ukraine agreed to eliminate all highly enriched uranium -- potentially a key component of nuclear weapons -- on its soil by 2012.

• Nuclear material removals. The United States has helped six countries eliminate all materials capable of making nuclear weapons, most recently, Serbia in December 2010. That same month, the U.S. helped remove 50 kilograms of highly enriched uranium from Ukraine. The U.S. has now removed or helped dispose of 3,085 kilograms of highly enriched uranium and plutonium -- enough material to make more than 120 nuclear weapons, according to the National Nuclear Security Administration.

• Ongoing negotiations. Matthew Bunn, a nuclear policy specialist at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, said that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton secured a promise from Belarus to eliminate its bomb material in late 2010, and those shipments have begun. He added that Kazakhstan has pledged to get rid of all of its potential nuclear bomb material except for a large amount of very low-grade material that has just been moved to a secure location within the country and that South Africa has just converted its production of medical isotopes to make them with low-enriched uranium that can"t be used in a bomb.

• Nuclear security centers of excellence. In his fiscal year 2011 budget request, Obama proposed a new effort to help countries establish regional "centers of excellence” on nuclear security, where they could test modern nuclear security and accounting equipment, train personnel and refine best pratices. So far India, China, Japan, and South Korea are among those who have agreed to establish such centers, Bunn said. The long-term fate of this funding request is uncertain, however.

• The New START treaty. The treaty, which was ratified by the Senate in December 2010 during the lame-duck session, should ease the path for additional cooperation on curbing the spread of nuclear materials. "Passing New START was the greatest achievement," said Mark Helmke, an aide to Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., who has taken a leadership role on nonproliferation in the Senate. "Had it failed, almost all efforts could have stopped."

What's holding this from a Promise Kept, in our view, is the second part -- to "fully implement the Lugar-Obama legislation to help our allies detect and stop the smuggling of weapons of mass destruction."

In 2006, Lugar and Obama authored a Senate bill authorizing a program to provide assistance to foreign countries to prevent proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The bill's provisions were incorporated in a House bill that passed later that year. It was signed in January 2007.

The Lugar-Obama initiative is modeled after a 1991 bill authored by Lugar and former Democratic Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia. The Nunn-Lugar program provided U.S. funding and expertise to the former Soviet Union to dismantle stockpiles of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons

Lugar's office keeps an updated scorecard for the law, and it shows significant strides toward the 2012 goals, including 100 percent completion in four categories, such as the elimination of bombers and the sealing of nuclear test tunnels. But other categories are not yet finished. For instance, 82 percent of warheads have been deactivated, along with 73 percent of intercontinental ballistic missiles.

While the numbers in most of the 13 categories exceed 75 percent completion, we don't feel it's appropriate yet to call this portion a Promise Kept, particularly since we're still two years from the target completion date. So, despite significant accomplishments by the administration on the diplomatic and technical front, we're keeping this one at In the Works.