Strategic Arms Reduction Talks

Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START), negotiations that began in 1982 between the United States and the Soviet Union, and continued with Russia, on the further control of strategic nuclear weapons. The talks resulted in two START treaties limiting the number of nuclear warheads deployed by each side.

Following the fall of Communism in the Soviet Union, arms control negotiations already begun in the 1980s to reduce strategic nuclear weapons (see Strategic Arms Limitation Talks), continued between the United States and Russia in the 1990s. However, by 2002 both START treaties had been abandoned.

The START I Treaty, signed by President George Bush and President Mikhail Gorbachev in Moscow on July 31, 1991, entered into force on December 5, 1994. It required Russia and the United States to make phased reductions in their strategic nuclear forces and set numerical limits on strategic nuclear delivery vehicles (SNDVs), which include intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and heavy bombers (see Military Aircraft), and on the nuclear warheads they carry.

Each side was limited to 1,600 SNDVs, carrying a maximum of 6,000 accountable warheads. Of these warheads, a maximum of 4,900 could be carried on ballistic missiles and no more than 1,100 warheads on ICBMs; a maximum of 1,540 warheads could be carried on heavy ICBMs. These limits were to be met within seven years of the treaty entering into force.

The START II Treaty, signed by presidents George Bush and Boris Yeltsin in Moscow on January 3, 1993, banned all land-based strategic ballistic missiles equipped with multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs). Both the United States and Russia agreed to reduce their strategic nuclear forces to no more than 3,500 deployed warheads each, of which a maximum of 1,750 could be carried on SLBMs, by January 1, 2003. This limit was about one third of the number deployed before START I was signed.

The United States ratified START II on January 26, 1996. However, concerned that START II would leave the United States with a significant strategic advantage by committing Russia to eliminate its multiple-warhead land-based ICBMs (the most powerful element in Russia’s strategic nuclear forces), while allowing the United States to retain its Trident SLBMs (the most powerful element in the US strategic nuclear forces), Russia delayed ratification.

While Russia delayed, the United States, by the beginning of the 21st century, was beginning to believe that the main missile threat was no longer from a major nuclear power, but from so-called rogue states such as Iraq or North Korea. In June 2002 it formally announced its intention to abandon the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, which had been a central plank of Cold War nuclear deterrence, and concentrate instead on plans for a missile defence shield, or Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). After failing to force the United States to drop its plans for SDI, and fearing that its poor economic condition would make it very hard to compete with the United States anyway, Russia reluctantly decided to abandon START II in 2002. Instead, in May of that year, in Moscow, President Vladimir Putin and President George W. Bush agreed to cut the nuclear arsenals of Russia and the United States respectively from total levels of between 6,000 and 7,000 each to between 1,700 and 2,200 each over the next 10 years. Such a timescale is probably necessary due to the expense involved in dismantling nuclear weapons safely and disposing of the fissile material.