Presidents Barack Obama of the United States and Dmitry Medvedev of Russia signed a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty for the reduction of their nuclear weapons stockpiles on April 8, 2010.
The new START deal, which will last for ten years, was signed at a meeting in Prague, where President Obama outlined his vision for nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation around a year ago.
Speaking after the signing, President Obama said, “This day demonstrates the determination of the United States and Russia - the two nations that hold over 90 percent of the world's nuclear weapons - to pursue responsible global leadership.”
President Obama further said that the treaty would significantly reduce missiles and launchers and puts in place a “strong and effective verification regime.” He added that it would also maintain the flexibility needed to protect and advance the U.S.’s national security and guarantee its “unwavering commitment to the security of our allies.”
Describing the deal as a “win-win” for both countries, President Medvedev said, “This agreement enhances strategic ability and, at the same time, allows us to rise to a higher level of cooperation between Russia and the United States.”
Specifically, the treaty agrees to aggregate limits of 1,550 warheads; a combined limit of 800 deployed and non-deployed Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile launchers, Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missile launchers, and heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments; and separate limit of 700 deployed ICBMs, deployed SLBMs, and deployed heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments.
The White House noted that the warheads on deployed ICBMs and deployed SLBMs will count toward the limit and each deployed heavy bomber equipped for nuclear armaments would count as one warhead toward this limit. The warhead limit itself was 74 percent lower than the limit of the 1991 START Treaty and 30 percent lower than the deployed strategic warhead limit of the 2002 Moscow Treaty, a White House statement added. Further, the limit on launchers and bombers is less than half the corresponding strategic nuclear delivery vehicle limit of the previous START Treaty.
In terms of verification and transparency, the new treaty has a verification regime that combines the appropriate elements of the 1991 START Treaty with new elements tailored to the limitations of the Treaty. In this regard, the White House also stated that measures under the new treaty include “on-site inspections and exhibitions, data exchanges and notifications related to strategic offensive arms and facilities covered by the Treaty.”
The signing of the new treaty came two days after the announcement of the Obama administration of its Nuclear Posture Review, in which the U.S. forswore nuclear attacks on all nuclear states compliant with the Non-Proliferation treaty. However, the U.S. reiterated its commitment to maintaining a credible nuclear deterrent.
START I or Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty
START (for Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) was a bilateral treaty between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms. The treaty was signed on 31 July 1991 and entered into force on5December 1994 . The treaty was signed by the United States and the USSR, that barred its signatories from deploying more than 6,000 nuclear warheads atop a total of 1,600 ICBMs, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and bombers. START negotiated the largest and most complex arms control treaty in history, and its final implementation in late 2001 resulted in the removal of about 80 percent of all strategic nuclear weapons then in existence. Proposed by United States President Ronald Reagan, it was renamed START I after negotiations began on the second START treaty, which became START II.
The START I treaty expired 5 December 2009. On 8 April 2010, the new START treaty was signed in Prague by U.S. President Obama and Russian President Medvedev. It will enter into force after its ratification through the parliaments of both countries. The first START proposal was presented by United States President Ronald Reagan inGenevaon29 June 1982. Reagan proposed a dramatic reduction in strategic forces in two phases, which he referred to as SALT III at the time. The first phase would reduce overall warhead counts on any missile type to 5,000, with an additional limit of 2,500 on ICBMs. Additionally, a total of 850 ICBMs would be allowed, with a limit of 110 "heavy throw" missiles like the SS-18, with additional limits on the total "throw weight" of the missiles as well. The second phase introduced similar limits on heavy bombers and their warheads, and other strategic systems as well. At the time the US had a commanding lead in strategic bombers. The US B-52 force, while aged, was a credible strategic threat but was only equipped with AGM-86 cruise missiles, beginning in 1982, because of Soviet air defense improvements in early 1980s.
The US also had begun to introducenewB-1BLancer quasi-stealth bomber and was secretly developing the Advanced Technology Bomber (ATB) project that would eventually result in the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber. The USSR's force was of little threat to the US, on the other hand, as it was tasked almost entirely with attacking US convoys in the Atlantic and land targets on the Eurasian land mass. Although the USSR had 1,200 medium and heavy bombers, only 150 of them (Tupolev Tu-95s and Myasishchev M- 4s) could reach North America (the latter only with in-flight refueling).
They also faced difficult problems in penetrating admittedly smaller and poorly defended US airspace. Possessing too few bombers available when compared to US bomber numbers was evened out by the US forces having to penetrate the much larger and heavier defended Soviet airspace. This changed when new Tu-95MS and Tu-160 bombers appeared in 1984 equipped with first Soviet AS-15 cruise missiles. By limiting the phase-in as it was proposed, the US would be left with a strategic advantage, for a time.
As Time magazine put it at the time, "Under Reagan's ceilings, the U.S. would have to make considerably less of an adjustment in its strategic forces than would the Soviet Union. That feature of the proposal will almost certainly prompt the Soviets to charge that it is unfair and one-sided.
No doubt some American arms-control advocates will agree, accusing the Administration of making the Kremlin an offer it cannot possibly accept a deceptively equal-looking, deliberately nonnegotiable proposal that is part of what some suspect is the hardliners' secret agenda of sabotaging disarmament so that the U.S. can get on with the business of rearmament." However, Time did point out that, "The Soviets' monstrous ICBMs have given the ma nearly 3-to-1 advantage over the U.S. in "throw weight" the cumulative power to "throw" megatons of death and destruction at the other nation."
Negotiations
Continued negotiation of the START process was delayed several times because US agreement terms were considered non-negotiable by pre-Gorbachev Soviet rulers. President Reagan's introduction of the Strategic Defense Initiative program in 1983 was viewed as a threat by the Soviet Union, and the Soviets with drew from setting a timetable for further negotiations.
Due to these facts, a dramatic nuclear arms race proceeded during the 1980s, and essentially ended in 1991 by nuclear parity preservation at a level of more than ten thousand strategic warheads on both sides. This treaty also stated that the United States and Russia would have 6,000 fighter aircraft, 10,000 tanks, 20,000 artillery pieces and 2,000 attack helicopters.
Ratification
It was signed on July 31, 1991, five months before the collapse of the Soviet Union. Entry-into-force was delayed due to the collapse of the USSR and awaiting an Annex that enforced the terms of the treaty upon the newly independent states of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine. The latter three agreed to transport their nuclear arms to Russia for disposal.
It remains in effect between the U.S. and Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine These latter three have disarmed since becoming independent nations in the wake of the break up of the Soviet Union. Today, the United States has 3,696 and Russia has 4,237 deployed strategic warheads. The US has roughly 10,000 total warheads, counting strategic and tactical, both deployed and in reserves. The figures for Russia are less reliable, but are considered to be in the range of 15,000 to 17,000 total warheads.
Implementation
365 B-52Gs were flown to the Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Center at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona. The bombers were stripped of all usable parts, then chopped into five pieces by a 13,000-pound steel blade dropped from a crane. The guillotine sliced four times on each plane, severing the wings and leaving the fuselage in three pieces. The ruined B-52s remained in place for three months so that Russian satellites could confirm that the bombers had been destroyed, after which they were sold for scrap.
"It remains in effect between the U.S. and Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine. The latter three became non-nuclear weapons states under the Treaty on the non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons of July 1, 1968 (NPT) as they committed to do under the "Lisbon Protocol" (Protocol to the Treaty Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms) after becoming independent nations in the wake of the break up of the Soviet Union."
Efficacy
Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine have disposed of all their nuclear weapons or transferred them to Russia; while the U.S. and Russia have reduced the capacity of delivery vehicles to 1,600 each, with no more than 6,000warheads.
Expiration and renewal START I expired December 5, 2009. Both sides agreed to continue observing the terms of the treaty until a new agreement is reached. There are proposals to renew and expand the treaty, supported by U.S. President Barack Obama. Sergei Rogov, director of the Institute of the U.S. and Canada, said: "Obama supports sharp reductions in nuclear arsenals and I believe that Russia and the U.S. may sign in the summer or fall of 2009 a new treaty that would replace START-1". He added that a new deal would only happen if Washington abandoned plans to place elements of a missile shield in central Europe. He expressed willingness "to make new steps in the sphere of disarmament," however, saying they were waiting for the U.S. to abandon attempts to "surround Russia with a missile defense ring." This referred to the placement of ten interceptor missiles in Poland, as well as an accompanying radar in the Czech Republic.
Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, said, the day after the U.S. elections, in his first state of the nation address, that Russia would move to deploy short range Is kander missile systems in the western exclave of Kaliningrad "to neutralize if necessary the anti-ballistic missile system in Europe." Russia insists that any movement towards a new START should be a legally binding document, and must, then, set lower ceilings on the number of nuclear warheads, and their delivery vehicles.
On March 17, 2009, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev signaled that Russia would begin a "large scale" rearmament and renewal of Russia's nuclear arsenal. President Medvedev accused NATO of pushing ahead with expansion near Russian borders and ordered that this rearmament commence in 2011 with increased army, naval, and nuclear capabilities. Additionally, the head of Russia's strategic missile forces, Nikolai Solovtsov, told news agencies that Russia would start deploying its next-generation RS-24missiles after the December 5 expiry of the START-1 treaty with the United States. Russia hopes to change the START-1 treaty with a new accord. The increased tensions come despite the warming of relations between the United States and Russia ever since U.S. President Barack Obama took office.
As of May 4, 2009, the United States and Russia began the process of renegotiating START, as well as counting both nuclear warheads and their delivery vehicles when making a new agreement. While setting aside problematic issues between the two countries, both sides agreed to make further cuts in the number of warheads they have deployed to around 1,000 to 1,500 each.
The United States has said they are open to a Russian proposal to use radar in Azerbaijan rather than Eastern Europe for the proposed missile system. The Bush Administration was using the Eastern Europe defense system as a deterrent for Iran, despite the Kremlin's fear that it could be used against Russia. The flexibility by both sides to make compromises now will lead to a new phase of arms reduction in the future.
A 'Joint understanding for a follow-on agreement to START-1' was signed by Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitri Medvedev in Moscowon 6 July 2009. This will reduce the number of deployed warheads oneach side to 1,500–1,675 on 500–1,100 delivery systems. A new treaty was to be signed before START-1 expired in December 2009 and the reductions are to be achieved within seven years. After many months of negotiations, Presidents Obama and Medvedev signed the successor treaty, Measures to Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms, in Prague, Czech Republic on 8 April 2010.
START II
START II (for Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) was signed by United States President George H.W. Bush and Russian President Boris Yeltsin on January 3, 1993, banning the use of MIRVs on ICBMs. Hence, it is often cited as the De-MIRV-ing Agreement. MIRVed land-based ICBMs are considered destabilizing because they tend to put a premium on striking first. When a missile is MIRVed, it is able to carry many warheads and deliver them to separate targets and thereby possibly destroy more than one missile of an enemy who does not strike first in their silos. The LGM-118 Peacekeeper missile was capable of carrying up to 10MIRVs. However, in 2001, President George W. Bush set a plan in motion to reduce the country’s missile forces from6,000 to between 1,700 and 2,200. Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to follow a similar plan and in October 2002 the deactivation of the Peacekeeper missile began and was completed by 19 September 2005.
The Minuteman III ICBM is the primary U.S. missile system and can carry up to 3 MIRVs. Hypothetically, if one were to assume that each side had 100missiles,with 5warheads each, and further that each side had a 95 percent chance of neutralizing the opponent's missiles in their silos by firing 2 warheads at each silo, then the side that strikes first can reduce the enemy ICBM force from 100 missiles to about 5 by firing 40 missiles with 200 warheads and keeping the remaining 60missiles in reserve. Thus the destruction capability is greatly increased by MIRVs but the number of targets does not increase.
START II followed START I and, although ratified, the treaty has never entered into force; in other words never been activated. On June 14, 2002, one day after the U.S. withdrew from the Anti- allistic Missile Treaty, Russia withdrew from START II. The historic agreement started on June 17, 1992 with the signing of a 'Joint Understanding' by the presidents. The official signing of the treaty by the presidents took place on January 3, 1993. It was ratified by the U.S. Senate on January 26, 1996 with a vote of 87-4. However, Russian ratification was stalled in the Duma for many years. It was postponed a number of times to protest American invasion of Iraq and military actions in Kosovo, as well as to oppose the expansion of NATO.
As the years passed, the treaty became less relevant and both sides started to lose interest in it. For the Americans, the main issue became the modification of the ABM Treaty to allow the U.S. to deploy a national missile defense system, a move which Russia fiercely opposed. On April 14, 2000 the Duma did finally ratify the treaty, in a largely symbolic move since the ratification was made contingent on preserving the ABM Treaty, which it was clear the U.S. was not prepared to do.
START II did not enter into force because the Russian ratification made this contingent on U.S. Senate ratifying a September 1997 addendum to START II which included agreed statements on ABM-TMD demarcation. Neither of these occurred because of U.S. Senate opposition, where a faction objected to any action supportive of the ABM Treaty. On June 14, 2002, one day after the U.S. withdrew from the ABM Treaty, Russia announced that it would no longer consider itself to be bound by START II provisions.
The treaty was officially bypassed by the SORT treaty, agreed to by Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin at their summit meeting in November 2001, and signed at Moscow Summit on May 24, 2002. Both sides agreed to reduce operationally deployed strategic nuclear warheads to 1,700 from 2,200 by 2012.
START III
The third Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START III, was a proposed Nuclear disarmament treaty negotiated between the United States and Russia. It was never signed. It meant to drastically reduce the deployed nuclear weapons arsenals of both countries. The treaty was meant to continue the weapons reduction efforts that had taken place in the START I and START II negotiations. The framework for negotiations of the treaty began with talks in Helsinki between President Bill Clinton and President Boris Yeltsin in 1997.
Proposed basic elements of the treat included: By December 31, 2007, coterminous with START II, the United States and Russia would each deploy no more than 2,000 to 2,500 strategic nuclear warheads on intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine- launched ballistic missiles, and heavy bombers. Russian officials stated that they were willing to consider negotiated levels as low as 1,500 strategic nuclear warheads with in the context of a START III agreement.
The United States and Russia would negotiate measures relating to the transparency of strategic nuclear warhead inventories and the destruction of strategic nuclear warheads, as well as other jointly agreed technical and organizational measures to promote the irreversibility of deep reductions.
The talks faced a number of obstacles. Russia opposed the eastward expansion of NATO and American plans to build a limited missile defense system (which would have required changes to or the US withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty). Russia strongly hinted that any progress on START III would be subject to the satisfaction of its concerns on these issues. In addition, a Russian proposal to reduce stockpiles still further to 1,000-1,500 warheads was opposed by the US Joint Chiefs of Staff. Very little progress was made towards completing negotiations on START III. President Clinton revived the issue in 1999 and it played a role in the 2000 presidential elections, but persistent disagreement, especially on the issue of missile defense, resulted in stalemate. The 2002 decision by the Bush Administration to with draw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty all but killed START III. It was superseded by much the weaker SORT treaty.
SORT
The Treaty Between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on Strategic Offensive Reductions (SORT), better known as the Moscow Treaty "represents an important element of the new strategic relationship between the United States and Russia". with both parties agreeing to limit their nuclear arsenal to 1700–2200 operationally deployed warheads each. It was signed in Moscow on May 24, 2002. SORT came into force on June 1, 2003 after the Bush-Putin ratification in St. Petersburg, and expires on December 31, 2012. Either party can with draw from the treaty upon giving three months written notice to the other.
Mutual nuclear disarmament
SORT is the latest in a long line of treaties and negotiations on mutual nuclear disarmament between Russia (and its predecessor the Soviet Union) and the United States, which includes SALT I (1969– 1972) the ABM Treaty (1972), SALT II (1972– 1979), the INF Treaty (1987), START I (1991), START II (1993), and START III, which died as of the linkage to START II.
The Moscow Treaty is different from START in that it limits actual warheads, whereas START I limits warheads only through declared attribution to their means of delivery (ICBMs, SLBMs, and Heavy Bombers). Russian and U.S. delegation smeet twice a year to discuss the implementation of the Moscow Treaty at the Bilateral Implementation Commission, or "BIC".
The treaty has been criticized for various reasons: There are no verification provisions to give confidence, to either the signatories or other parties, that the stated reductions have in fact taken place.
The arsenal reductions are not required to be permanent; warheads are not required to be destroyed and may therefore be placed in storage and later redeployed.
The arsenal reductions are required to be completed by December 31, 2012, which is also the day on which the treaty loses all force, unless extended by both parties. This is why some experts joke that SORT is only 'sort' of a treaty.
There exists a clause in the treaty which provides that with drawal can occur upon the giving of three month's notice and since no benchmarks are required in the treaty, either side could feasibly perform no actions in furtherance of the treaty, and then simply with draw in September of 2012.
Implementation
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory reported that President Bush directed the US military to cut its stockpile of both deployed and reserve nuclear weapons in half by 2012. The goal was achieved in 2007, a reduction of US nuclear warheads to just over 50 percent of the 2001 total. A further proposal by Bush will bring the total down another 15%.
Strategic Arms Limitation Talks
The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks refers to two rounds of bilateral talks and corresponding international treaties involving the United States and the Soviet Union-the Cold War superpowers on the issue of armament control. There were two rounds of talks and agreements: SALT I and SALT II. A subsequent treaty was START.
The first ever negotiations started in Helsinki, Finland, in 1970. They were held during Apollo 12's flight - four months after astronauts from Apollo 11 had returned safely home. Primarily focused on limiting the two countries' stocks of nuclear weapons, the treaties then led to START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty). START I (a 1991 agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union) and START II (a 1993 agreement between the United States and Russia) which placed specific caps on each side's number of nuclear weapons.
SALT I
SALT I is the common name for the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks Agreement, also known as Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty. SALT I froze the number of strategic ballistic missile launchers at existing levels, and provided for the addition of new submarine- launched ballistic missile (SLBM) launchers only after the same number of older intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and SLBM launchers had been dismantled.
The strategic nuclear forces niche of the Soviet Union and the United States were changing in character in 1968. The U.S.'s total number of missiles had been static since 1967 at 1,054 ICBMs and 656 SLBMs, but there was an increasing number of missiles with multiple independently target able reentry vehicle (MIRV)warheads being deployed. MIRV's carried multiple nuclear warheads, often with dummies, to confuse ABM systems, making MIRV defence by ABM systems increasingly difficult and expensive. One clause of the treaty required both countries to limit the number of sites protected by an anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system to two each. The Soviet Union had deployed such a system around Moscow in 1966 and the United States announced an ABM program to protect twelve ICB Msites in 1967. A modified two-tier Moscow ABM system is still used. The U.S. built only one ABM site to protect Minuteman base in North Dakota where the "Safeguard Program" was deployed. Due to the system's expense and limited effectiveness, the Pentagon disbanded "Safeguard" in 1975.
Negotiations lasted from November 17, 1969 until May 1972 in a series of meetings beginning in Helsinki, with the U.S. delegation headed by Gerard C. Smith, director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. Subsequent sessions alternated between Vienna and Helsinki. After a long deadlock, the first results of SALT I came in May 1971, when an agreement was reached over ABM systems. Further discussion brought the negotiations to an end on May 26, 1972 in Moscow when Richard Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the Interim Agreement Between The United States of America and The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on Certain Measures With Respect to the Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms. A number of agreed statements were also made. This helped improve relations between the USA and the USSR.
SALT II
It was a controversial experiment of negotiations between Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev from 1977 to 1979 between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, which sought to curtail the manufacture of strategic nuclear weapons. It was a continuation of the progress made during the SALT I talks. SALT II was the first nuclear arms treaty which assumed real reductions in strategic forces to 2,250 of all categories of delivery vehicles on both sides.
SALT II helped the U.S. to discourage the Soviets from arming their third generation ICBMs of SS- 17, SS-19 and SS-18 types with many more MIRVs. In the late 1970s the USSR's missile design bureaus had developed experimental versions of the semissiles equipped with anywhere from 10 to 38 thermonuclear warheads each. Additionally, the Soviets secretly agreed to reduce Tu-22Mproduction to thirty aircraft per year and not to give them an intercontinental range.
It was particularly important for the US to limit Soviet efforts in the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) rearmament area. The SALT II Treaty banned new missile programs (a new missile defined as one with any key parameter 5%better than in currently deploye dmissiles), so both sides were forced to limit their new strategic missile types development although US preserved their most essential programs like Trident and cruise missiles, which President Carter wished to use as his main defensive weapon as they were too slow to have first strike capability. In return, the USSR could exclusively retain 308 of its so- alled "heavy ICBM" launchers of the SS-18 type.
An agreement to limit strategic launchers was reached in Vienna on June 18, 1979, and was signed by Leonid Brezhnev and President of the United States Jimmy Carter. In response to the refusal of the U.S. Congress to ratify the treaty, a young member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware, met with the Soviet Foreign Minister Andrey Gromyko, "educated him about American concerns and interests" and secured several changes that neither the U.S. Secretary of State nor President Jimmy Carter could obtain.
Six months after the signing, the Soviet Union deployed troops to Afghanistan, and in September of the same year senators including Henry M. Jackson and Frank Church discovered the so-called "Soviet brigade" on Cuba. In light of these developments, the treaty was never formally ratified by the United States Senate. Its terms were, nonetheless, honored by both sides until 1986when the Reagan Administration withdrew from SALT II after accusing the Soviets of violating the pact.
Subsequent discussions took place under the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
USA/USSR Arms Limitation Treaties
Partial or Limited Test Ban Treaty (PTBT/ LTBT): 1963. Also put forth by Kennedy; banned nuclear tests in the atmosphere, underwater and in space. However, neither France nor China (both Nuclear Weapon States) signed.
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT): 1968. Established the U.S., USSR, UK, France, and China as five "Nuclear-Weapon States". Non- Nuclear Weapon states were prohibited from (among other things) possessing, manufacturing, or acquiring nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices. All 187 signatories were committed to the goal of (eventual) nuclear disarmament.
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM): 1972. Entered into between the U.S. and USSR to limit the anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems used in defending areas against missile-delivered nuclear weapons; ended by the US in 2002.
Strategic Arms Limitation Treaties I & II (SALT I & II): 1972 / 1979. Limited the growth of US and Soviet missile arsenals.
Prevention of Nuclear War Agreement: 1973. Committed the U.S. and USSR to consult with one another during conditions of nuclear confrontation.
Threshold Test Ban Treaty: 1974. Capped Nuclear tests at 150 kilotons.
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF): 1987. Eliminated nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with intermediate ranges, defined as between 500-5,500 km (300-3,400 miles)
Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty I (START I): 1991. This was signed by George H. W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev; reduced the numbers of U.S. and Soviet long-range missiles and nuclear warheads from10,000 per side to 6,000 per side.
Mutual Detargeting Treaty (MDT): 1994. U.S. and Russian missiles no longer automatically target the other country; nuclear forces are no longer operated in a manner that presumes that the two nations are adversaries.
Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty II (START II): 1993.Will reduce the numbers of U.S. and Russian long-range missiles and nuclear warheads from 6,000 per side to 3,500-3,000 per side. (START III proposed for 2007).
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) 1996. Prohibits all nuclear test explosions in all environments; signed by 180 states, and ratified by 148. The United States has signed, but not ratified, the CTBT.
Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT/Moscow Treaty (2002)). Established bilateral strategic nuclear arms reductions and a new" strategic nuclear framework"; also invited all countries to adopt nonproliferation principles aimed at preventing terrorists, or those that harbored them, from acquiring or developing all types of WMD's and related materials, equipment, and technology.
