Start Treaties

Changes in the political climate between the superpowers, particularly the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the summer of 1991, inspired further START negotiations. In September 1991, President Bush declared that the superpowers had an historic opportunity to negotiate significant reductions in NUCLEAR WEAPONS. He made a significant gesture toward this goal by calling U.S. long-range bombers off 24-hour alert and discontinuing development of the MX missile.

New Russian president Boris Yeltsin reciprocated Bush's conciliatory gestures when he announced on January 25, 1992, that Russia "no longer consider[ed] the United States our potential adversary" and declared that his country would no longer target U.S. cities with nuclear missiles. Four days later, President Bush announced further arms cuts in his State of the Union address, including cancellation of the B-2 bomber, the mobile Midgetman missile, and advanced cruise missiles. Yeltsin later responded with an even more ambitious proposal to reduce nuclear arsenals to an amount between 2,000 and 2,500 warheads each and to eliminate strategic nuclear weapons entirely by the year 2000. Although the latter goal proved too radical to implement, the former would be nearly achieved.

Yeltsin and Bush fulfilled their historic announcements in June 1992 by signing an accord, the Joint Understanding on the Elimination of MIRVed ICBMs (multiple warhead intercontinental ballistic missiles) and Further Reductions in Strategic Offensive Arms, that promised to reduce their combined nuclear arsenals from about 15,000 warheads to 6,000 or 7,000 by the year 2003. According to Bush, "With this agreement, the nuclear nightmare recedes more and more for ourselves, for our children, and for our grandchildren."

The June 1992 accord led to the development of START II, formally called the Treaty Between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms. It was signed by Bush and Yeltsin on January 3, 1993. Under its provisions, the United States and Russia would each have between 3,000 and 3,500 warheads by 2003, an amount roughly two-thirds that of pre-START levels. Warheads on submarine-launched ballistic missiles would be limited to no more than 1,750 for each country. The treaty also required the elimination of all land-based heavy ICBMs and multiple warhead missiles. As a result, ICBMs may carry only one nuclear warhead, a development that many agreed would lead to improved strategic stability.

In December 1994, President BILL CLINTON of the United States and the leaders of the nations of Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, and the Ukraine—the former Soviet republics still possessing nuclear arms—formally ratified the START I treaty into force, clearing the way for further consideration of START II by the U.S. Senate. On January 26, 1996, the U.S. Senate ratified the START II Treaty on a vote of 87-4.

The START II treaty was originally scheduled to be implemented by January 2003. However, a 1997 protocol extended the deadline until December 2007 due to concerns by Russian leaders about their ability to meet the earlier date. Because the U.S. Senate has failed to ratify the 1997 protocol, START II has not yet entered into force.