Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START)

Overview

Potential Facility Impacts

Current Activities

Overview

Purpose and Background

The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) [long title: Treaty Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms] was the first treaty to reduce the number of deployed strategic offensive arms. By December 5, 2001, seven years after START entered into force, the United States and Russia had each met their treaty goals of reducing and limiting their total number of deployed strategic nuclear delivery vehicles (SNDVs) to 1,600, reducing their total number of warheads to 6,000 (attributed to deployed ballistic missiles and deployed heavy bombers), and eliminating the launchers associated with eliminated missiles.

As of July 2009, the United States had 1,188 SNDVs and 5,916 attributed warheads, and Russia had 809 SNDVs and 3,897 attributed warheads. Under START, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan eliminated all of their deployed strategic delivery systems and either disposed of or transferred these items to Russia.

Separately, in equal political declarations, the Parties agreed to declare on an annual basis the number of nuclear submarine-launched cruise missiles (SLCMs) each planned to deploy (not to exceed 880) at entry into force (1994) and for each of the following five years (1995-1999). Since 1999, each side has unilaterally taken all nuclear SLCMs out of deployment.

The treaty remained in force for 15 years (1994-2009). Although it contains provisions for successive five-year extensions, the United States and Russia allowed the treaty to expire on December 5, 2009, and have agreed to negotiate a new, legally-binding, verifiable treaty similar to START.

START II

On January 3, 1993, the United States and Russia signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty II (START II). Under START II, the Parties agreed to further reduce the number of SNDVs to carry no more than 3,000-3,500 deployed warheads. Achieving this goal would have reduced the number of deployed warheads to one-third of pre-START levels. Under START II, Russia also agreed to eliminate all of its SS-18 missiles and not to deploy any intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) carrying multiple warheads. Under START II, heavy bombers would have been counted based on the number of nuclear weapons they were equipped to carry (as opposed to the number each actually carried).

START II never entered into force even though the U.S. Senate provided its advice and consent to ratification on January 26, 1996, and Russia ratified the treaty in April 2002. Much changed between 1996 and 2002. On September 26, 1997, the United States and Russia signed the START II Protocol and the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Demarcation Agreement. Both agreements required ratification and were submitted to the U.S. Senate for its advice and consent.

The START II Protocol and ABM Demarcation Agreement were intended to address Russia’s concerns regarding START II implementation costs and U.S. plans to deploy a National Missile Defense system. The Protocol also extended the final deadline for START II limitations and reductions to December 31, 2007, and required half of all reductions and limitations to be completed by December 31, 2004. The Demarcation Agreement delineated between strategic (banned by the ABM Treaty) and tactical (allowed by the ABM Treaty) missile defense systems.

Senate leaders decided not to consider either of these agreements until after the new administration took office in January 2001. Although Russia ratified START II and its 1997 Protocol in April 2002, the Russian legislation prohibited the deposit of Russia’s instrument of ratification until the United States ratified the START II Protocol and ABM Demarcation Agreement. The Treaty, its Protocol, and the ABM Demarcation Agreement have now become obsolete.

On June 14, 2002, Russia withdrew from START II—one day after the United States formally withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. Importantly, a few weeks earlier, both countries had signed the new Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT), also known as the Moscow Treaty, on May 24, 2002. SORT stipulates lower levels for deployed nuclear warheads than those called for under START II.

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Potential Facility Impacts

Key Verification Measures

The START treaty contains a detailed compliance verification regime, valued by both Russia and the United States. Under this regime, the Parties agreed to provide initial and updated data declarations detailing the technical characteristics of items of inspection (IOI), the numbers and locations of deployed IOI; notification of IOI elimination or conversion; and of facilities closed-out. National technical means (NTM) and cooperative measures provided additional verification of treaty compliance. In all, the START treaty permitted 13 types of scheduled and short-notice on-site inspections at declared facilities.

The START treaty’s verification regime required inspection activities to be directed at IOI. These activities enabled the inspection team to make close visual observations, to take photographs if there are questions or ambiguities, and to take measurements. The treaty also allowed the inspected Party to apply protective measures such as shrouding, route planning, and limiting access. These measures were applied by U.S. escorts and facility personnel and generally provided adequate protection for most non-treaty-related activities and national security or confidential business information at an inspection site.

Each year, the United States and the other combined Parties as a group, had the option of conducting up to 28 short-notice inspections. For each short-notice inspection, the inspecting Party was obligated to provide at least 16 hours advance notice of their intent to conduct an inspection. Between 4-24 hours after the team’s arrival in the inspected Party’s country, the team was obligated to declare which site it intended to inspect and the inspected Party was obliged to transport the team to the site and to allow inspection activities to begin no later than nine hours after the site was declared. The inspection team had the right to conduct sequential inspections, but could not make such requests earlier than 18 hours after inspection activities had begun at the first site.

The treaty also permitted continuous monitoring at declared nuclear weapon production facilities and contained provisions allowing States Parties to request a visit with a special right of access (SAV) to address an urgent compliance concern. However, no SAVs were ever requested.

The States Parties completed scheduled baseline inspections by June 1995, and the United States conducted continuous monitoring at the Russian ICBM final assembly plant in Votkinsk until the treaty ended in December 2009. Although Russia had the right to conduct continuous monitoring at a declared U.S. facility near Promontory, Utah, Russia opted not to exercise this right. In 2001, this facility became subject to suspect-site inspections only.

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Current Activities

Recent Developments

The negotiations are led by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller and her Russian counterpart Anatoly Antonov. The Parties are committed to “essentially honor” the old treaty after it expires, and continue to search for mutually acceptable compromises on the remaining unresolved issues. It may also be possible for the Parties to conduct ad hoc inspections in the interim period between when the START treaty expired and when the new treaty enters into force.

The verification regime in the new treaty is not expected to be identical to regime in the former START treaty and negotiators continue to search for mutually acceptable compromises to resolve differences over verification provisions. The basic outline of a new treaty was agreed by President Barak Obama and President Dmitry Medvedev at their summit in Moscow in July 2009. At the summit, the two presidents agreed to narrow the range for a cap on warheads to between 1,500 and 1,675, down from about 2,200, and to lower the ceiling on delivery vehicles—intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-based missiles and strategic bombers—to below between 500 and 1,100, from the current 1,600.

In preparation for reaching this agreement on outlining a treaty that would reduce the number of deployed strategic warheads, missiles, bombers and submarines to their lowest levels in a half century, Mr. Obama and Mr. Medvedev first issued a joint statement after their meeting in London on April 1, 2009. This statement announced their decision to "begin bilateral intergovernmental negotiations to work out a new, comprehensive, legally binding agreement on reducing and limiting strategic offensive arms to replace the START treaty.” Subsequently, U.S. and Russian experts met in Rome on April 24, 2009, and in Moscow on May 19, to begin drafting the new treaty. Since the July summit, intensive negotiations have been conducted in Geneva.

The most significant remaining differences center on specific verification and monitoring activities. These are thought to center on methods for verifying the new numerical limits to be set by the treaty and “nonreciprocal” measures such as tracking Russia's mobile ICBMs, and conducting continuous monitoring at Russia’s nuclear weapons production facility in Votkinsk. These activities would not be reciprocal because the United States fields no mobile systems nor does it maintain a nuclear weapons production facility. Other differences are thought to involve Russian objections to renewing the former treaty’s provisions for exchanging missile-test data, called "telemetry."

In a joint statement issued by the White House on December 4, 2009, Presidents Obama and Medvedev declared their determination to continue to support strategic stability between the United States and Russia, and to continue working together “in the spirit of the START treaty … [and] to ensure that a new treaty on strategic arms enters into force at the earliest possible date.”

Inspection Status

When the START treaty ended on December 5, 2009, the United States had conducted 659 inspections and Russia had conducted 481.

U.S. portal monitoring activities at Votkinsk, Russia, also ended with the termination of the treaty on December 5, 2009.