PRESS RELEASE

12 April 2000

As Russian President Putin prepares for an official visit to the UK this weekend, the Russian Duma is apparently considering the long-delayed ratification of the START II Treaty. This ratification is part of a set of delicate diplomatic manoeuvres which also involve negotiations with the US over the future of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and a review of global nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation at the forthcoming Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference which begins at the United Nations in New York on 24 April.

The START (Strategic Arms Reduction Talks) Treaties are a bilateral arrangement between Russia and the US and concern only ‘strategic’ or inter-continental nuclear weapons. Negotiations formally began in 1991, when US President George Bush and Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to cut nuclear warheads to 6,000 each in the framework of START I.

The agreement currently under review - START II - was signed in 1993 and aims at reducing the number of warheads deployed by each side to between 3,000 and 3,500 by the year 2007. This number is to include Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles, Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missiles and Heavy Bombers. It also eliminates all multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRV’s on land-based ICBM’s). This is particularly significant because mutiple warheads constitute a large percentage of the Russian strategic forces. As a result of the above provision, Russia has the right to build 500 new single warheads to make up for its strategic difference with the United States.

A further agreement – START III – which has already been the subject of bilateral discussions, aims to make even deeper cuts into the two sides’ long-range arsenals and possibly include tactical (short-range) nuclear weapons as well.

Russia is pressing the US for further deep cuts in nuclear weapons numbers for primarily economic reasons and its Defence Minister said recently that Russia probably could afford to possess no more than 500 warheads by 2012. American arms control negotiators maintain that 2,000 to 2,500 warheads are needed for effective nuclear deterrence, based on a 1997 review by then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General John Shalikashvili, on the minimum levels of nuclear warheads needed to deter other nations from launching a nuclear attack.

The ratification of START II could have important consequences for the forthcoming Non Proliferation Treaty Review Conference at which 187 nations will conduct a five-yearly review of the world’s nuclear arsenals.

For more perspectives on nuclear proliferation issues, please visit the following websites:

Arms Control Association
Heritage Foundation
United Nations NGO Committee on Disarmament

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