Disarmament Diplomacy

Issue No. 62, January - February 2002

News Review

START I Implementation Complete

December 5 saw the completion of the long and intensive process of implementing the Strategic Arms Reduction (START I) Treaty, signed by Presidents George Bush Sr. and Mikhail Gorbachev in July 1991 and entering into force in 1994. Marking the event, US Secretary of State Colin Powell sought to balance praise for the treaty's achievements with emphasis of the different requirements and context of contemporary nuclear disarmament:

"Today we mark an important milestone in dismantling the legacy of the Cold War. For the past seven years, under the terms of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, the United States and the Russian Federation have been reducing their strategic nuclear arsenal, while all strategic weapons on the territories of Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan have been removed or eliminated. The Treaty's final ceilings came into effect today, and they have been met. When President Reagan launched the START negotiations in 1983, the United States and the USSR each had more than 10,000 deployed strategic warheads. Today, all the former Soviet states except the Russian Federation are free of nuclear weapons, and the US and Russia have cut their arsenals in half to a level of 6,000 deployed warheads each. We are now in a different era. The Soviet Union is gone and the US and Russia are no longer adversaries. As we cooperate in building this new strategic relationship and as we move beyond the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, we will make further reductions in strategic nuclear forces. At his summit with President Putin last month, President Bush announced plans for much deeper cuts over the next decade in America's operationally deployed strategic nuclear warheads, and President Putin said he would reciprocate. Construction of a broader strategic framework for cooperation with Russia is well along, and START's effective verification procedures remain in operation and will provide transparency and confidence as we carry out these newly pledged reductions."

A Russian Foreign Ministry statement was markedly different in tone, noting that the implementation process had not been problem free:

"Under this treaty, the parties had assumed obligations seven years after its entry into force to reduce the number of their strategic delivery vehicles to 1,600, and the number of warheads attributed to them to the level of 6,000 each, and to set also other limits. The Russian side has fully honoured its obligations for those reductions and as of the control date of December 5, 2001, had actually reduced the number of its deployed strategic delivery systems...to 1,136, and the number of warheads attributed to them to 5,518. We expect that the United States too will reach the reduction levels set by the treaty. At the same time we have questions relating to the fulfillment of a number of obligations under this treaty. We believe that these questions will be settled in the nearest future. A complete and timely implementation of the provisions of the START I Treaty creates a good basis for elaborating an agreement on further drastic reductions of strategic offensive arms, on which the Russian and US Presidents agreed during their November summit."

Reports: Text - START Treaty final reductions achieved, Powell says, Washington File, December 5; Russia, US cut arsenals to comply with START I, Reuters, December 5; Regarding the end of the period of strategic offensive arms reductions under the START Treaty, Russian Foreign Ministry Statement, Document 2273-05-12-2001, December 5; Fact Sheet - START Treaty Final Reductions, Washington File, December 7.