Knowledge Nugget: ‘New START’ between the US and Russia has expired. What was it all about?

2. START-I, which capped the numbers of nuclear warheads and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that each side could deploy at 6,000 and 1,600 respectively, lapsed in 2009, and was replaced first by the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT, also known as the Treaty of Moscow), and then by the New START treaty.

3. The New START, officially, the “Treaty between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms”, entered into force on February 5, 2011, and placed new verifiable limits on intercontinental-range nuclear weapons.

4. The two countries had to meet the treaty’s central limits on strategic offensive arms by February 5, 2018, and to then stay within those limits for the period the treaty remained in force. The US and Russia Federation subsequently agreed to extend the treaty through February 4, 2026.

5. According to the New START page on the website of the US Department of State, the central limits of the treaty that the US and Russia met by February 5, 2018, and have adhered to since then are:

* 700 deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), deployed submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and deployed heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments;

* 1,550 nuclear warheads on deployed ICBMs, deployed SLBMs, and deployed heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments (each such heavy bomber is counted as one warhead toward this limit);

* 800 deployed and non-deployed ICBM launchers, SLBM launchers, and heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments.

6. Notably, the treaty run into difficulties, most recently in 2023, when Russia suspended inspection activities under New START amid its war in Ukraine. In September last year, Vladimir Putin proposed a one-year voluntary extension.

7. With the Ukraine war complicating relations, formal talks between Moscow and Washington on New START’s renewal have not yet begun.

BEYOND THE NUGGET: Nuclear on-proliferation treaty

1. Signed in 1968 and entered into force in 1970, the international treaty is aimed at preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and technology, and promoting cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, as well as disarmament.

2. The treaty defines a nuclear state as one “which has manufactured and exploded a nuclear weapon or other nuclear explosive device prior to 1 January 1967.” These are the US, the UK, France, the Soviet Union (later Russia) and China.

3. 191 states have joined the treaty. India carried out its first nuclear tests in 1974 but has not signed it, and instead reiterated the principle of universality in preventing nuclear proliferation. Given the treaty’s exceptions for the permanent five members of the UN Security Council, and the arbitrary date chosen as the cut-off point to accommodate the P5 members, it has been criticised as discriminatory.

Post Read Question

The “New START” treaty was in the news. What is this treaty? (UPSC CSE 2011)

(a) It is a bilateral strategic nuclear arms reduction treaty between the USA and the Russian Federation.

(b) It is a multilateral energy security cooperation treaty among the members of the East Asia Summit.

(c) It is a treaty between the Russian Federation and the European Union for energy security cooperation.

(d) It is a multilateral cooperation treaty among the BRICS countries for the promotion of trade

(Sources: Russia suspends New START: What is its last remaining nuclear arms control treaty with US? , Putin Offers Trump Temporary One-Year Extension of New START Nuclear Treaty)

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