Nuclear Arms Control: The U.S.-Russian Agenda

The Congressional Research Service, a department of the Library of Congress, conducts research and analysis for Congress on a broad range of national and international policy issues. Some of the CRS work is carried out specifically for individual members of Congress or their staff and is confidential. However, there is also much CRS compiled material which is considered public but is not formally published on the CRS website.

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In some cases hyperlinks allows you to access all versions of a report, including the latest. Note that many reports are periodically updated.Although arms control negotiations are not as important to the U.S.-Russian relationship as they were to the U.S.-Soviet relation- ship during the Cold War, the United States and Russia have continued to implement existing nuclear arms control agreements and to pursue negotiations on further reductions in their strategic offensive weapons and modifications to limits on ballistic missile defenses. This issue brief summarizes the contents of these agreements and tracks progress in their ratification and implementation.

The 1991 START I Treaty entered into force in December 1994. It limits the United States and four successors to the Soviet Union — Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan — to 6,000 accountable warheads on 1,600 strategic offensive delivery vehicles. The parties are well along in the elimination schedules outlined in the treaty and will complete the process by December 4, 2001. The parties also continue to implement the on-site inspections that are a part of the Treaty’s complex verification regimen.

The United States and Russia signed START II in January 1993. This agreement would reduce U.S. and Russian strategic offensive forces to 3,500 warheads. In September 1997, the United States and Russia signed a Protocol to START II to extend the elimination period in the treaty to the end of the year 2007. The U.S. Senate approved the Treaty’s ratification in January 1996 and the Russian legislature did so in April 2000, but the treaty has not yet entered into force. In March 1997, Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin agreed that the United States and Russia would negotiate a START III Treaty after START II entered into force. The new treaty would reduce their forces to between 2,000 and 2,500 warheads. They also agreed to address measures related to non-strategic nuclear weapons and the warheads removed from weapons eliminated under the treaty.

Negotiations to turn this framework into a formal agreement proved difficult. The Bush Administration has not continued negotiations towards START III, but it has pledged to reduce U.S. nuclear forces below START II levels unilaterally. President Bush plans informed President Putin of planned reductions to 1,700-2,200 warheads in November, 2001.The United States and Russia continue to abide by the 1972 ABM Treaty, which limits each side to one anti-ballistic missile deployment area with no more than 100 interceptor missiles. In September 1997, the parties signed several documents that established a demarcation line between ABM systems and theater missile defense systems, which are not limited by the Treaty. They also signed a Memorandum that named Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan as the successors to the Soviet Union for the ABM Treaty. The Clinton Administration never submitted these to the Senate for advice and consent. It did however, pursue negotiations on modifications to the Treaty that would permit the deployment of national missile defenses. The Bush Administration has indicated that it believes the Treaty is out of date, and that the United States must withdraw to pursue missile defense. It has suggested that the United States and Russia agree to set the Treaty aside. Russia has not accepted this proposal, but it may accept more robust testing of missile defenses as long as the United States does not withdraw from the Treaty. The United States might accept this alternative, and address the Treaty’s deployment restrictions in the future.

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