Anti-ballistic missile treaty - wikipedia Anti-ballistic missile treaty This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. ( May 2017 ) Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty Launch of a US Army Nike Zeus missile, the first ABM system to enter widespread testing. Type bilateral treaty Signed 26 May 1972 ( 1972 - 05 - 26 ) Location Moscow, Russian SFSR, USSR Signatories Richard Nixon Leonid Brezhnev Parties United States Soviet Union Ratifiers U.S. Senate Supreme Soviet The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty ( ABM Treaty or ABMT ) ( 1972 -- 2002 ) was an arms control treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union on the limitation of the anti-ballistic missile ( ABM ) systems used in defending areas against ballistic missile - delivered nuclear weapons. Under the terms of the treaty, each party was limited to two ABM complexes, each of which was to be limited to 100 anti-ballistic missiles. Signed in 1972, it was in force for the next 30 years. In 1997, five years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, four former Soviet republics agreed with the United States to succeed the USSR 's role in the treaty. In June 2002 the United States withdrew from the treaty, leading to its termination. Contents 1 Background 2 ABM Treaty 2.1 Missiles limited by the treaty 3 After the SDI announcement 4 US withdrawal 5 2018 statement by Putin on new weapons 6 References 7 External links Background Deployment history of land based ICBM 1959 -- 2014 Throughout the late 1950s and into the 1960s, the United States and the Soviet Union had been developing missile systems with the ability to shoot down incoming ICBM warheads. During this period, the US considered the defense of the US as part of reducing the overall damage inflicted in a full nuclear exchange. As part of this defense, Canada and the US established the North American Air Defense Command ( now called North American Aerospace Defense Command ). By the early 1950s, US research on the Nike Zeus missile system had developed to the point where small improvements would allow it to be used as the basis of an operational ABM system. Work started on a short - range, high - speed counterpart known as Sprint to provide defense for the ABM sites themselves. By the mid-1960s, both systems showed enough promise to start development of base selection for a limited ABM system dubbed Sentinel. In 1967, the US announced that Sentinel itself would be scaled down to the smaller and less expensive Safeguard. Soviet doctrine called for development of its own ABM system and return to strategic parity with the US. This was achieved with the operational deployment of the A-35 ABM system and its successors, which remain operational to this day. The development of multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle ( MIRV ) systems allowed a single ICBM to deliver as many as ten separate warheads at a time. An ABM defense system could be overwhelmed with the sheer number of warheads. Upgrading it to counter the additional warheads would be economically unfeasible : The defenders required one rocket per incoming warhead, whereas the attackers could place 10 warheads on a single missile at a reasonable cost. To further protect against ABM systems, the Soviet MIRV missiles were equipped with decoys ; R - 36M heavy missiles carried as many as 40. These decoys would appear as warheads to an ABM, effectively requiring engagement of five times as many targets and rendering defense even less effective. ABM treaty Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev signing SALT II treaty, 18 June 1979, in Vienna. The United States first proposed an anti-ballistic missile treaty at the 1967 Glassboro Summit Conference during discussions between U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union Alexei Kosygin. McNamara argued both that ballistic missile defense could provoke an arms race, and that it might provoke a first - strike against the nation fielding the defense. Kosygin rejected this reasoning. They were trying to minimizing the number of nuclear missiles in the world. Following the proposal of the Sentinel and Safeguard decisions on American ABM systems, the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks began in November 1969 ( SALT I ). By 1972 an agreement had been reached to limit strategic defensive systems. Each country was allowed two sites at which it could base a defensive system, one for the capital and one for ICBM silos. The treaty was signed during the 1972 Moscow Summit on 26 May by the President of the United States, Richard Nixon and the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Leonid Brezhnev ; and ratified by the US Senate on 3 August 1972. The 1974 Protocol reduced the number of sites to one per party, largely because neither country had developed a second site. The sites were Moscow for the USSR and the North Dakota Safeguard Complex for the US, which was already under construction. Missiles limited by the treaty The Treaty limited only ABMs capable of defending against `` strategic ballistic missiles '', without attempting to define `` strategic ''. It was understood that both ICBMs and SLBMs are obviously `` strategic ''. Neither country intended to stop the development of counter-tactical ABMs. The topic became disputable as soon as most potent counter-tactical ABMs started to be capable of shooting down SLBMs ( SLBMs naturally tend to be much slower than ICBMs ), nevertheless both sides continued counter-tactical ABM development. After the SDI announcement President Reagan delivering the 23 March 1983 speech initiating SDI On 23 March 1983, Ronald Reagan announced the Strategic Defense Initiative, a research program into ballistic missile defense which would be `` consistent with our obligations under the ABM Treaty ''. The project was a blow to Yuri Andropov 's so - called `` peace offensive ''. Andropov said that `` It is time ( Washington ) stopped thinking up one option after another in search of the best way of unleashing nuclear war in the hope of winning it. To do this is not just irresponsible. It is madness ''. Regardless of the opposition, Reagan gave every indication that SDI would not be used as a bargaining chip and that the United States would do all in its power to build the system. The Soviets were threatened because the Americans might have been able to make a nuclear first strike possible. In The Nuclear Predicament, Beckman claims that one of the central goals of Soviet diplomacy was to terminate SDI. A surprise attack from the Americans would destroy much of the Soviet ICBM fleet, allowing SDI to defeat a `` ragged '' Soviet retaliatory response. Furthermore, if the Soviets chose to enter this new arms race, they would further cripple their economy. The Soviets could not afford to ignore Reagan 's new endeavor, therefore their policy at the time was to enter negotiations with the Americans. By 1987, however, the USSR withdrew its opposition, concluding the SDI posed no threat and scientifically `` would never work. '' SDI research went ahead, although it did not achieve the hoped - for result. SDI research was cut back following the end of Reagan 's presidency, and in 1995 it was reiterated in a presidential joint statement that `` missile defense systems may be deployed... ( that ) will not pose a realistic threat to the strategic nuclear force of the other side and will not be tested to... ( create ) that capability. '' This was reaffirmed in 1997. US withdrawal Presidents Vladimir Putin and George W. Bush sign SORT on 24 May 2002 in Moscow Although the Soviet Union ceased to exist in December 1991, in the view of the U.S. Department of State, the treaty continued in force. An additional memorandum of understanding was prepared in 1997, establishing Belarus, Kazakhstan, the Russian Federation, and Ukraine as successor states to the Soviet Union, for the purposes of the treaty. On 13 December 2001, George W. Bush gave Russia notice of the United States ' withdrawal from the treaty, in accordance with the clause that required six months ' notice before terminating the pact -- the first time in recent history that the United States has withdrawn from a major international arms treaty. This led to the eventual creation of the American Missile Defense Agency. Supporters of the withdrawal argued that it was a necessity in order to test and build a limited National Missile Defense to protect the United States from nuclear blackmail by a rogue state. The withdrawal also had many critics. John Rhinelander, a negotiator of the ABM treaty, predicted that the withdrawal would be a `` fatal blow '' to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and would lead to a `` world without effective legal constraints on nuclear proliferation. '' The construction of a missile defense system was also feared to enable the US to attack with a nuclear first strike. Russia and the United States signed the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty in Moscow on 24 May 2002. This treaty mandates cuts in deployed strategic nuclear warheads, but without actually mandating cuts to total stockpiled warheads, and without any mechanism for enforcement. 2018 statement by Putin on new weapons On 1 March 2018, Russian president Vladimir Putin, in an address to the Federal Assembly, announced the development of a series of technologically new missile systems and stressed that those were designed as a response to U.S. withdrawal from the ABM Treaty. His statements were referred to by the Trump administration officials as largely boastful untruths, as well as confirmation that `` Russia ha ( d ) been developing destabilizing weapons systems for over a decade, in direct violation of its treaty obligations ''. References Jump up ^ Henry T. Nash ( 1 May 1975 ). Nuclear Weapons and International Behaviour. Kluwer Academic Publishers. ISBN 9028602658. Each site would consist of 100 ABMs, or a total of 200 ABMs for each country Jump up ^ `` Treaty Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Limitation of Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems ''. Bureau of Arms Control. United States Department of State. 26 May 1972. Jump up ^ Coit D. Blacker, Gloria Duffy ( 2002 ). International Arms Control : Issues and Agreements ( Studies in International Security & Arms Control ). Stanford University Press. ISBN 0804712220. The dramatic proliferation of warheads allowed by MIRV ensured that even an extensive ABM effort could not limit the destructiveness of an American retaliatory strike Jump up ^ `` Moscow extends life of 144 cold war ballistic missiles ''. The Guardian. London. 20 August 2002. Retrieved 2006 - 10 - 24. Jump up ^ Alexander T.J. Lennon. ( 2002 ). Contemporary Nuclear Debates : Missile Defenses, Arms Control, and Arms Races in the Twenty - First Century. MIT Press. ISBN 0262621665. Although Kosygin rejected this reasoning at Glassboro Jump up ^ `` ABM treaty reduces US and USSR to one ABM site each ''. The Nuclear Information Project. FAS. Retrieved 27 May 2011. ^ Jump up to : Ivo H. Daalder ( May 1987 ). `` A tactical defence initiative for the Western Europe ? ''. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. 43 : 37. Retrieved 8 February 2011. Jump up ^ `` Replies by Yu. V. Andropov to Questions from a Correspondent of Pravda ''. Pravda. 27 March 1983. Cited in Garthoff, Raymond L. ( 1994 ). The Great Transition : American - Soviet Relations and the End of the Cold War. Washington, D.C. : Brookings Institution. p. 111. ISBN 0 - 8157 - 3060 - 8. Jump up ^ Peter R. Beckman et al., The Nuclear Predicament : Nuclear Weapons In The Cold War And Beyond, 2nd ed. ( New Jersey : Prentice - Hall Inc, 1992 ), 183. Jump up ^ B. Wayne Howell, `` Reagan and Reykjavík : Arms Control, SDI, and the Argument From Human Rights Archived 3 October 2011 at the Wayback Machine., '' Rhetoric & Public Affairs, Vol. 11, No. 3, 2008, pp. 389 -- 415 Jump up ^ Norman A. Graebner, Richard Dean Burns, and Joseph M. Siracusa, Reagan, Bush, Gorbachev : Revisiting the End of the Cold War, p. 95, 2008. ISBN 0313352410, ISBN 978 - 0313352416 Jump up ^ Julian E. Zelizer ( 2010 ). Arsenal of Democracy : The Politics of National Security -- From World War II to the War on Terrorism. Basic Books. p. 350. ISBN 9780465015078. Jump up ^ `` Fact sheet : Memorandum of understanding on succession ''. United States Department of State. 26 September 1997. Although the ABM Treaty continues in force, it nevertheless has become necessary to reach agreement as to which New Independent States ( NIS ) would collectively assume the rights and obligations of the USSR under the Treaty. Jump up ^ `` U.S. Withdrawal From the ABM Treaty : President Bush 's Remarks and U.S. Diplomatic Notes ''. Arms Control Association. Retrieved 10 February 2014. Jump up ^ `` Announcement of Withdrawal from the ABM Treaty '', White House press release Jump up ^ `` Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly ''. kremlin.ru. 1 March 2018. Jump up ^ Exclusive : Putin blames U.S. for arms race, denies ' new Cold War ' NBC News, 1 March 2018. Jump up ^ Putin claims new ' invincible ' missile can pierce US defenses CNN, 1 March 2018. External links Wikisource has original text related to this article : Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, official State Department site, includes the text of the treaty and the 1974 Protocol. US Announcement of withdrawal ( 2001 ) hide Nuclear weapons limitation treaties Treaties 1963 Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty 1969 Treaty of Tlatelolco 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty 1974 Threshold Test Ban Treaty 1970s Strategic Arms Limitation Talks 1987 Intermediate - Range Nuclear Forces Treaty 1991 START I 1993 START II 1994 United States -- Russia mutual detargeting 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear - Test - Ban Treaty ( not in force ) 1997 START III 2002 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty 2010 New START 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons Related Nuclear disarmament Book : Arms control treaties Category : Arms control treaties Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Anti-Ballistic_Missile_Treaty&oldid=849369576 '' Categories : 1972 in the Soviet Union 1972 in the United States Arms control treaties Cold War treaties Missile defense History of the United States ( 1991 -- present ) Soviet Union -- United States treaties Nuclear weapons governance Treaties concluded in 1972 Treaties entered into force in 1972 Presidency of Richard Nixon 1972 in politics Nuclear technology treaties Russia -- United States relations Hidden categories : Webarchive template wayback links Articles needing additional references from May 2017 All articles needing additional references Talk Contents About Wikipedia Čeština Dansk Deutsch Español فارسی Français 한국어 हिन्दी Bahasa Indonesia Italiano Bahasa Melayu Nederlands 日本 語 Norsk Norsk nynorsk Occitan Polski Português Русский Svenska Tiếng Việt 中文 14 more Edit links This page was last edited on 8 July 2018, at 14 : 12 ( UTC ). Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution - ShareAlike License ; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia ® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. About Wikipedia

Question: when was the anti ballistic missle treaty signed
Answer: 26 May 1972