page_title: START I
section_title: Expiration and renewal
hierarchical_section_title: START I / Expiration and renewal
caption_attribution_description: Senator Richard Lugar inspects an SS-18 ICBM being readied for destruction in Suravatikha, Russia on August 27, 2002. The SS-18 was the largest ICBM developed by the Soviet Union and carried 10 independently targeted nuclear warheads.
context_page_description: START I was a bilateral treaty between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the reduction and limitation of strategic offensive arms. The treaty was signed on 31 July 1991 and entered into force on 5 December 1994. The treaty barred its signatories from deploying more than 6,000 nuclear warheads atop a total of 1,600 inter-continental ballistic missiles and bombers. START negotiated the largest and most complex arms control treaty in history, and its final implementation in late 2001 resulted in the removal of about 80 percent of all strategic nuclear weapons then in existence. Proposed by United States President Ronald Reagan, it was renamed START I after negotiations began on the second START treaty.
  The START I treaty expired 5 December 2009. On 8 April 2010, the replacement New START treaty was signed in Prague by United States President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. Following ratification by the U.S. Senate and the Federal Assembly of Russia, it went into force on 26 January 2011. This Treaty was the first to provide tremendous reductions of American and Soviet/Russian strategic nuclear weapons.
context_section_description: START I expired 5 December 2009. Both sides agreed to continue observing the terms of the treaty until a new agreement is reached. There are proposals to renew and expand the treaty, supported by U.S. President Barack Obama. Sergei Rogov, director of the Institute of the U.S. and Canada, said: "Obama supports sharp reductions in nuclear arsenals and I believe that Russia and the U.S. may sign in the summer or fall of 2009 a new treaty that would replace START-1". He added that a new deal would only happen if Washington abandoned plans to place elements of a missile shield in central Europe. He expressed willingness "to make new steps in the sphere of disarmament", however, saying they were waiting for the U.S. to abandon attempts to "surround Russia with a missile defense ring". This referred to the placement of ten interceptor missiles in Poland, as well as an accompanying radar in the Czech Republic.
  Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, said, the day after the U.S. elections, in his first state of the nation address, that Russia would move to deploy short-range Iskander missile systems in the western exclave of Kaliningrad "to neutralize if necessary the anti-ballistic missile system in Europe". Russia insists that any movement towards a new START should be a legally binding document, and must, then, set lower ceilings on the number of nuclear warheads, and their delivery vehicles.
  On 17 March 2009, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev signaled that Russia would begin a "large-scale" rearmament and renewal of Russia's nuclear arsenal.  President Medvedev accused NATO of pushing ahead with expansion near Russian borders and ordered that this rearmament commence in 2011 with increased army, naval, and nuclear capabilities.  Additionally, the head of Russia's strategic missile forces, Nikolai Solovtsov, told news agencies that Russia would start deploying its next-generation RS-24 missiles after the 5 December expiry of the START-1 treaty with the United States.  Russia hopes to change the START-1 treaty with a new accord. The increased tensions come despite the warming of relations between the United States and Russia in the two years since U.S. President Barack Obama took office.
  On 4 May 2009, the United States and Russia began the process of renegotiating START, as well as counting both nuclear warheads and their delivery vehicles when making a new agreement. While setting aside problematic issues between the two countries, both sides agreed to make further cuts in the number of warheads they have deployed to around 1,000 to 1,500 each. The United States has said they are open to a Russian proposal to use radar in Azerbaijan rather than Eastern Europe for the proposed missile system. The Bush Administration insisted that the Eastern Europe defense system was intended as a deterrent for Iran, while the Kremlin feared that it could be used against Russia. The flexibility by both sides to make compromises now will lead to a new phase of arms reduction in the future.
  A "Joint understanding for a follow-on agreement to START-1" was signed by Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitri Medvedev in Moscow on 6 July 2009.  This will reduce the number of deployed warheads on each side to 1,500–1,675 on 500–1,100 delivery systems. A new treaty was to be signed before START-1 expired in December 2009 and the reductions are to be achieved within seven years. After many months of negotiations, Presidents Obama and Medvedev signed the successor treaty, Measures to Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms, in Prague, Czech Republic on 8 April 2010.
caption: Soviet SS-18 inspected by U.S. Senator Richard Lugar before its destruction
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