START II START II ( Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty ) was a bilateral treaty between the United States of America and Russia on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms . It was signed by United States President George H . W . Bush and Russia n President Boris Yeltsin on 3 January 1993 , banning the use of multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle s ( MIRVs ) on intercontinental ballistic missile s ( ICBMs ) . Hence , it is often cited as the De - MIRV - ing Agreement . It is not currently in effect . On 14 June 2002 , Russia withdrew from the treaty in response to U . S . withdrawal from the ABM Treaty . Instead , SORT came into effect , reducing strategic warheads count per country to 1 , 700 - 2 , 200 . Impact of MIRV . MIRVed land - based ICBMs are considered destabilizing because they tend to put a premium on striking first . A MIRV missile is able to carry 3 - 12 warhead s and deliver them to separate targets . Thereby , if it is used in a first strike , it possibly destroys many of the enemy ' s missile sites . Hypothetically , if one were to assume that each side had 100 missiles , with 5 warheads each , and further that each side had a 95 percent chance of neutralizing the opponent ' s missiles in their silos by firing 2 warheads at each silo , then the side that strikes first can reduce the enemy ICBM force from 100 missiles to about 5 by firing 40 missiles with 200 warheads and keeping the remaining 60 missiles in reserve . Thus the destruction capability is greatly multiplied by MIRV , when the number of enemy silos does not significantly increase . Both Soviet R - 36M and the US LGM - 118 Peacekeeper missiles were capable of carrying up to 10 MIRVs ( the latter not currently operational ) . Negotiations . The historic agreement started on 17 June 1992 with the signing of a ' Joint Understanding ' by the presidents . The official signing of the treaty by the presidents took place on 3 January 1993 . It was ratified by the U . S . Senate on 26 January 1996 with a vote of 87 - 4 . However , Russian ratification was stalled in the Duma for many years . It was postponed a number of times to protest American military actions in Kosovo , as well as to oppose the expansion of NATO . As the years passed , the treaty became less relevant and both sides started to lose interest in it . For the Americans , the main issue became the ABM Treaty which disallowed to deploy a nation - wide missile defense system , a move which Russia fiercely opposed . START II did not enter into force . On 14 April 2000 the Duma did finally ratify the treaty , in a largely symbolic move since the ratification was made contingent on preserving the Anti - Ballistic Missile Treaty ( ABM Treaty ) , and preserving the long - standing principle of mutually assured destruction ( MAD ) . To be specific , Russian ratification was made contingent on the U . S . Senate ratifying a September 1997 addendum to START II which included agreed statements on demarcation of strategic versus tactical missile defences . Neither of these occurred because of U . S . Senate opposition , where a faction objected to any action supportive of the existing ABM Treaty . SORT replacing START II . However , in 2001 , President George W . Bush set a plan in motion to reduce the country ’ s missile forces from 6 , 000 to between 1 , 700 and 2 , 200 . Thus the START II treaty was officially bypassed by the SORT treaty , agreed to by Presidents George W . Bush and Vladimir Putin at their summit meeting in November 2001 , and signed at Moscow Summit on 24 May 2002 . Both sides agreed to reduce operationally deployed strategic nuclear warheads to 1 , 700 from 2 , 200 by 2012 . On 13 June 2002 , the U . S . withdrew from the ABM Treaty , and on the following day Russia announced that it would no longer consider itself to be bound by START II provisions . Both countries continued to pursue their objectives : Russia to this day retains 40 - 75 MIRV - capable R - 36M2 missiles with 10 warheads each , and plans on improving them . The United States developed Ground - Based Midcourse Defense ( GMD ) system to protect from small - scale ICBM attack . In October 2002 United States began one - sided withdrawal of MIRV ( including complete deactivation of Peacekeeper missiles ) and completed it by 19 September 2005 . The Minuteman III is , as of 2011 , the only United States operational ICBM . It can potentially carry up to 3 RVs .