Strategic Arms Reduction Talks

Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START)

Negotiations between the U.S. and the Soviet Union aimed at reducing those countries' nuclear arsenals and delivery systems. Two sets of negotiations (1982–83, 1985–91) concluded in an agreement signed by George Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev that committed the Soviet Union to a reduction from 11,000 to 8,000 nuclear weapons and the U.S. to a reduction from 12,000 to 10,000. After the Soviet Union's collapse (1991), a supplementary agreement (1992) obligated Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan to destroy the nuclear weapons on their soil or to give them to Russia. Subsequent U.S. efforts to develop an antimissile defense system threatened new complications for the arms control regime. See also Strategic Arms Limitation Talks.