(START), negotiations that began in 1982 between the U.S. and the Soviet Union on the reduction of the two nations’ nuclear weapons. These talks, which succeeded the STRATEGIC ARMS LIMITATION TALKS (q.v.; SALT), resulted in two treaties.

Background.

In May 1982 U.S. President Ronald Reagan, an opponent of SALT II, advanced his own proposal for a strategic arms reduction treaty, calling for deep cuts in land-based missiles (in which the USSR was perceived to hold an advantage). This became the U.S. negotiating position at Geneva, but the Soviets broke off the talks in late 1983 to protest the deployment of U.S. intermediate-range missiles in Europe. When formal negotiations resumed in January 1985, the U.S. continued to focus on land-based weapons, while the USSR demanded that space weaponry—as envisioned in the U.S. STRATEGIC DEFENSE INITIATIVE (q.v.)—be the leading item on the agenda. The Soviets eventually dropped this demand, and direct talks between President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev led to the signing of the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in December 1987.

Accords.

Negotiations continued after George Bush was elected U.S. president in 1988, and in July 1991 he and Gorbachev signed the START I Treaty, by which it was agreed to reduce the number of nuclear warheads by about 25 percent. This treaty—and a 1992 protocol binding Belarus, Kazakstan, and Ukraine to abide by its provisions—came into force on Dec. 5, 1994. The START II Treaty, which called for the elimination of almost three-quarters of the nuclear warheads and all the multiple-warhead land-based missiles held by the U.S. and the former Soviet republics, was signed by Bush and Russian President Boris Yeltsin in January 1993. By the mid-1990s, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakstan had either destroyed or transferred to Russia nearly all their strategic nuclear weapons. START II was ratified by the U.S. Senate in January 1996 and by the Russian legislature in April 2000.        E.N.L., EDWARD N. LUTTWAK, Ph.D.

See also ARMS CONTROL, INTERNATIONAL,.