U.S. and Russian/Soviet Strategic Nuclear Forces

Since START I entered into force December 5, 1994, the treaty parties have substantially reduced their deployed strategic nuclear forces to comply with treaty limits that they must reach by December 2001. START I will limit the United States and Russia to 1,600 deployed strategic delivery vehicles (bombers and land- and submarine-based missiles) carrying 6,000 nuclear warheads, to be counted according to rules delineated in the treaty text.

START I was signed July 31, 1991, by the United States and the Soviet Union. Five months later, the Soviet Union dissolved, leaving four independent states in possession of strategic nuclear weapons: Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan. On May 23, 1992, the United States and the four nuclear-capable successor states to the Soviet Union signed the “Lisbon Protocol,” which makes all five nations party to the START I agreement. (Belarus, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan also agreed to join the Non-Proliferation Treaty as non-nuclear-weapon states.)

Under START I, the five parties semiannually exchange memoranda of understanding (MOUs) containing numbers, types, and locations of treaty-accountable strategic nuclear weapons. The tables presented here compare information from the initial September 1990 MOU with data from the July 2001 MOU, demonstrating the progress the parties have made.

Soviet/Russian numbers for 1990 apply to the Soviet Union, while current numbers are provided separately for Russia and Ukraine. Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine have transferred all of their nuclear warheads to Russia, but Ukraine continues to dismantle associated delivery vehicles and hence has “START-accountable” weapons on its territory.

—For more information, contact Philipp C. Bleek.

Key: ICBM: Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, SLBM: Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missile, ALCM: Air-Launched Cruise Missile