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How did New START reduction targets compare with those in the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty?
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Strategic Arms Reduction Talks
U.S. Pres. Barack Obama talking with Russian Pres. Dmitry Medvedev, just before the two leaders issued a joint statement about their continued cooperation on the New START Treaty, December 4, 2009.
The New START treaty established significantly lower limits on nuclear arsenals compared to the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT), also known as the Moscow Treaty.
- SORT (2002): This treaty mandated that both the United States and Russia reduce their strategic nuclear warheads to a range of 1,700 to 2,200 by December 31, 2012.1
- New START (2010): This agreement set a limit of 1,550 deployed strategic warheads. These targets represent a reduction of approximately 30 percent below the levels established by SORT.1
While SORT focused on warhead counts without requiring the elimination of delivery systems and allowed for the storage of nondeployed warheads, New START implemented stricter limits on both deployed strategic warheads and the number of strategic nuclear delivery vehicles (including both deployed and nondeployed systems).1