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Why did the United States and Russia face challenges in decommissioning nuclear weapons under START I?

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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 primary challenge in decommissioning nuclear weapons under START I arose from the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991, which left its vast nuclear arsenal dispersed across four newly independent states: Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan.12

This geopolitical shift created two major obstacles:
* Security and Capability: There were significant international concerns regarding whether these new governments could be trusted to harbor such dangerous weapons and whether they possessed the capability to safeguard them against theft or illegal dispersal.13
* Logistical and Financial Burdens: Decommissioning was an expensive and technically difficult process. Russia, in particular, lacked the necessary resources for rapid decommissioning and the replacement of aging systems.2

To address these issues, the Lisbon Protocol was signed in 1992, requiring the three non-Russian states to either destroy their warheads or transfer them to Russia. The United States facilitated this process through the Cooperative Threat Reduction (Nunn-Lugar) program, which provided funding for the dismantling, transport, and secure storage of nuclear materials, as well as the conversion of defense industries to civilian use.231