During the early 1980s, the United States and the Soviet Union entered into a series of talks about strategic arms reduction. Although the U.S. President Reagan had repeatedly accused the Soviets of violating the terms of the SALT II treaty, he was still willing to propose a reduction in all warheads at Geneva in 1982. The discussions that followed were originally referred to as SALT III but ultimately came to be called the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks or START I. IN the first phase, Reagan called a limit of all warheads on missiles to five thousand and a limit of warheads on ICBMs of two thousand five hundred. Only eight hundred and fifty ICBMs would be allowed per side and a limit of about one hundred of the heaviest class of ICBMS. In the second phase, there would be negotiations on the number of warheads carried by heavy bombers.
At the time, the U.S. had a clear advantage in long range bombers which could reach Russia although the Soviet air space was well defended and the targets spread over the huge territory of the Soviet Union. The Soviet fleet of bomber were unable to reach the U.S. for the most part and were mainly intended for conflicts in Europe and Asia. The Soviets had a clear advantage in heavy ICBM so by starting with ICBM reduction, the U.S. would benefit more than the Soviets from the first phase of Reagan’s proposal.
In 1983, Reagan announced the U.S. Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) which was a shift of U.S. policy from the mutually assured destruction (MAD) of the prior decades when it was assumed that it was not possible to win a nuclear war with the Soviets and that if either side started one, both sides would be totally destroyed. The SDI was intended to shift U.S. policy to defending the U.S. against a nuclear attack from the Soviet Union with land and space based defense systems. This shift in U.S. policy alarmed the Soviets because they realized that if the U.S. could possibly stage a first strike against the Soviet Union and withstand a retaliatory strike from the Soviets. The Soviets withdrew from negotiations during the mid 1980s and the strategic arms race accelerated. Although SDI was viewed by many experts as being an impossible plan, billions of dollars were squandered on it in the 1980s.
By the beginning of the 1990s, as a result of the nuclear arms race of the 1980s, both sides had more than ten thousand nuclear warheads. The START I treaty was signed in 1991 by the U.S. President Bush and the Soviet Premier Gorbachev to halt the increase in warheads. There were also limits set for fighter aircraft, tanks, artillery pieces and attack helicopters. The U.S. destroyed three hundred and sixty five B-52 bombers to comply with the treaty. When the Soviet Union broke up in 1991, the Russians inherited the Soviet nuclear arsenal and the Treaty. Other countries that had been part of the Soviet Union sent their nuclear weapons to Russia and signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to become nuclear free countries. When the SALT I treaty expired in 2009, the U.S. State Department reported that the Russians were not in compliance with the terms of the Treaty but gave no specific details of violations.
Signing of the START I in 1991 from U.S. State Department:
