Russian Ratification of START II and Its Implications for Arms Control

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An Arms Control Association Press Conference

Monday, April 17, 2000

The Carnegic Endowment for International Peace

The Russian State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, approved START II on Friday, April 14. Signed in January 1993 by Presidents Bush and Yeltsin, START II would reduce U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear arsenals to a level of 3,000 to 3,500 deployed strategic nuclear warheads, which is roughly half that allowed under START I and 25 percent of levels deployed during the Cold War. Russian ratification of START II will permit initiation of formal negotiations on START III, which would establish ceilings of 2,000 to 2,500 deployed strategic nuclear warheads or possibly lower.

The panel will address the significance of START II and START III, the relationship between Russian START II ratification and U.S. efforts to amend the ABM Treaty, and the status of legislative barriers in the United States to bringing START II into force.

The Panelists:

(Click on the underlined names of the participants to jump directly to their portions of the transcript in the May 2000 issue of Arms Control Today.)

• Spurgeon M. Keeny, Jr., President and Executive Director of the Arms Control Association; former Deputy Director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.
• Ambassador Thomas Graham, Jr., President of the Lawyers Alliance for World Security; former Special Representative of the President for Arms Control, Non-Proliferation and Disarmament from 1994-1997, and former Acting Director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.
• Jack Mendelsohn, Vice President and Executive Director of the Lawyers Alliance for World Security; former member of the U.S. delegations to the SALT II and START I negotiations.
• Daryl Kimball, Executive Director of the Coalition to Reduce Nuclear Dangers.
• Questions and Answers