New START Treaty

• 27 Nov 2019

The New START Treaty is a treaty between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on measures for the further reduction and limitation of strategic offensive arms.

• It entered into force on 5^th February, 2011.
• It is a successor to the START framework of 1991 (at the end of the Cold War) that limited both sides to 1,600 strategic delivery vehicles and 6,000 warheads.
• It continues the bipartisan process of verifiably reducing U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear arsenals by limiting both sides to 700 strategic launchers and 1,550 operational warheads.
• It will lapse in February 2021 unless extended for a five-year period.

Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty

• INF Treaty is another treaty that was signed during the Cold War.
• It was a nuclear arms-control accord reached by the United States and the Soviet Union in 1987 in which the two nations agreed to eliminate their stocks of intermediate-range and shorter-range (or “medium-range”) land-based missiles (which could carry nuclear warheads).
• The United States withdrew from the Treaty on 2^nd August 2019.

Note:

• The term ‘strategic offensive arms’ applies to nuclear warheads deployed by Strategic Nuclear Delivery Vehicles (‘SNDVs’).
• SNDVs are Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles (‘ICBMs’) with a range exceeding 5,500 kilometres, strategic bombers, warships (including strategic submarines ) and cruise missiles, including air and sea-launched cruise missiles.