The Cold War Arms Race and the Last Nuclear Agreement

On July 31, 1990, American President George H.W. Bush (L) and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev sign START agreements detailing the mutual destruction of the two countries' nuclear arsenals. (Public Domain)

In May of 1972, President Richard Nixon took the unprecedented top in Moscow. Accompanied by his wife, Pat, his secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, and a host of other American officials, Nixon arrived on the heels of his also unprecedented, February visit to Beijing. The combative relationship between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) had culminated in the ongoing Cold War, which came with the possibility of nuclear war. It had only been a decade since that possibility careened toward probability with the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.

John F. Kennedy and Nikita Krushchev meet in Vienna prior to the Cuban Missile Crisis. (Public Domain)

Thankfully, this nuclear showdown between the United States and the USSR ended in de-escalation. The Soviets agreed to remove their nuclear warheads from Cuba, and America agreed to remove theirs from Turkey. At the time, the United States and the USSR were led by John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev, respectively. The subsequent diplomatic talks resulted in the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963 (LTB), which banned nuclear weapons testing in the atmosphere, underwater, and outer space, and limited testing underground.

About five years prior to the signing of the LTBT, America—under Dwight D. Eisenhower—the USSR, and Great Britain, had been in negotiations for a similar treaty. One of the sticking points was verification. The Americans and the British required actual verification that the Soviets were not testing, but the Soviets viewed the demand as a ruse for espionage. When the Soviets shot down the CIA’s U-2 spy plane over Russia, the negotiations ceased. The 1963 LTBT dispensed with physical verification of only underground explosions in order to accomplish a successful negotiation. It was a significant step.

A U.S. Air Force U-2 spy plane flies in this undated file photo. (USAF/Getty Images)

Nixon, aware that the road to nuclear disarmament, or at least a significant arms decrease, was long and full of pitfalls, took what was available.

“We have sought to construct a better framework of understanding between our two nations, to make progress in our bilateral relationships, and to find ways of ensuring that future frictions between us would never embroil our two nations—and therefore the world—in war,” stated Nixon in his speech in Moscow, which was simultaneously broadcast across the USSR and in America.

The Start of SALT

The framework included the Anti-Ballistic Missiles Treaty, which limited both nations’ capability to protect themselves via missile defense systems. The rationale behind this agreement was to utilize deterrence (that is, the possibility of mutually assured destruction) to limit arms and maintain peace between the countries.

The two nations agreed to establish limits on the number of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs)—1,710 for America and 2,360 for the Soviet Union. Furthermore, the Nixon-Brezhnev meeting also resulted in initiating SALT—Strategic Arms Limitations Talks.

At the time of the Moscow conference, the Soviets possessed more warheads and ICBMs, but the Americans’ missiles were more accurate. The United States also had B-25 bombers, against which Soviet aircraft couldn’t compare. In addition, the United States possessed “forward based systems” in both Europe and East Asia, which ensured a second nuclear strike could take place outside American borders. SALT was a five-year agreement to limit the number of offensive nuclear missile silos and submarine-based missile tubes.

A deactivated Titan II nuclear ICMB is seen in a silo at the Titan Missile Museum on May 12, 2015 in Green Valley, Ariz. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images)

SALT II

As was often the case during the Cold War, the advance of technology required new treaties. Despite the ratification of SALT I, the United States developed multiple independently targeted reentry vehicles (MIRVs). These enabled a single missile to carry multiple warheads and fire them at separate locations. But this new technology forced a second round of talks between the Americans and Soviets.

In 1974, only two years after that May 1972 meeting, the leaders of the United States and the USSR returned to the negotiating table for SALT II. Nixon had resigned by this time, and his vice president, now president, Gerald Ford negotiated with Brezhnev. The SALT II talks became known as the Vladivostok Accords, which set the number of nuclear launch vehicles at 2,400 for each nation, including ICBMs and SLBMs. Of those 2,400, no more than 1,320 could be MIRVs.

SALT II made a significant step forward in arms control, but military technology once again changed the game. The Americans developed the cruise missile, which could avoid radar by flying low to the ground; the Soviets developed the TU-22M, a bomber capable of supersonic speed.

American President Gerald Ford and Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brehznev sign what became known as the Vladivostok Accords, on Nov. 24, 1974. (Public Domain)

A Cuban Mini-Crisis

When Jimmy Carter became president in 1977, he requested new talks and a new treaty that set stricter arms limits. Mr. Carter wanted limits on both U.S. cruise missiles and the Soviet supersonic bomber. The final agreement in June of 1979 limited the cruise missile, but not the bomber. The Senate was displeased with SALT II, with senators fighting over the limitations or lack thereof and therefore it wasn’t ratified.

Ultimately, it wasn’t the SALT II’s contents that halted ratification, but that Sen. Frank Church, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, called to attention that several thousand Soviet soldiers were in Cuba. “There is no likelihood that the Senate would ratify the SALT II treaty as long as Soviet combat troops remain in Cuba,” Church indicated.

The Soviets-in-Cuba issue, however, seemed a ruse to avoid ratifying the treaty; it was no secret that Soviet troops had been there since the missile crisis. The Soviets hadn’t violated any agreement, as the Cuban Missile Crisis agreements only required that the Soviets not possess any “offensive weapons” that could initiate an attack on American soil.

The Senate refused to ratify SALT II; but that wasn’t because of the Cuban situation, but rather more because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December of 1979. Regardless, the Carter administration and the Soviets decided to abide by the agreements as a way to avoid escalation.

Afghan fighters in the early 1980s against the Soviets. (AFP via Getty Images)

A False START

When Ronald Reagan became president in 1981, he made a far-reaching and seemingly unattainable request concerning the ongoing arms race. He proposed the bilateral removal of all intermediate-range nuclear missiles in what he called the “zero option. He called for removing the Americans’ Pershing II and Tomahawk missiles, and the Soviets’ SS-20, SS-5, and SS-4 missiles.

His proposal, named the Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty (START), would also reduce strategic weapons by half. As much as the Soviets supported the removal of America’s intermediate-range missiles, they were against the removal of their own. When the Reagan administration continued with a scheduled deployment of intermediate-range missiles to Europe in 1983, the Soviets walked away from the negotiating table.

The same year the Soviets walked away from the negotiating table, Reagan announced the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), which critics called “Star Wars.” SDI was a space-based defense missile system that would protect the country from nuclear attack. The problem was that the technology had yet to be invented. A second problem, pinpointed by the Soviets, was that it went against the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty signed by Nixon and Brezhnev.

Reagan, however, was adamant about SDI. Even after Mikhail Gorbachev, the relatively liberal-minded leader of the Soviet Union, was elected in March of 1985, SDI proved a deterrent to arms race negotiations in the coming years.

Gorbachev, though, was focused on improving the economic situation in the USSR, which he believed required decreased military spending. In January of 1985, Secretary of State George Schultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrey Gromyko agreed negotiations would be separated into to three categories: intermediate and short-range missiles (INF), strategic arms (START), and defense and space (NST).

A New START

Over the next three and a half years, Reagan and Gorbachev held four summits: in Geneva, Reykjavik, Washington, and Moscow. The two sides finally agreed to dispense with the SDI subject and discuss an arms treaty regarding intermediate-range missiles.

After the two met in Reykjavik, Iceland, Gorbachev proposed the additional removal of shorter-range missiles, which he called “double global zero.” Reagan agreed. The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty was signed in Washington on Dec. 8, 1987.

U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev talk outside the Hofoi House in Reykjavik, Iceland, in 1986. (Public Domain)

According to the U.S. State Department, “The final treaty eliminated an entire class of nuclear weapons, restricting the deployment of both intermediate and short-range land-based missiles worldwide. The treaty also called, for the first time, for extensive verification measures, including intrusive inspections. It was the first arms control agreement the two nations had completed since the SALT II agreement failed at ratification, and the first treaty that required the destruction of existing weapons, instead of simply setting future limits on deployments.”

Less than a year later, Reagan’s former vice president, George H.W. Bush, *won the election less than a year later and became president in 1989. Bush came into the presidency as the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse. In November of that year, the Berlin Wall—the visible symbol of the Soviet Union’s “Iron Curtain”—fell. Its fall symbolized the dismantling of the USSR, as revolutions began to sweep across Eastern Europe. As the Cold War thawed, Bush and Gorbachev pressed on with START negotiations.

During the summer of 1991, Bush arrived in Moscow to meet with Gorbachev and finalize the START agreement. It required that both countries reduce their number of bombs and nuclear warheads from 10,000 to less than 6,000. It was during this week in history, on July 31, 1991, that the last defense treaty between America and the USSR was signed.

Bush’s arrival mirrored Nixon’s when he arrived in Moscow nearly 20 years later. This mirror image, however, was in reverse, as Nixon was the first president to visit Soviet Moscow and Bush was the last. On Christmas Day of 1991, the Soviet Union dissolved, as the country’s famous hammer and sickle flag was lowered at the Kremlin for the last time.

West Berliners crowd in front of the Berlin Wall early Nov. 11, 1989, as they watch East German border guards demolishing a section of the wall. (Gerard Malie/AFP via Getty Images)

START Continued

Although the USSR had crumbled, Russia, along with three former Soviet republics in Eastern Europe, ratified the treaty. In 1993, Bush and new Russian president Boris Yeltsin signed the START II agreement. It brought about Reagan’s once supposedly preposterous request of decreasing the countries’ nuclear weapons by half. America and Russia ratified START II in 1996 and 2000, respectively. 

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