New START: US and Russia extend nuclear treaty
• 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.
• The United States has extended the New START nuclear disarmament treaty with Russia for five years.
• It entered into force on 5th 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.
• After both Moscow and Washington withdrew from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 2019, New START is the only remaining nuclear arms control deal between the two countries.
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 2nd August 2019.
