New START treaty

Why in news:

• Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that Moscow was suspending its participation in the New START treaty.

• New START’s official name is The Treaty between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms.

More about the treaty:

• It is a nuclear arms reduction treaty between the United States and the Russian Federation with the formal name of Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms.
• It was signed on 8 April 2010 in Prague, and after ratification entered into force on 5 February 2011.

• New START replaced the Treaty of Moscow (SORT), which was to expire in December 2012.
• The treaty calls for halving the number of strategic nuclear missile launchers.
• Under the terms, U.S. and Russian inspection teams are also supposed to be able to conduct 18 short-notice inspections of the other country’s nuclear sites per year, to verify that the other side is holding up its end of the deal.
• The deal allows both Russia and the United States to hold onto hundreds of powerful nuclear weapons that, if deployed, could wreak widespread death and destruction.
• The quantity is sufficient to act as a deterrent for launching a nuclear weapon.
• A new inspection and verification regime will be established, replacing the SORT mechanism.
• It does not limit the number of operationally inactive nuclear warheads that can be stockpiled, a number in the high thousands.