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67. START I Treaty
The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, now known as START I, was one of the key weapons agreements forged during the détente period of the late Cold War era. Negotiations for strategic weapon reductions of the United States and Soviet Union arsenals began in 1982, when both nations sought a lessening of Cold War tensions. The initial enthusiasm for the treaty waned when the Soviet Union withdrew from talks regarding weapons reduction after the United States deployed several immediate-range missiles in allied nations in western Europe. Negotiations did not begin again until 1985, and then progressed slowly until the fall the Iron Curtain and Soviet-influenced communism in Eastern Europe. START I was finally signed by United States President George H. W. Bush and Soviet Premier Mikhel Gorbachev in Moscow on July 31, 1991. START I called for a drastic reduction of United States and Soviet arsenals. The treaty was originally designed to cover a fifteen-year period, in which the total Cold War build-up of weapons would be reduced to a third of its pretreaty strength. The two nations agreed to limit strategic arms, and maintain similarly strengthened arsenals. The treaty covered not only warheads, but also long-range delivery vehicles including Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs). START I limited each nation to 1,600 nuclear delivery vehicles, 6,000 warheads, and less than 7,000 ballistic missile warheads. Both nations began developing plans and facilities for weapons destruction during the negotiation process, however, the United States was better equipped to handle limited disarmament at the time START I was signed.
Though an indication of diminishing Cold War era tensions between the two nations, the treaty was controversial. Some argued that the treaty handicapped new weapons development and downplayed national security threats from other nations aside from the Soviet Union. Environmentalists feared that large-scale weapons destruction would not be adequately planned or contained, causing damage similar to that of already controversial weapons testing.
The largest hurdle to START I, however, came just a few months after its ratification. In 1991, The Soviet Union dissolved, leaving its nuclear arsenal scattered in the newly independent nations of Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus. The four Soviet successor states signed an addendum to the START I treaty on May 23, 1992. The Lisbon Protocol to the START I treaty added these nations to the treaty, each agreeing to dismantle their weapons arsenals to meet the provisions of the original treaty. The protocol further bound the nations to a Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, strictly curtailing the sale or transmission of nuclear technology to non-nuclear nations and eliminating Soviet-era nuclear weapons from Soviet successor states, with the exception of Russia. Under the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program, all warheads in Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan were transferred back to Russia by 1997.
START I does not expire until 2009, but in December 2001, all START I reductions were completed. Russia and the United States signed a subsequent START treaty in 1993, and the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT) in 2002. These treaties further reduce the permitted number of strategic arms, but also address the problems of aging nuclear arsenals and the possibility of long-term weapons storage as an alternative to destruction.
68. START II
START II, or the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms Treaty, was drafted as an expansion of the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I). The treaties between Russia and the United States prescribed the reduction of national nuclear warheads, delivery systems, and ballistic missiles. START II proposed to reduce the arsenals of the United States and Russia to a third of their pre-treaty strength.
The second strategic arms reduction treaty was signed in Moscow on January 3, 1993. The treaty was not ratified by the U.S. Senate until three years later. In March 1997, at the Helsinki Summit, an addendum known as the Helsinki Protocol was added to START II and later ratified by both nations. The Helsinki Protocol allowed for an extended amount of time to achieve treaty objectives, giving both nations time to implement new programs for deactivation, storage, and destruction.
START II, with the Helsinki Protocol addendum, called for two phases of reduction. The first phase included a sizable reduction of warheads and demanded the complete deactivation of nuclear warhead delivery systems banned by the treaty by the end of 2004. The second phase proposed a further reduction of warheads and the destruction of deactivated missiles and delivery systems by December 31, 2007.
START II especially addressed post-Cold War relations between Russia and the United States, seeking to reduce the Cold War era build up of arms and forge new Russian-American cooperative strategies in regard to international nuclear policy. The treaty called for both nations to reduce their arsenals to approximately 3, 500 warheads. In addition to prescribing further deactivation of warheads, START II expanded limitations on delivery systems such as submarines, bombers, and ballistic missiles. A main American objective of START II negotiations was a ban on all Russian SS-18 missiles. The final treaty banned all current Multiple Independently Targetable Reentry Vehicles (MIRVs) missiles, or heavy ballistic missiles with multiple warheads, in both nations’ deployed forces. This provision was mainly targeted at encouraging strategic disarmament in former Soviet satellite nations in Europe and Asia, and the dismantling of Russian and American “first strike capability” weapons.
START II prescribed the same rigid guidelines for weapons counting and destruction as START I. It further utilized the same policing, reporting, and confirmation committees as established by the former treaty. START II was once again brought into the spotlight in 2002. Earlier moves by the U.S. government to amend, or even dissolve, a separate treaty with Russia regarding ballistic missiles, to allow possible construction of a missile defense system, prompted Russia to reevaluate their interest in continuing with START II arms reductions. In May 2002, U.S. President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a new weapons management treaty, the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT).
82. Technology Transfer Center (NTTC), Emergency Response Technology Program
The National Technology Transfer Center (NTTC) is a research facility on the campus of Wheeling Jesuit University in Wheeling, West Virginia. It was established by Congress in 1989, with a mandate to increase the effectiveness of U.S. industry by providing access to some $70 billion in federally funded research. Among the facilities of this full-service technology management and commercialization center is the Emergency Response Technology (ERT) Program. The latter attempts to match the technology needs of emergency medical, firefighting, hazardous materials, public safety, and special operations personnel with off-the-shelf technologies.
The ERT Program is led by its advisory council, the Emergency Response Technology Group (ERTG). It is the responsibility of the ERTG to identify technology needs and match them to a range of existing technologies. Those existing technologies are evaluated with regard to their applicability to specific areas of need, and assuming it meets the test, the technology is brought before the ERTG as a group to validate it. Upon validating, the ERTG undertakes assistance of the developer by overseeing operational tests and evaluations at participating facilities throughout the United States. Once successfully brought to market, what was once a prototype becomes an operational commercial product.
Among the products the ERTG sought to develop in 2003 was a building and facility emergency response information/survey tool, which would store data, including location of power panels and wiring, to enhance the ability of rescue personnel to penetrate all areas of a building; a personnel locator/monitor that would provide three-dimensional tracking of emergency personnel at an emergency site; an approaching traffic warning device; and a hazard assessment robot that could be passively activated by remote sensors. In the 18 months prior to September 2002, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the NTTC as a whole had brokered some 30 deals in which business firms licensed technology developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency. An example of a product it had recently helped market was the RoadSpike, a portable device capable of deflating tires of motorists attempting to run roadblocks.
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