Strategic Arms Limitation Talks

The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (Salt) was two rounds of conferences and corresponding international treaties involving the United States and the Soviet Union in the Cold War on the issue of missiles. The two rounds of talks and agreements were SALT I and SALT II. Negotiations began in Helsinki, Finland, in November 1969. SALT I led to the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and an agreement between the two countries. Although SALT II resulted in an agreement in 1979, the United States chose not to ratify the treaty in response to the Soviet war in Afghanistan, which took place later that year. The agreement expired on December 31, 1985 and was not renewed.
Salt 1 Treaty Strategic Arms Limitation Talks Agreement was signed May 26, 1972. SALT
If the United States or NATO were to increase that number, the USSR could respond with increasing their arsenal by the same amount. The strategic nuclear forces of the Soviet Union and the United States were changing in character in 1968. The total number of missiles held by the United States had been static since 1967 at 1,054 ICBMs and 656 SLBMs but there was an increasing number of missiles with multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) warheads being deployed. MIRVs carried multiple nuclear warheads, often with dummies, to confuse ABM systems, making MIRV defense by ABM systems increasingly difficult and expensive. One clause of the treaty required both countries to limit the number of sites protected by an anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system to two each. The Soviet Union had
It was a continuation of the SALT I talks and was led by representatives from both countries. SALT II was the first nuclear arms treaty which assumed real reductions in strategic forces to 2,250 of all categories of delivery vehicles on both