Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT)

(noun)

The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) refers to two rounds of bilateral talks and corresponding international treaties involving the United States and the Soviet Union—the Cold War superpowers—on the issue of armament control. There were two rounds of talks and agreements: SALT I and SALT II.

Related Terms

Examples of Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) in the following topics:

  • Foreign Policies

    • A key foreign policy issue Carter worked laboriously on was the second Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT II), which reduced the number of nuclear arms produced and/or maintained by both the United States and the Soviet Union.
    • Following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan late in 1979, however, Carter withdrew the treaty from consideration by Congress and the treaty was never ratified (though it was signed by both Carter and Brezhnev).
    • Carter insisted that what he termed "Soviet aggression" in Afghanistan could not be viewed as an isolated event of limited geographical importance but had to be contested as a potential threat to U.S. influence in the Persian Gulf region.
    • This led directly to the 1979 Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty and resulted in Sadat and Begin sharing the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize.
    • President Jimmy Carter and Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev sign the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II) treaty, June 18, 1979, in Vienna.

  • The Ford Administration

    • Still in place from the Nixon Administration was the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT).
    • The Cyprus dispute turned into a crisis with the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, causing extreme strain within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance.
    • For six months between March and September 1975, the United States refused to conclude any new arms agreements with Israel.
    • Ford meets with Soviet Union leader Leonid Brezhnev in Vladivostok, November 1974, to sign a joint communiqué on the SALT treaty.

  • The Ford Inauguration

    • Still in place from the Nixon Administration was the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT).

  • The Carter Administration

    • In his inaugural address, Carter stated: "We have learned that more is not necessarily better, that even our great nation has its recognized limits, and that we can neither answer all questions nor solve all problems. " Carter had campaigned on a promise to eliminate the trappings of the "Imperial Presidency," and he began taking action according to that promise on the day of his inauguration, breaking with recent history and security protocols by walking up Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the White House in his inaugural parade.
    • In foreign affairs, Carter initiated the Camp David Accords, the Panama Canal Treaties, and the second round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II).
    • On the other hand, he successfully brokered the beginnings of a historic peace treaty between Egypt and Israel.

  • Détente and Human Rights

    • This treaty limited each power's nuclear arsenals, though it was quickly rendered out-of-date as a result of the development of a new type of warhead.
    • In the same year that SALT I was signed, the Biological Weapons Convention and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty were also concluded.
    • A follow up treaty, SALT II was discussed but was never ratified by the United States.
    • The SALT II pact of the late 1970s built on the work of the SALT I talks, ensuring further reduction in arms by the Soviets and by the US .
    • President Nixon and Premier Brezhnev lead in the high period of détente, signing treaties such as SALT I and the Helsinki Accords.

  • The End of the Cold War

    • During 1987 summit meetings, Reagan and Gorbachev agreed to nuclear arms reductions, ushering in the end of the decades-long Cold War.
    • However, the size of the Soviet armed forces was not necessarily the result of a simple action-reaction arms race with the United States.
    • Instead, Soviet spending on the arms race and other Cold War commitments can be understood as both a cause and effect of the deep-seated structural problems in the Soviet system, which accumulated at least a decade of economic stagnation during the Brezhnev years.
    • On the third meeting, Gorbachev and Reagan signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty at the White House, which eliminated an entire class of nuclear weapons.
    • The two leaders laid the framework for the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START I; Reagan insisted that the name of the treaty be changed from Strategic Arms Limitation Talks to Strategic Arms Reduction Talks.

  • The George H.W. Bush Administration

    • Another summit was held in July of 1991, when the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I) was signed by Bush and Gorbachev in Moscow.
    • The treaty was nine years in the making and was the first major arms agreement since the signing of the Intermediate Ranged Nuclear Forces Treaty by Reagan and Gorbachev in 1987.
    • -Russia strategic partnership, marking the official end of the Cold War.
    • The treaty has since been defended as well as criticized.
    • With talk in early 2008 regarding a possible American withdrawal from the treaty, Carlos M.

  • Nixon in China

    • Specifically, Nixon used the improving international environment to address the topic of nuclear arms.
    • Out of the summit came agreements for increased trade and two landmark arms control treaties: SALT I, the first comprehensive limitation pact signed by the two superpowers, and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which banned the development of systems designed to intercept incoming missiles.

  • Foreign Policy

    • The approaches are strategically employed to interact with other countries.
    • In the past, foreign policy may have concerned itself primarily with policies solely related to national interest--for example, military power or treaties.
    • Congress is involved in foreign policy through its amending, oversight, and budgetary powers and through the constitutional power related to appointments, treaties, and war that it shares with the president.
    • While Congress has sometimes worked to limit the president's autonomy in foreign policy, the use of executive orders and the ability to enter military engagements without formal declarations of war have ensured the president's continued primacy in international affairs.
    • The main foreign policies during the Cold War were containment, deterrence, détente, arms control, and the use of military force like in Vietnam.

  • Nixon and Foreign Policy

    • First, the United States would keep all of its treaty commitments.
    • In addition to human losses and financial deficit, U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War demonstrated to many in the U.S. that there were limitations to its overseas military engagements.
    • The Nixon administration pursued American's strategic interests in conflicts in Latin America.
    • After taking no action at the beginning of the war, Nixon cut through inter-departmental squabbles and bureaucracy to initiate an airlift of American arms.
    • OAPEC declared it would limit or stop oil shipments to the United States and other countries if they supported Israel in the conflict.