Russia ratified START II on 14 April 2000, making it conditional on preserving the ABM Treaty.

Significant numbers of highly accurate warheads and decoys could annihilate an entire nation in a first strike, including a substantial amount of an opponent's missile silos and air force bomber fleet.

It was postponed many times to protest American military actions in Iraq and in Kosovo and to oppose the expansion of NATO in Eastern Europe.

Specifically, these conditions were that the US would continue to uphold the ABM Treaty,[2] and that the US Senate would ratify a September 1997 addendum to START II that included agreed statements on the demarcation of strategic and tactical missile defenses.

The US Senate never ratified the addendum, as a faction of Republicans led by Jesse Helms opposed any limits on American anti-ballistic missile systems.

On 13 June 2002, the US withdrew from the ABM Treaty, and the following day, Russia announced that it would no longer consider itself to be bound by START II provisions.

[4] The US developed the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system to protect itself from small-scale ICBM attacks.