ABSTRACT
The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) will also have economic effects. Nevertheless, it is clear that in light of preliminary estimates, the START Treaty is something of an expensive luxury because the procedures for conversion and elimination of strategic weapons are extremely complicated and costly, and sometimes even dangerous. US estimates of the START Treaty's cost to the United States during the 1990’s are between 1.1 and 4.6 billion. The obvious defects and shallowness of the START Treaty, the result of the arms control decision-making mechanisms of both sides, were indirectly reflected in Bush-Gorbachev exchange of initiatives in the fall of 1991. START's transparency regime can support more radical reductions and limitations of strategic forces. The Treaty will, at best, have no influence on the stability of the strategic balance, which is usually taken to mean that it will not change the incentives for either side to deliver a first strike.
