Discussions aimed at nuclear arms control between the USA and the Soviet Union (after 1991, between the USA and the four republics of the former Soviet Union that inherited nuclear weapons—Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, and Kazakhstan). START negotiations began in 1982, but were suspended by the Soviet Union at the end of 1983 in protest at US deployment of intermediate nuclear missiles in Western Europe. Resuming in 1985, the talks eventually led to the signing of the treaty known as START I in July 1991, which committed the USA and the Soviet Union to a 30% reduction in their nuclear weapons stockpiles. The four nuclear states that emerged from the break-up of the Soviet Union acceded to START I in November 1993. In the interim, Russia and the USA had signed START II in January 1993, which provided for the dismantling of two-thirds of each country’s strategic nuclear warheads and in 1994 agreed to stop aiming their weapons permanently at each other’s countries. However, ratification and implementation of START II stalled, as did negotiations for START III in the late 1990s. In 2002 START II was superseded by the more limited SORT (Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty), an agreement for a two-thirds reduction in nuclear arsenals within 10 years. The more ambitious New START, which was signed in 2010, set a target for a further 30% reduction by 2018.