Last US-Russia nuclear pact about to expire
The last remaining nuclear arms pact between Russia and the United States is set to expire on Thursday, removing any caps on the two largest atomic arsenals for the first time in more than a half-century.
The termination of the New START Treaty would set the stage for what many fear could be an unconstrained nuclear arms race.
Russian President Vladimir Putin declared readiness to stick to the treaty’s limits for another year if Washington follows suit, but President Donald Trump has been noncommittal about extending it.
Trump has repeatedly indicated he would like to keep limits on nuclear weapons and involve China in arms control talks. Beijing has balked at any restrictions on its smaller but growing nuclear arsenal.
More dangerous world
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday it would be a “more dangerous” world without limits on US and Russian nuclear stockpiles.
Arms control advocates long have voiced concern about the expiration of New START, warning it could lead to a new Russia-US arms race, foment global instability, and increase the risk of nuclear conflict.
Failure to agree on keeping the pact’s limits will likely encourage a bigger deployment, said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association in Washington.
“We’re at the point now where the two sides could, with the expiration of this treaty, for the first time in about 35 years, increase the number of nuclear weapons that are deployed on each side,” Kimball told The Associated Press (AP). “And this would open up the possibility of an unconstrained, dangerous three-way arms race, not just between the US and Russia, but also involving China, which is also increasing its smaller but still deadly nuclear arsenal.”
Revised doctrine
Putin repeatedly has brandished Russia’s nuclear might since sending troops into Ukraine in February 2022, warning Moscow was prepared to use “all means” to protect its security interests. In 2024, he signed a revised nuclear doctrine lowering the threshold for nuclear weapons use.
New START, signed in 2010 by US President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, restricted each side to no more than 1,550 nuclear warheads on no more than 700 missiles and bombers—deployed and ready for use. It was originally supposed to expire in 2021 but was extended for five more years.
The pact envisioned sweeping on-site inspections to verify compliance, although they stopped in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic and never resumed.
In February 2023, Putin suspended Moscow’s participation, saying Russia couldn’t allow US inspections of its nuclear sites at a time when Washington and its Nato allies have openly declared Moscow’s defeat in Ukraine as their goal.
Arms reduction pacts
New START followed a long succession of US-Russian nuclear arms reduction pacts, starting with SALT I in 1972 signed by US President Richard Nixon and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev—the first attempt to limit their arsenals.
The 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty restricted the countries’ missile defense systems until President George W. Bush took the United States out of the pact in 2001 despite Moscow’s warnings.
Trump’s October statement about US intentions to resume nuclear tests for the first time since 1992 troubled the Kremlin, which last conducted a test in 1990 when the USSR still existed.
Putin said Russia would respond in kind if the United States resumes tests, which are banned by a global treaty that Moscow and Washington signed.
Kimball said a US resumption of tests “would blow a massive hole in the global system to reduce nuclear risk,” marking “a potential turning point into a much more dangerous period of global nuclear competition, the likes of which we’ve not seen in our lifetimes.”
