The last remaining nuclear arms control treaty between the United States and Russia — New START — is set to expire on Feb. 5, 2026.
This treaty, which caps the nuclear arsenals of both nations at 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear weapons each, was signed back in 2010, during the administrations of U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev. At that time, the two nations were engaged in what proved to be an abortive “reset” of relations.
But the underlying problems which prompted the need for a reset — NATO expansion, continued U.S. pursuit of hegemony disguised as a “rules based international order” and a general U.S. disregard for arms control as a necessary mechanism of global stability — were never fully addressed, and new problems emerged (such as the reemergence of Vladimir Putin as the president of Russian, Russian intervention in Syria and the conflict in Ukraine) which made a reset impossible.
Instead, relations between the two nuclear-armed world powers worsened, and today the U.S. finds itself in a proxy war with Russia in Ukraine that threatens to go nuclear at any moment should either side make a mistake or miscalculation. Both nations find themselves on the cusp of a new nuclear arms race, and the only thing that holds them back is a treaty set to expire and no new treaty on the horizon.
On Sept. 22, Russian President Vladmir Putin, speaking to his Security Council, declared that “to avoid provoking a further strategic arms race and to ensure an acceptable level of predictability and restraint, we believe it is justified to try to maintain the status quo established by the New START Treaty during the current, rather turbulent period.” Putin said Russia is prepared to stick by the treaty’s limits for one more year after it expires.
As of the end of September, the Trump administration had yet to formally respond to Putin’s offer regarding New START. The closest thing to a response was a comment made by President Donald Trump to the press when asked about Putin’s offer. “Sounds like a good idea to me,” Trump told reporters as he departed the White House.
The lack of an official response from the Trump administration regarding a moratorium on retaining the New START caps on deployed nuclear weapons is disconcerting, since the purpose of the moratorium isn’t to simply prevent an arms race in the short term, but also buy time for negotiations that would result in a new treaty framework that takes into account the complexities surrounding the issue of nuclear weapons and arms control today.
Hellbound and Down 