The final remaining nuclear arms control agreement between the United States and Russia is poised to expire on Thursday, February 5, leaving the globe without a crucial safeguard against a potential escalation in the arms race. The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), originally signed in 2010, marks the eighth such pact between the two superpowers since the 1963 treaty that prohibited nuclear tests in the atmosphere, outer space, and underwater.
A Delicate Balance of Power at Risk
This third iteration of the strategic arms reduction pact has long served as a vital mechanism for monitoring compliance and maintaining a delicate balance of power. It limits each side to a maximum of 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear warheads. Experts warn that its expiration will not immediately unravel decades of nuclear restraint, but it could trigger a dangerous chain reaction with profound global consequences.
Experts Warn of a Chain Reaction
Dr Jim Walsh, a Senior Research Associate at MIT's Security Studies Program, cautioned that the treaty's end creates a precarious new reality. 'There'll be a turn of events a month from now, a year from now, five years from now,' Walsh stated. 'Things always happen in international affairs. There'll be a war, there'll be a crisis.' In such moments of heightened tension, he explained, the option for nuclear expansion becomes newly viable and alarmingly attractive to national leaders.
Walsh elaborated that a decision by one nation to build more weapons could rapidly prompt others to follow suit, creating a dangerous ripple effect that accelerates a full-blown arms race. Once the formal restraints are removed, escalation can happen with startling speed as momentum builds and countries act before having time for sober reconsideration.
No Further Extension Possible
Unlike past agreements, New START cannot be extended again. The treaty's text allowed for only a single five-year extension, which was exercised in 2021 by Russian President Vladimir Putin and then-US President Joe Biden, even as diplomatic relations between the nations continued to deteriorate.
Former President Donald Trump has indicated he would allow the treaty to lapse without accepting Moscow's proposal to voluntarily maintain its limits on strategic nuclear deployments. 'If it expires, it expires,' Trump told the New York Times. 'We'll just do a better agreement.' However, arms control experts express deep scepticism about the prospects for a swift replacement.
The Symptom of a Larger Disease
John Erath, senior policy director for the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, told the Daily Mail that US leaders had more than a decade to prepare a successor agreement and failed to do so. 'The expiration of the treaty is a symptom, not the disease,' Erath asserted. 'There's a lot going on that's increasing the perception that nuclear war is possible.'
Erath warned that a confluence of global instability, regional conflicts, and weakening diplomatic institutions is occurring precisely as formal nuclear restraints are disappearing. 'All of these developments are happening, and together they are eroding confidence in our safety,' he said. 'They increase the perception that nuclear war is possible. It may not be likely, but the possibility is higher than I feel comfortable with.'
Historical Precedents and Present Dangers
Walsh pointed to past US withdrawals from arms control agreements as cautionary tales. He cited the George W. Bush administration's decision to exit the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, a move initially viewed as manageable. 'It didn't seem like it was a big deal at the time,' Walsh noted. 'And now, all these years later, what's going on? This is part of the reason why China is building more nuclear silos: We've built missile defences, which are a direct threat to their nuclear deterrent.'
He also referenced the US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear agreement, known as the JCPOA. 'Iran was abiding by it, everyone agrees they were abiding by it, but we pulled out of it,' he told the Daily Mail. 'They build more nuclear [weapons], they get closer to a bomb… That doesn't happen if that agreement was still in place.'
The Staggering Scale of the Arsenals
The numerical stakes are immense. Russia currently possesses the world's largest confirmed nuclear arsenal, with more than 5,500 nuclear warheads. A nuclear weapon launched from Russia via an intercontinental ballistic missile could reach the continental United States in approximately 30 minutes.
The US follows closely behind with roughly 5,044 nuclear weapons, stationed both domestically and across five allied nations: Turkey, Italy, Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands. Together, the two nations account for nearly 90 percent of all nuclear weapons on the planet.
A Fading Sense of Urgency
Walsh emphasized that successful arms control negotiations cannot be imposed; they are voluntary. He noted that history's most significant breakthroughs often followed moments of near-catastrophe, such as the Cuban Missile Crisis, when leaders were confronted with the stark reality of mutual destruction.
'When everyone got the crap scared out of them,' Walsh said, decision-makers recognised the existential danger and constructed what he termed an 'architecture of restraint.' Today, he warned, that sense of urgency has dangerously faded from public consciousness. 'No one thinks about nuclear weapons very much anymore,' Walsh told the Daily Mail. 'We think about climate change… We don't really think about nuclear weapons the way we did during the Cold War.'
A Fractured World with Fewer Safeguards
He cautioned that in today's fractured global environment—marked by weaker international institutions, rising nationalism, and more frequent conflicts—the risk of miscalculation increases sharply. 'As we move to this fractured, competitive world, without these institutions, without the treaties, without the restraints, we're going to get more suspicion and more conflict,' he predicted.
Without New START, the world risks losing decades of carefully maintained nuclear stability at a time when the margin for error may be shrinking faster than ever. To prevent a slide toward a point of no return, Erath stressed that 'What's needed is leadership and political will.' The expiration of New START removes the last numerical limits on US and Russian nuclear forces, a development not witnessed since the height of the Cold War, leaving global security in a newly precarious and uncertain state.
