NUCLEAR Nightmare — Last Treaty DIES

The world’s two largest nuclear arsenals are about to break free from the last remaining legal constraints that have prevented an unchecked arms race for over five decades.

Story Snapshot

New START treaty expires February 4, 2026, ending all verifiable limits on US and Russian strategic nuclear warheads for the first time since the 1970s
Russia and the United States collectively control approximately 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons, with capacity to rapidly increase deployed warheads by 60-110%
Putin proposed a one-year voluntary extension in September 2025, but Trump showed little interest, insisting on a multilateral deal including China
No successor negotiations are underway, and Russia suspended inspections and data exchanges in 2023 citing US hostile actions over Ukraine
Experts warn the treaty’s collapse could trigger the fastest nuclear arms race since the Cold War, with billions in new spending and heightened miscalculation risks

The Last Guardrail Crumbles

New START represented the final thread connecting five decades of painstaking nuclear diplomacy between Washington and Moscow. Signed in Prague on April 8, 2010, by President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, the treaty capped deployed strategic warheads at 1,550 per side and limited delivery systems to 700 missiles and bombers. This framework built upon Cold War achievements that slashed arsenals from over 10,000 warheads each in 1991 to roughly 1,500-2,000 by the mid-2010s. The treaty entered force in 2011 for a ten-year term with a one-time five-year extension option, which Biden and Putin exercised in February 2021 just days before expiration.

That extension now reaches its terminal point on February 4, 2026. Unlike previous treaty lapses, no replacement negotiations exist. Russia suspended on-site inspections and data exchanges in February 2023, citing American military aid to Ukraine as hostile interference, though Moscow pledged to maintain numerical compliance. The United States reciprocated the inspection halt. This mutual freeze left the treaty’s verification backbone paralyzed while both nations publicly claimed adherence to warhead limits. Without verification mechanisms or binding commitments beyond this week, those claims become unenforceable promises in a climate of profound mutual distrust.

Trump’s Indifference and Putin’s Calculated Gambit

President Donald Trump’s return to the White House in his second term brought dismissive rhetoric toward the treaty’s fate. When asked about the impending expiration, Trump shrugged with “if it expires, it expires,” a posture consistent with his broader disdain for multilateral agreements demonstrated through actions on Iran and Venezuela. Putin floated a one-year voluntary adherence proposal in September 2025, contingent on American reciprocity. Trump called the idea “good” but took no action, instead demanding a grander multilateral treaty incorporating China’s expanding arsenal and insisting future agreements include European nuclear forces.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned in late 2025 that “time is running out” on Putin’s proposal, lamenting Moscow’s lack of “clear interlocutors” in Washington for substantive negotiations. This diplomatic paralysis reflects asymmetric strategic priorities: Putin seeks leverage against NATO expansion and US missile defense systems, while Trump prioritizes demonstrable American nuclear supremacy and refuses treaties he views as constraining only the United States. Both leaders exploit the expiration to justify arsenal expansions their defense establishments have long desired, cloaking geopolitical ambitions in the language of national security imperatives.

The Mechanics of Unconstrained Escalation

The treaty’s collapse unlocks immediate pathways for rapid warhead increases. Both nations maintain substantial reserve stockpiles that can be uploaded onto existing delivery systems within months. The United States could expand deployed warheads by 110% of current treaty limits, while Russia retains capacity for a 60% increase, according to arms control analysts. These uploads require no new missile construction, merely activating warheads already produced and stored. The absence of inspections means neither side can verify the other’s actions, creating incentives to upload preemptively rather than risk falling behind in a shadow arms race.

This technical reality intersects with volatile geopolitical conditions: the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war featuring Russian nuclear threats and disputed control of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, accelerating US “Golden Dome” missile defense deployments, and the 2026 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference demanding disarmament progress from nuclear powers. The combination creates what Tilman Ruff of the University of Melbourne calls an “ominous warning” that disarmament efforts have become moribund. Rose Gottemoeller, former US Deputy Secretary of State and treaty negotiator, warned the expiration without replacement will accelerate an arms race neither superpower can afford but both seem willing to pursue.

Ripple Effects Beyond the Superpowers

The treaty’s demise reverberates far beyond US-Russian bilateral relations. China’s expanding nuclear arsenal, projected to reach 1,500 warheads by 2035, gains justification as Washington and Moscow abandon restraint. NATO allies in Europe face renewed Russian nuclear saber-rattling without treaty constraints to moderate Kremlin behavior. Non-nuclear states party to the NPT watch the world’s largest arsenals abandon legal limits just as the treaty’s review process demands credible disarmament steps from nuclear powers. This erosion of norms emboldens proliferators like Iran and North Korea, who cite superpower hypocrisy to justify their own programs.

Defense contractors stand to profit enormously from the coming buildup, with billions in new contracts for warhead production, delivery system upgrades, and expanded command infrastructure. The economic costs extend to taxpayers funding this expansion amid competing domestic priorities. Socially, the renewed nuclear arms race revives Cold War-era anxieties that had faded in younger generations, reintroducing existential dread into public consciousness. Politically, the collapse weakens diplomacy as a tool for managing great power competition, empowering hardliners in Moscow, Washington, and Beijing who view arms control as weakness rather than mutual security.

The Path Not Taken

Experts across think tanks and academic institutions nearly unanimously assess this trajectory as profoundly destabilizing. The Nuclear Threat Initiative characterized the shift as moving “from limits to looming risks,” while the Union of Concerned Scientists warned the expiration could trigger the most rapid arms race in modern history. Chatham House analysts noted the treaty’s end removes the only remaining framework governing the world’s two largest arsenals, creating unchecked competition exacerbated by missile defense asymmetries and regional conflicts. The rare optimistic voices suggesting a voluntary one-year bridge remain possible face the cold reality that neither Trump nor Putin has demonstrated willingness to compromise.

The expiration marks the first time since the early 1970s that no legally binding limits constrain US and Russian strategic nuclear forces. The collapse of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 2019 already eliminated restrictions on medium-range systems. New START’s demise completes the dismantling of the arms control architecture painstakingly constructed over five decades. Whether this breakdown proves temporary or permanent depends on political will currently absent in both capitals, and on whether the mounting risks of miscalculation and escalation eventually force leaders to reconsider the wisdom of unconstrained nuclear competition in an increasingly multipolar and unstable world.