By Somar Wijayadasa*
NEW YORK | 7 February 2026 (IDN) — On 5 February 2026, the New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty)—the last remaining nuclear arms control agreement between the United States and Russia—expired.
For the first time since 1972, there are no legally binding limits on strategic nuclear weapons between Washington and Moscow. This marks the beginning of a dangerous new chapter: the two countries that together possess more than 90 percent of the world’s nuclear warheads are now free to expand their arsenals without restraint.
Signed in 2010 by U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, New START entered into force in February 2011. It capped deployed strategic nuclear warheads at 1,550 per side, limited delivery systems—intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarines, and bombers—to 700, restricted launchers to 800, and established rigorous verification measures, including on-site inspections and data exchanges.
New START represented the culmination of decades of arms control efforts that reduced the global nuclear stockpile from a Cold War peak of roughly 70,000 warheads in the mid-1980s to about 12,200 today.
In 2023, the Treaty faced impediments, including on-site inspections of each other’s facilities by the U.S. and Russia due to the coronavirus pandemic, sanctions against Russia, the proxy war in Ukraine, which impeded access to nuclear sites, etc., but both parties continued to abide by the Treaty’s stringent requirements.
The Treaty provided transparency, predictability, and strategic stability, helping prevent a renewed nuclear arms race. Its survival for 15 years under such adverse conditions testified to the tenacity and pragmatism of both parties.
A Pragmatic Option
President Vladimir Putin proposed that both sides voluntarily maintain the limits of New START for one additional year after its expiration. President Donald Trump initially described the proposal as “a good idea.” Still, he later remarked that if the Treaty expired, “we’ll just do a better agreement”—a statement that invites uncertainty rather than stability.
Former Russian President Medvedev warned that the world could enter a dangerous phase in which more countries seek nuclear weapons as the ultimate guarantor of sovereignty. Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, stressed that it is still not too late for U.S. and Russian leaders to take reasonable steps to reduce nuclear risks.
Nothing legally prevents the two nations from voluntarily maintaining the status quo. The hope is that common sense prevails.
Lessons From the Cold War
The urgency of nuclear restraint is rooted in history. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 killed approximately 245,000 people. In 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the world to the brink of annihilation. These events forced Washington and Moscow to recognize the reality of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD).
This recognition led to pragmatic cooperation. The 1963 Hotline Agreement established direct communication between leaders. The Limited Test Ban Treaty prohibited nuclear tests in the atmosphere, underwater, and in space. The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty constrained missile defense systems that could destabilize deterrence.
Even during the Cold War’s most hostile years, cooperation endured. Leaders met at historic summits—Kennedy and Khrushchev, Nixon and Brezhnev, Reagan and Gorbachev—reaching agreements on arms control and on cultural, scientific, and educational exchanges.
Cooperation extended into space. In 1975, American and Soviet astronauts met during the Apollo–Soyuz mission. In the 1990s, U.S. space shuttles docked with Russia’s Mir station, culminating in the International Space Station, one of humanity’s most ambitious cooperative projects.
The origins of New START lie in Cold War efforts
In 1972, U.S. President Richard Nixon and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev signed the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT I), marking the first attempt to cap nuclear arsenals. This was followed by START I, signed in 1991 by George H. W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev, which laid the foundation for deeper reductions after the Cold War.
Over time, however, key agreements unraveled. During Trump’s first presidency, the U.S. withdrew from the INF Treaty in 2019 and the Open Skies Treaty in 2020. In February 2021, President Joe Biden extended New START to February 2026, calling it “an anchor of strategic stability.” That anchor has now been removed.
Piecemeal arms control agreements that merely regulate nuclear arsenals fail to address a fundamental reality: as long as nuclear weapons exist, humanity remains vulnerable to their use—by intent, accident, or miscalculation. Managing these weapons does not eliminate the danger; it simply defers it.
It is counterproductive to pursue new arms control arrangements that legitimize nuclear weapons while bypassing the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). Adopted by the United Nations in 2017 and entered into force in 2021, it is the first legally binding international Treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons comprehensively.
The UN Treaty bans developing, testing, producing, manufacturing, transferring, possessing, stockpiling, hosting, using, or threatening to use nuclear weapons. Yet none of the world’s nuclear-armed states has signed it.
Nine countries now possess nuclear weapons, and others aspire to join them. Some of them, ignoring the UN treaty, are modernizing their strategic forces, developing hypersonic missiles capable of maneuvering at extreme speeds—making them far more difficult to intercept—and with the possibility of adding multiple nuclear warheads to those. A new arms race is already underway. Yet, the irony is that no one can realistically use these weapons without triggering a global catastrophe.
Why pursue incremental arms control agreements while simultaneously spending billions on weapons modernization and expansive missile defense systems, such as proposals for a “Golden Dome” to protect North America?
President Trump has at times expressed the need to eliminate nuclear weapons. For example, in February 2025, Trump said: “I think denuclearization is a very—it’s a big aim, but Russia is willing to do it, and I think China is going to be willing to do it too. We can’t let nuclear weapons proliferate. We have to stop nuclear weapons. The power is too great”.
A Moment of Choice
Several U.S. Presidents—Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Barack Obama—envisioned a world free of nuclear weapons, with Ronald Reagan being the most notable for his ambition to achieve a “world free of nuclear weapons”.
Rather than perpetuating treaties that merely manage nuclear arsenals, the present moment offers a historic opportunity. President Trump, who seeks a legacy of peace, could convene global leaders together to support the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and initiate a genuine process toward the elimination of all nuclear arms.
The choice before humanity is stark: continue perfecting weapons designed “to kill and get killed” or choose a future in which nations—and people—live in peace.
*Somar Wijayadasa, an International lawyer worked in several UN organizations (IAEA & FAO) since 1973, was the Delegate of UNESCO to the UN General Assembly from 1985-1995, and was the Director and Representative of UNAIDS at the United Nations from 1995-2000. He has written many articles on US-Russia relations, the arms race, and the abolition of nuclear weapons, which were summarized in his publication “Our Divided World: My view from the United Nations”. [IDN-InDepthNews]