“The United States and Russia already have enough nuclear weapons deployed to kill tens of millions of people in one hour and destroy the world,” Knox noted. “Allowing New START to lapse would erase decades of hard-won progress and would only make the world less safe.”
New START was signed in April 2010, during the Obama administration, and entered into force the following February. A decade later, and just days into the Biden administration, it was renewed for five years. In 2022, Russia invaded neighboring Ukraine – an ongoing conflict – and the following year, Russian President Vladimir Putin. hanging His country’s participation in the treaty, although it did not withdraw from it.
“The global security environment facing the United States is very different than when New START was first negotiated, but it remains true that curbing an open and costly arms race will still require some form of agreement between Washington and Moscow,” Ankit Panda, a Stanton senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment’s Nuclear Policy Program for International Peace, said in a statement.
“The public and lawmakers alike must realize that we are on the cusp of a fundamentally new nuclear age — one more complex and dangerous than anything we have seen since the Cold War,” warned Banda, one of the experts participating in a Wednesday news conference on the treaty. “The big risk is that without any quantitative limits or practical verification, we will end up exacerbating worst-case-scenario thinking in both capitals, as happened during the Cold War.”
Although Putin stopped US inspections of Russian nuclear facilities, he still proposed extending the treaty for a year. Tara Drozdenko, Director UCS The Global Security Program said: “ACommitting to New START for another year would be a win-win for the United States, Russia, and the rest of the world… The Trump administration must take swift action to publicly acknowledge that the United States will continue to adhere to New START in the meantime.
However, US President Donald Trump – who imagines himself as a person Deal maker– He has not expressed interest in fighting for the agreement, He says the New York Times Last month he said that “if it expires, it expires,” and “I would rather do a new agreement that would be much better.”
Trump has invited China – which He has The most nuclear weapons after Russia and the United States, and It is constructive Its arsenal – to be part of a new deal, but Beijing He didn’t do that She indicated that she would do so. Putin has Suggested With the participation of France and the United Kingdom. The other nuclear-armed countries are India, Israel, North Korea and Pakistan.
Noting Trump’s statements times Looking forward to the Chinese government joining, Jennifer Kavanagh, director of military analysis at the Defense Priorities think tank, declared, “This is wishful thinking — if the administration thinks getting a new, ‘better’ treaty after this one expires will be easy, they are wrong.”
She said: “The end of the New START Treaty brings few benefits and many risks to the United States, especially since Washington is trying to stabilize relations with competitors such as Russia and China,” noting that Trump “would be better off holding on to the agreement he concluded for a little longer before trying to get a better agreement.”
Dmitry Medvedev, a Putin ally who signed the treaty while serving as president and now serves as deputy head of Russia’s Security Council. He said In an interview on Monday with Reuters, TASSand WarGonzo He expects that “our proposal will remain on the table, and that the treaty has not yet expired, and if the Americans want to extend it, this can be done.”
“For nearly 60 years, we have not faced a situation in which the strategic nuclear potential was not limited in some way. Now such a situation has become possible,” he noted. “I have spent almost my entire life, starting in 1972, under the umbrella of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.”
“In some ways, even with all the costs, this is still an element of trust,” Medvedev said. “When there is such a treaty, there is trust. When there is not, that trust is exhausted. The fact that we are now in this situation is clear evidence of a crisis in international relations. This is quite clear.”
Given the expiration of the New START treaty this week, the Russian president said: “I don’t want to say that this immediately means catastrophe and nuclear war, but it should still alert everyone. The ticking clock, in this case, will undoubtedly accelerate again.”
according to ReutersHe was referring to the Hour of Resurrection. last week, Bulletin of the Atomic ScientistsThe Science and Security Council set the symbolic clock at 85 seconds to midnight, the closest it has ever come to a global catastrophe, citing various developments, including the failure to extend the treaty, Russian weapons tests, and China’s growing arsenal.
“In 2025, it was almost impossible to identify a nuclear problem that had improved,” says John B. Wolfsthal, board member and global risk director at the Federation of American Scientists (FAS). He said Last week. “More countries are relying more intently on nuclear weapons, and multiple countries are speaking out about using nuclear weapons not only to deter, but to coerce. Hundreds of billions are being spent to modernize and expand nuclear arsenals around the world, and a growing number of non-nuclear-weapon states are considering whether they should acquire nuclear weapons of their own or to hedge their nuclear bets.”
He added: “Instead of fanning the flames of nuclear arms competition, nuclear states are reducing their security and putting the entire planet at risk. Leaders of all countries must relearn the lessons of the Cold War – no one wins the nuclear arms race, and the only way to reduce nuclear risks is through a binding agreement to limit the size and shape of their nuclear arsenals.” “Nuclear states and their partners need to invest now in proven crisis communication and risk reduction tools, recommit to nonproliferation, refrain from nuclear threats, and seek a more stable and predictable global security order.”
Regarding New START specifically, Matt Korda, associate director of the FAS Nuclear Information Project, asserted this week: “We are about to enter an era of unfettered nuclear competition with no guardrails. Not only will there be nothing to prevent the great nuclear powers from nearly doubling their deployed nuclear arsenals, but they will now do so in an environment of mutual mistrust, ambiguity, and worst-case thinking.”
He added: “Although the New START Treaty was a bilateral agreement between Russia and the United States, its expiration will have far-reaching consequences for the world.” “There are no benefits from an expensive arms build-up that takes us back to where we started, but there will be real benefits in seeking transparency and predictability in an unpredictable world.”
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