Washington/Moscow — President Donald Trump rejected Russian President Vladimir Putin's offer for a one-year extension of nuclear warhead deployment limits, allowing the New START treaty—the last arms control agreement between the world's two largest nuclear powers—to expire on Thursday. The decision marks the end of more than half a century of bilateral nuclear restraints dating back to the Cold War.
Global Security Alert: With no arms control treaty in place, both the US and Russia are now free to expand their nuclear arsenals without limits, potentially triggering a new arms race that could involve China.
"Rather than extend New START ... we should have our Nuclear Experts work on a new, improved and modernized Treaty that can last long into the future," Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform, calling the 2010 accord "a badly negotiated deal" that was being "grossly violated."
End of Nuclear Restraint Era
The New START treaty, which limited both nations to 1,550 deployed warheads and 700 delivery systems (missiles, aircraft, and submarines), represented the last vestige of strategic arms limitation agreements that helped prevent nuclear catastrophe throughout the Cold War and beyond. Its expiration leaves the world's two nuclear superpowers without any formal constraints on their arsenals for the first time since the 1970s.
Putin's last-minute proposal would have maintained the treaty's numerical limits for one additional year while both sides negotiated a replacement. However, Trump's administration has insisted that any new agreement must include China, which Beijing has repeatedly rejected.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed Russia remained open to dialogue "if there are any constructive replies," while China urged both superpowers to resume "strategic stability" negotiations without including Beijing in trilateral talks.
Implications of Treaty Collapse
Arms control experts warn that the treaty's expiration could fuel an accelerated nuclear arms race. Without inspection regimes and transparency measures, both nations will be forced to make worst-case assumptions about the other's intentions and capabilities.
"Transparency and predictability are among the more intangible benefits of arms control and underpin deterrence and strategic stability," noted Karim Haggag, director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
The loss of on-site inspections is particularly concerning. Trump's rejection of multilateral agreements continues a pattern of withdrawing from international frameworks, following his earlier exits from the Iran nuclear deal and Paris Climate Agreement.
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China Factor Complicates Future Negotiations
Trump's insistence on trilateral negotiations reflects concerns about China's rapidly expanding nuclear arsenal. While the US and Russia each maintain approximately 4,000 warheads, China possesses an estimated 600—a fraction of the superpowers' stockpiles but growing rapidly.
Beijing has consistently declined participation in arms control talks, arguing its arsenal remains far smaller than those of the US and Russia. Chinese officials reiterated this position Thursday, calling the treaty's expiration "regrettable" while refusing to join replacement negotiations.
A 2023 congressionally appointed commission recommended that the US develop plans to "reload" reserve warheads onto delivery systems, preparing to "fight simultaneous wars with Russia and China." This capability could now be implemented without treaty violations.
Putin's Strategic Calculations
Russia's withdrawal from treaty verification measures in 2023, citing US support for Ukraine, had already undermined New START's effectiveness. Putin suspended on-site inspections and data exchanges designed to build confidence between the nuclear rivals.
Moscow's Foreign Ministry indicated Russia was prepared to take "decisive military-technical countermeasures to mitigate potential additional threats to national security" while remaining open to diplomacy. This suggests Russia may respond to any US arsenal expansion with its own nuclear buildup.
The Ukrainian government called the treaty's expiration "another tool for nuclear blackmail to undermine international support for Ukraine," highlighting how the broader Russia-Ukraine conflict has poisoned US-Russian relations across all domains.
Nuclear Arsenal Expansion Potential
Security analysts estimate that without treaty constraints, both the US and Russia could deploy hundreds of additional warheads within two years. The US could reload intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched missiles that were unloaded to comply with New START limits.
Russia maintains substantial reserves of tactical nuclear weapons—shorter-range systems designed for battlefield use—that were never covered by New START. With strategic constraints removed, Moscow could more freely integrate these weapons into its military doctrine.
The collapse of arms control comes as global nuclear tensions reach levels not seen since the 1980s, with new technologies like hypersonic weapons and cyber warfare capabilities complicating traditional deterrence calculations.
International Reaction and Concerns
UN Secretary-General António Guterres urged both nations to "swiftly return to negotiations" on strategic stability. European allies, already concerned about US reliability under Trump's leadership, expressed alarm about the treaty's collapse during a period of heightened geopolitical tensions.
NATO members worry that unconstrained Russian nuclear expansion could necessitate changes to the alliance's nuclear sharing arrangements and missile defense postures. The lack of transparency about Russian capabilities and intentions complicates European security planning.
Non-nuclear weapon states have long viewed US-Russian arms control as essential to the broader Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty regime. The bilateral treaty's collapse could encourage other nations to question their own non-nuclear commitments.
Future Prospects for Arms Control
White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt indicated the US would continue talks with Russia, though the administration's demand for Chinese inclusion remains a significant obstacle. Trump's transactional approach to international agreements suggests any future treaty would need to demonstrate clear advantages for US interests.
The president's preference for bilateral deal-making over multilateral frameworks may eventually produce a different type of agreement, though experts doubt whether such arrangements would provide the verification and transparency that made New START valuable for global security.
As both nations enter an era without nuclear constraints, the world faces the prospect of a three-way arms race involving the US, Russia, and China—a scenario that could prove far more dangerous and expensive than the Cold War's bilateral nuclear competition.
The expiration of New START marks a watershed moment in global security, ending decades of nuclear restraint between superpowers at a time of unprecedented international tensions.
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