The Cold War Reheated: New START Treaty Expires
There are fears a new global nuclear arms race is imminent as the last remaining treaty limiting US and Russian nuclear stockpiles expired this week.
This week marked the end of New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty), a US-Russian pact to limit stockpiles of nuclear arsenal between the superpowers. The bilateral agreement was an extension of post-Cold War diplomacy that restricted nuclear proliferation for more than 50 years.
Without it, there is now nothing stopping the US or Russia from expanding their nuclear stockpiles. The US and Russia are the world’s biggest nuclear powers, storing an estimated 12,000 warheads between them (approximately 5,500 each), more than enough to incur immeasurable human losses and irreversible environmental damage.
Deputy Chair of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev posted an ominous warning to X using a still from ‘Game of Thrones’ and the quote, ‘Winter is coming’.
“That’s it. For the first time since 1972, Russia (the former USSR) and the US have no treaty limiting strategic nuclear forces. SALT 1, SALT 2, START I, START II, SORT, New START – all in the past,” Medvedev wrote in the caption.
It was Medvedev who signed New START with then US President Barack Obama in 2010, at a time when US-Russian relations were undergoing a reboot. Until now, stockpile limits have been capped and independent inspections undertaken to ensure the treaty was being upheld.
Image: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
Now, there is no obligation for either the US or Russia to maintain those limits. Although Vladmir Putin recently floated the prospect of keeping the limits for another year, US president Trump is yet to respond.
The treaty text states the pact can only be renewed once, which it already has been. The original treaty, START I, was signed in 1991 by US President George H. W. Bush and Soviet General Secretary Gorbachev. Implemented in 1994, START I was the result of negotiations initiated by US President Ronald Reagan in 1982.
The end of START signals a major shift in the political landscape and a return to brinksmanship as diplomacy, reigniting Cold War-era fears about unconstrained proliferation of nuclear arms. The treaty represented decades of negotiations and work to improve international security, which is now under threat.
And it couldn’t have happened at a worse time.
Global instability is surging and the risk of nuclear weapons being used has never been higher. START was one of numerous treaties and bilateral agreements that limit the threat of nuclear arms, including the landmark Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT)
First signed in 1968, the NPT came into effect in 1970 and forms the cornerstone of international nuclear policy. It was designed to promote peaceful uses of nuclear energy, prevent the spread of nuclear arms, and achieve complete disarmament. The NPT will undergo its mandated five-year review in 2026 at a crucial juncture in world events.
With war in Ukraine and the Middle East, Iran’s deepening proliferation crisis, the persistent issue of North Korea’s exit from the Treaty, possible military incursion into Greenland, and the US’ proposal to resume nuclear testing, the NPT is facing its biggest challenge yet. The previous two review conferences failed to produce a consensus document owing to divisions between nuclear and non-nuclear states.
As the world’s two biggest nuclear superpowers, the US and Russia are being urged to negotiate a successor framework for START and come to terms once more on limiting, even possibly disarming, their immense nuclear arsenals.
