The New Start nuclear arms control treaty has expired, opening up the way for a period of great power uncertainty and the possibility of a new arms race.
The US-Russian agreement, negotiated in 2010 and extended in 2021, limited the number of deployed nuclear warheads to 1,550, with roughly 3,500 non-deployed warheads in reserve. It was the last of the arms control agreements that were rooted in the legacy of the cold war negotiations between the US and the Soviet Union, and the era of relative optimism that followed it.
The current US administration has shown little appetite for extending Start on a purely bilateral basis, as it hopes to include China in any new agreement. China’s nuclear arsenal has more than doubled in size in the past five years to an estimated 600 warheads with the expectations of further increases over the next decade.
