🇷🇺🇺🇸 U.S.-Russia Nuclear Arms Control Treaty Expires, Ending Decades of Strategic Limits
The New START treaty—the final major nuclear arms control agreement between the United States and Russia—expired at midnight, marking the end of over 50 years of formal limits on the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals.
Signed in Prague in 2010 by President Barack Obama and President Dmitry Medvedev, the treaty established verifiable caps on deployed strategic nuclear warheads and delivery systems. Its expiration leaves no active bilateral limits on U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear forces for the first time in decades.
Implications:
Both nations are now free to expand their nuclear arsenals without treaty constraints.
The expiration raises the risk of a new nuclear arms race, with modernization and expansion programs likely to accelerate.
The collapse of New START underscores the deepening deterioration in U.S.-Russia strategic stability dialogue.
Global Context:
The lapse of the treaty occurs amid heightened geopolitical tensions, including the war in Ukraine and renewed great-power competition. Analysts warn that the absence of arms control frameworks increases strategic uncertainty and could undermine global non-proliferation efforts.
Looking Ahead:
Diplomatic efforts to negotiate a successor agreement have stalled. In the interim, the world enters a phase of unchecked nuclear competition, with significant implications for international security, defense planning, and global stability.
