US And Russia Barrel Toward First Nuclear Arms Race Since Cold War

The U.S. and Russia are barreling toward what could become the first unrestricted nuclear arms race since the Cold War, as the last remaining treaty limiting their nuclear arsenals is set to expire in a matter of days.

The New START treaty, signed in 2010 to cap U.S. and Russian nuclear stockpiles, is scheduled to expire on Thursday. If it lapses, Washington and Moscow would be left without any binding limits on the number of long-range nuclear weapons they can deploy, marking the first time in more than half a century that no such constraints exist.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has proposed a temporary stopgap measure, suggesting that both sides voluntarily maintain existing missile and warhead limits for one year while negotiations continue. President Donald Trump, however, has indicated he prefers to let the treaty expire and replace it with a broader agreement that includes China.

“If it expires, it expires,” Trump told The New York Times on Jan. 8. “We’ll just do a better agreement.”

Under New START, each side is limited to 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads and no more than 700 delivery systems, including intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched missiles, and heavy bombers. The last comparable lapse in arms control restrictions ended in 1972, when former President Richard Nixon and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev signed historic arms control agreements.

“President Trump has spoken repeatedly of addressing the threat nuclear weapons pose to the world and indicated that he would like to keep limits on nuclear weapons and involve China in arms control talks,” a White House official told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Despite Trump’s push for expanded denuclearization talks involving both Russia and China, Beijing has flatly refused. Chinese officials — whose country has an estimated 600 nuclear warheads — argue it should not be pressured into negotiations alongside two countries with far larger nuclear stockpiles.

“China’s nuclear strength is by no means on the same level with that of the U.S.,” China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson said in August. “It’s neither reasonable nor realistic to ask China to join the nuclear disarmament negotiations with the U.S. and Russia.”

While China currently trails the U.S. and Russia, the Pentagon estimates Beijing could possess more than 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030.

“Our nation will soon encounter a fundamentally different global setting than it has ever experienced: we will face a world where two nations possess nuclear arsenals on par with our own,” a bipartisan Congressional commission warned in 2023.

“In addition, the risk of conflict with these two nuclear peers is increasing. It is an existential challenge for which the United States is ill-prepared, unless its leaders make decisions now to adjust the U.S. strategic posture,” the commission wrote.

Some analysts estimate the U.S. could nearly double its deployed nuclear warheads if New START expires, while Russia could add hundreds of its own within a year, according to Reuters.

Arms control advocates warn that abandoning limits will trigger an expensive arms race, while critics counter that Putin cannot be trusted, noting Russia suspended participation in the treaty in 2023 amid tensions over Ukraine.

“The New START Treaty was negotiated in a bygone era, 15 years ago,” Republican Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said on Tuesday. “For a while, the treaty did provide a degree of transparency and predictability between the United States and Russia on the two countries’ nuclear forces — that is, until Vladimir Putin decided that compliance with Russia’s obligations were no longer in his interest.”

The window for reaching an agreement is rapidly closing. The treaty allows for only one extension, which was already exercised in 2021 under former President Joe Biden. Trump has yet to respond to Putin’s proposal for an informal one-year extension, the Kremlin said Tuesday, according to The Moscow Times.

“The President will decide the path forward on nuclear arms control, which he will clarify on his own timeline,” the White House official said.

Trump in October ordered the Department of War to restart nuclear weapons testing for the first time in more than three decades, citing the need to match China and Russia’s expanding nuclear programs.