The World Nears an Unrestricted Nuclear Era

The near expiration of the New START treaty, the last remaining nuclear arms control agreement between the United States and Russia, signals an unprecedented shift into an unrestricted nuclear era, dismantling decades of carefully negotiated stability that began during the Cold War.

Signed in 2010 during the Obama administration and extended by President Biden in 2021, the treaty had successfully capped each side’s deployed strategic nuclear warheads at 1,550 and imposed strict limits on delivery systems, including intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and heavy bombers, while also establishing a vital framework for mutual verification and on-site inspections.

With its lapse amid a diplomatic silence between Washington and Moscow, the world’s two largest nuclear powers would be free from any legally binding constraints for the first time in generations, removing the critical transparency that prevented miscalculation and arms build-up.

This development not only reverses a long history of bilateral arms control but also opens the door to a new, frantic, and unregulated global nuclear arms race, heightening the risk of proliferation, eroding international security architecture, and raising urgent, unanswered questions about the future of strategic stability and how the international community can reignite diplomatic engagement to prevent a catastrophic return to a brinkmanship-driven world order.