For more than fifty years, the world lived under the illusion of a “controlled order.” That fragile sense of safety has officially disappeared.
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Russia and China Discuss Future of START III as Treaty Nears Expiration
On February 5, 2026, the New START Treaty (also known as START III), the last major nuclear arms control agreement between the United States and Russia, expired without being renewed.
For the first time since 1972, the world’s two largest nuclear powers are operating without any legal framework regulating their arsenals.
As we enter this new era of strategic uncertainty, it is crucial to understand the history of the agreements that once mitigated the nuclear threat and the significance of the loss of START III.
A Genealogy of Nuclear Control: From SALT to START
The history of nuclear diplomacy is less a story of idealism and more a story of survival. During the decades-long arms race based on the doctrine of mutually assured destruction (MAD), both superpowers realized that endless expansion was unsustainable. The threat of a technical mistake sparking a war forced leaders to find ways to contain it.
The SALT Era (1970s): Setting the Ceilings
The first steps toward nuclear control emerged through the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT). These early agreements didn’t reduce existing weapons; they simply capped their growth.
- SALT I (1972): Signed by U.S. President Richard Nixon and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, this agreement froze the number of intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launchers.
- SALT II (1979): This aimed to further restrict the development of new warheads. Although it was never ratified by the U.S. Senate after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, both sides informally observed its limits for years.
The START Era (1990s): Deep Reductions
By the early 1990s, the focus had shifted from limiting to reducing.
- START I (1991): Signed by George H. W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev just before the dissolution of the USSR, this treaty achieved the deepest cuts to the nuclear arsenal in history, eliminating about 80 percent of strategic nuclear weapons.
- START II (1993): This treaty aimed to prohibit multiple-warhead missiles (MIRVs), but it never took effect due to political tensions and the U.S. withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in 2002.
While these pacts were far from perfect, they kept superpower competition within defined limits and offered a framework for transparency that reduced the risk of accidental war.
Understanding START III: The Last Pillar of Global Stability
START III, signed in 2010 by Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev, replaced older Cold War treaties. Until it expired this week, it was the world’s last legal barrier preventing a renewed nuclear arms race.
START III established strict caps designed to preserve strategic balance.
- Nuclear warheads: A maximum of 1,550 deployed strategic warheads per country.
- Delivery systems: A limit of 700 deployed missiles and bombers, including land-, sea-, and air-based systems.
Perhaps the most crucial feature of the treaty was not the numbers, but rather the verification process, the “trust but verify” principle at the heart of arms control.
- Inspections: Each side could conduct on-site checks of the other’s nuclear facilities.
- Data exchanges: Both governments regularly shared updates on deployments and force movements.
- Transparency: This system prevented dangerous assumptions and lowered the odds of miscalculation.
Though the treaty was extended for five years in 2021, its fate was sealed by the war in Ukraine. In 2023, Moscow suspended its participation, arguing that allowing U.S. inspections while the United States armed Ukraine made no sense.
The treaty expired by February 2026, leaving 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons outside any formal control for the first time in over half a century.
The Anatomy of a Collapse: How START III Came to an End
The end of START III was not sudden. It was the result of years of deteriorating trust amid renewed geopolitical rivalry.
In February 2023, President Vladimir Putin announced Russia’s suspension from the treaty, calling it “absurd” to allow U.S. inspectors to access Russian facilities while the U.S. supplied intelligence and weapons to Kyiv.
Although Moscow said it would respect the limits until the end, the treaty’s inspection system, its core safeguard, was effectively dead.
Efforts to renew the treaty also faced an impasse over the U.S. demand to include China in the framework.
Washington argued that a bilateral deal was outdated, given that China’s arsenal was expanding rapidly and was expected to reach around 1,000 warheads by 2030.
Unlike the 2021 extension, the treaty’s original text did not allow for renewals beyond February 5, 2026. Without a new agreement, the legal foundation of nuclear restraint vanished.
Geopolitical Standoff: Competing Visions of the New Order
The current nuclear vacuum reflects three competing strategies, each shaped by the national interests of the major powers.
- Washington claims that the New START treaty is outdated and allows adversaries to catch up. U.S. officials now want a “modernized” treaty that includes China and accounts for new technologies, such as orbital missile interceptors in projects like Golden Dome.
- Moscow has proposed voluntarily maintaining the current limits for one more year to allow negotiations to resume. Moscow insists that if China joins the negotiations, then the other nuclear-armed NATO countries, France and the United Kingdom, must also be included.
- However, Beijing refuses to join the trilateral talks. Its diplomats argue that it is unreasonable to expect China, which has fewer than 500 warheads, to commit to cuts while the U.S. and Russia possess 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons. They believe that real disarmament must begin with the superpowers reducing their stockpiles to Chinese levels.
Reactivation and the Role of the Global South
The expiration of START III is more than just a legal lapse; it is the symbolic collapse of the last safety net separating the world from potential nuclear catastrophe.
From a perspective, global security has never been based on peace, but rather on a fragile balance of terror. Now that balance is gone, the planet is entering an age of uncertainty, where distrust, secrecy, and militarization will once again dominate.
However, the Global South faces the deepest vulnerability. Without reliable data, these nations must navigate a world where misunderstandings between nuclear powers could escalate into disaster.
Rebuilding an arms control regime seems unlikely going forward. Russia’s offer to temporarily maintain existing limits voluntarily provides a faint opening, but Washington’s push for “trilateralism” and China’s resistance have produced a dangerous stalemate.
Progress will only happen when the Global North moves past using China as a convenient scapegoat for its own militarization.
A fair and lasting framework requires leadership from the world’s dominant nuclear states—the United States and Russia—while recognizing the rest of the world’s legitimate demand for a planet free from perpetual nuclear threat.
Until that political will emerges, humanity will remain in a nuclear legal vacuum, drifting toward an era in which the quest for military supremacy outweighs the survival of the species once again.
