On September 22, Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared to offer the United States a voluntary, time-limited extension of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) key obligations. Putin said that “Russia is prepared to continue observing the treaty’s central quantitative restrictions for one year after February 5, 2026.”

In response, the White House called the initiative “pretty good”. On the 5^th of October, Donald Trump said that Putin’s offer “sounds like a good idea” to him. Yet, the United States has yet to formally respond to the Kremlin’s proposal.

Meanwhile, European NATO members have been publicly silent on the Kremlin’s initiative.

Given that their interests are at stake, US allies in Europe should seize this opportunity to help shape the outcome of deliberations about how to respond to Putin’s initiative.

There are understandable doubts about the motivations behind and concerns about the scope of the Kremlin’s move. However, at a time of deep distrust and geopolitical fragmentation, even the faintest opportunity to strengthen global arms control should be seized upon. Europeans should therefore urge Washington to reciprocate the Russian offer, whilst at the same time injecting their own ideas on the next steps to control nuclear weapons.

A poisoned chalice?

At first sight, it appears to be a no-brainer that an extension of the quantitative New START limits of 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear warheads and 700 deployed strategic missiles and bombers, beyond the treaty’s expiration on 5 February 2026, is in Europe’s interest.

New START is the last treaty standing that provides for legally-binding limits on nuclear weapons. An unconstrained arms race between the two largest nuclear-armed states, fueled additionally by China’s nuclear build-up, would increase the risk of all-out nuclear war, particularly in Europe.

But Europeans are concerned that Putin’s proposal to voluntarily maintain the New START limits until February 2027 is simply another ploy to divide the West. To be sure, it is hard to believe that Russia, which has been using almost every means at its disposal to undermine NATO cohesion, is suddenly and sincerely interested in strategic stability.

Putin’s qualifier that after 5 February 2026, “based on a careful assessment of the situation, we will make a definite decision on whether to uphold these voluntary self-limitations”, has reinforced European concerns about a poisoned chalice from the Kremlin. All the more so because Putin stated “that this measure is only feasible if the United States acts in a similar spirit and refrains from steps that would undermine or disrupt the existing balance of deterrence” and specifically lists Donald Trump’s plan for strategic missile defense (aka the “Golden Dome”) as an issue that “could nullify our efforts to maintain the status quo in the field of strategic offensive arms.”

Europeans will remember well that Russia in the past put issues on the agenda of the short-lived Strategic Stability Talks between Moscow and Washington, which were clearly aimed at weakening NATO.

Yet NATO, which has meanwhile agreed on a long-term policy to build up its own defence and deterrence capabilities – and has started to implement those pledges – is now in a much better position to engage Russia on strategic stability than in February 2022, when the US suspended talks following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

From this position of strength and confidence, Europeans should encourage the US to play the ball back into Moscow’s court by taking up Putin’s offer and declaring their readiness to extend New START beyond the 5^th of February 2026.

In doing so, Europeans could make the case with Washington and Moscow that nuclear arms control must not be made yet another victim of geopolitical competition and should be compartmentalised from the overall Russia-West conflict.

Not making  perfect the enemy of  good on scope

A commitment by Russia and the US to maintain New START upper limits would create urgently needed space for talks on a new nuclear arms control accord. NATO members should use this time for transatlantic consultations on the agenda. This would provide Europeans with an opportunity to infuse their own ideas and priorities, rather than simply waiting to see in which direction the wind may blow this time from the White House.

In particular, Europeans should highlight that New START has not covered those nuclear weapons of most concern to Europeans: Russia’s large arsenal of short- and intermediate missiles, many of which can be equipped with nuclear weapons. Following the demise of the INF Treaty, it is more urgent than ever to address this arms control gap, as a new arms race is already underway.

At the same time, Europeans should realise that it will be more difficult to tackle the problem of Russian nuclear weapons based in Europe if New START expires in four months without any commitment by Russia and the US to stick to the upper limits. New START at least provides a rough balance on the most destructive nuclear weapons, making it easier to find an acceptable solution to the multi-factor equation on nuclear stability.

Europe and the US are united in their concern about the build-up of Chinese nuclear weapons and in their desire to bring Beijing to the table in future talks. Yet, without any agreement to maintain New START limits – and a possible further build-up of US nuclear weapons – Beijing will likely be more reluctant to engage in multilateral talks, and continue to hide behind a further nuclear build-up by Russia and the United States.

Will Russia cheat?

Europeans are also concerned that Russia may not abide by its promise to maintain upper limits and cheat yet again on an arms control obligation. Russia suspended New START’s verification provisions in August 2022, and some argue that Russia should first return to compliance by reinstating the data exchange that was part of New START and resume on-site inspections before the US should consider taking up Putin’s offer.

To be sure, a resumption of transparency measures would bring significant security benefits for Russia, the US, and the whole world.

Yet, so far, the US has been able to assess Russian overall compliance with numerical limits using only nationally owned and operated technologies and techniques, so-called National Technical Means, such as satellites. The State Department’s January 2025 “Report to Congress on Implementation of New START” indicates the limits of monitoring compliance, particularly without proper implementation of the treaty’s verification provisions.

The carefully worded report concludes that “although the United States cannot certify that the Russian Federation is in compliance with the terms of the New START Treaty, it does not determine … that Russia’s noncompliance … threatens the national security interests of the United States.”

As long as US intelligence is able to maintain this level of confidence in Russian overall compliance, Europeans should not let the lack of transparency become a stumbling block for their endorsement of unilateral or bilateral pledges to maintain treaty limits. However, they should emphasise that resumption of data exchanges and inspections should be a top priority in future bilateral talks on strategic stability.

Let’s bring on the arms race?

Some in Europe also believe that the US should not take up Putin’s offer because an extension of New START limits would be predominantly in Russia’s interest. This line of thinking argues that Russia cannot keep up with the West in a future arms race, and an extension of treaty limits would take economic pressures off the Kremlin, at a time when the Russian economy may buckle under sanctions pressure.

To be sure, Putin is sensitive to the economic impact of bloated defence spending. In his February 2024 Presidential address, he warned that the Kremlin is “aware of the Western attempts to draw us into an arms race, thereby exhausting us, mirroring the strategy they successfully employed with the Soviet Union in the 1980s.” Putin ominously reminded the audience that “in 1981–1988, the Soviet Union’s military spending amounted to 13 per cent of GDP.” But his conclusion, of course, was not to reduce military spending but to “allocate resources as judiciously as possible”.

While nuclear weapons are expensive, it is unlikely that Russia would sacrifice nuclear weapons spending if the money gets tight. While the US is at the bottom of a nuclear weapons modernisation cycle, Moscow has already invested substantial amounts to upgrade all parts of its nuclear arsenal.

Apart from these economic considerations, trying to “win” a nuclear arms race against an economically and politically fragile state would be a dangerous proposition, which Europeans should try to avoid in the first place.

A European voice

Europeans should seize this window of opportunity to help shape US policies and to signal to the world that they support efforts by the nuclear powers to avoid dangerous and costly nuclear arms races.

European NATO members should therefore state clearly that they would support a pledge by the US to adhere to New START limits beyond the treaty’s expiration date on the 5^th of February 2025. Europeans, collectively or individually, should encourage both sides to commit to maintaining upper limits until a successor treaty is in place. Doing so publicly would increase Europe’s credibility as an advocate of nuclear arms control, including in the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty.

In the meantime, they can put forward their own wish list for future Russia-US talks on strategic stability, including better transparency and accountability by nuclear-weapon states, a pledge by Russia and the US not to increase nuclear weapon numbers in Europe until a New START successor is in place, and a dialogue between NATO and Russia on better crisis communication channels. The European nuclear powers, France and the UK, could support such an approach by signalling their willingness to join a multilateral dialogue on nuclear arms control, once China, Russia, and the United States have agreed on such a process.

All of these steps would signal that Europeans are serious about being more forthright on issues pertaining to their own security, not only on defence and deterrence, but also in reducing risks associated with such courses of action.

The European Leadership Network itself as an institution holds no formal policy positions. The opinions articulated above represent the views of the authors rather than the European Leadership Network or its members. The ELN aims to encourage debates that will help develop Europe’s capacity to address the pressing foreign, defence, and security policy challenges of our time, to further its charitable purposes.

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons / U.S. National Archives and Records Administration