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Commentary | 17 February 2026

Life without the New START Treaty: What nuclear weapons states can do to help strengthen the non-proliferation regime

Image of Edward Ifft

Edward Ifft |Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University

NPT Nuclear Arms Control Nuclear Security Nuclear Weapons Multilateral Arms Control, Disarmament and Non-Proliferation
How we lost the New START Treaty

At midnight on 4th February 2026, the New START Treaty, the last treaty constraining the nuclear weapons and their delivery systems of the United States and the Russian Federation, expired.

It had been extended for five years in 2021 by Presidents Biden and Putin and could not be extended further. Although the two sides thus had five years to address this situation, they failed to do so, and there is little evidence that they made much of an effort. In September 2025, President Putin did propose that the two sides agree to observe the three central limits of New START for an additional year, while working toward a follow-on agreement. As far as we know, the US did not even issue an official response to this offer, although White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Putin’s proposal sounded “pretty good“.

The New START Treaty was the culmination of over 50 years of successful negotiations between the US and the USSR/Russia constraining and reducing nuclear weapons. It reduced the number of deployed strategic nuclear weapons and their delivery systems—Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs), Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missiles (SLBMs) and heavy bombers—to their lowest levels since the 1960s. It also contained a remarkable and highly intrusive verification regime, which contains valuable lessons for the future.

The importance of verification

The New START verification regime relied heavily on On-Site Inspections (OSI) and a massive data exchange. Up to 18 OSI of declared facilities per year were conducted by each side. Data required to be exchanged periodically by the sides would fill about 100 pages. Some of this information was exchanged almost daily, with a complete set exchanged every six months. The channels used were at the National and Nuclear Risk Reduction Center (NNRRC) at the State Department in Washington and the Nuclear Risk Reduction Center (NRRC) at the Ministry of Defence in Moscow.

Nearly all of this massive amount of data, approximately 2,000 notifications per year, was handled as classified. Additional relevant data was provided to OSI teams at the inspection sites. All this has now been lost. The sides also have their own National Technical Means (NTM)—e.g., satellites—as sources of relevant information. The loss of the treaty means that we have also lost the prohibition on interfering with the NTM of the other Party operating in a “manner consistent with generally recognized principles of international law.”

Taken together, these verification elements were designed to provide the sides with a near-real-time picture of the status of the other side’s strategic nuclear forces. Both sides consider that all these monitoring arrangements were highly successful. We need to preserve this experience and build upon it in new agreements.

New issues

By mutual agreement, OSI was interrupted by COVID-19 in 2020. Then, when the US was ready to resume in 2022, Russia refused. In 2023. Russia then also declined to continue the required exchange of data, citing the war in Ukraine as the reason. Although NTM is effective at monitoring ICBM silos, submarines and heavy bombers, the ability to monitor deployed warheads is deteriorating without OSI. Both sides have a few other unresolved New START issues, but consider the Treaty to have been generally successful in achieving its goals.

Any new agreement will need to revive this or a similar verification regime. In addition, several new issues need to be addressed. Both sides would like to expand the scope of any new agreement, but in different ways. Even who the negotiating parties should be is controversial. The US insists on adding China, while Russia believes the UK and France should be at the table. Another huge issue will almost certainly be the proper role of strategic defences—in particular, Trump’s Golden Dome, which, as described, would overturn decades of deterrence theory and practice. These issues have been discussed by the author and others elsewhere. During negotiation of new agreements, the sides could exercise restraint and could even exchange some data of the sort called for in New START. This would help to avoid uncertainties and worst-case planning.

An increase in deployed warheads could be an early result of the Treaty’s demise. Russia can do this by using the potential of its existing missiles and those in development to carry additional warheads. The US can do it by simply redeploying warheads it removed from Minuteman III ICBMs and Trident SLBMs to meet New START limits. It is believed that the US could, in this way, achieve greater increases in deployed warheads than Russia. The UK has increased the maximum size of its nuclear weapon stockpile to 260.

Constructive measures nuclear weapons states can take

We face the prospect that the half-century process of reducing the number of nuclear weapons in the world is about to be reversed, with increases in all three leading nuclear weapons states (NWS). This will likely be a major topic at the NPT Review Conference (RevCon), starting this April in New York, under the leadership of President-designate Ambassador Do Hung Viet of Vietnam.

We face the prospect that the half-century process of reducing the number of nuclear weapons in the world is about to be reversed, with increases in all three leading nuclear weapons states. This will likely be a major topic at the NPT Review Conference this April. Edward Ifft

Russia is likely to blame the US for this situation, noting that it was willing to observe a one-year freeze on these numbers while negotiating a more comprehensive agreement, but the US refused. The US will likely blame China, in view of the latter’s rapid buildup, while refusing to join nuclear arms control negotiations. China is likely to blame both the other two, highlighting their far larger stockpiles and urging them to adopt a No First Use pledge. The majority of countries at the RevCon are unlikely to be convinced by this blame game and demand urgent action to fulfil Article VI of the NPT. Some may even conclude that their security in the current situation requires that they begin to develop their own nuclear weapons. This could be a disaster for the non-proliferation regime and undermine global stability.

Although this situation appears bleak, there are constructive measures the NWS could take:

  • The US, Russia, and China, or, more realistically, the US and Russia, should begin urgent negotiations to develop a new agreement or agreements to follow New START.
  • The P5 should begin to play a greater role in nuclear arms control. Although the UK and France can claim they are already at minimum deterrence levels, they do have substantial nuclear expertise that could help address these issues.
  • All states with nuclear weapons should become more transparent about their nuclear weapon programmes. In particular, we need to develop a baseline of the world’s stockpile of nuclear weapons, which we will need if we begin serious further reductions in those numbers.
  • Countries should resume, individually and cooperatively, work on the verification measures needed to verify the process of eliminating nuclear weapons. This should build on the good progress made under the Trilateral Initiative among the US, Russia, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) years ago, as well as on the recent work by other states.
  • Efforts should be made to repair the damage done by the loss of the INF Treaty. In particular, measures should be developed to limit or prohibit the deployment of nuclear-armed ballistic and cruise missiles of specified ranges in the European theatre.

Most countries, including NATO members and the Global South, probably wish the US had accepted the Russian offer to continue to abide by the New START central limits and at least attempted to resume exchanging some New START data. These countries look to 2026 with significant trepidation but have little influence. We can hope for some restraint, and this new situation need not lead to a nuclear arms race, but an increase in deployed nuclear weapons appears inevitable.

In a statement on 6th February 2026, Secretary of State Rubio appeared to slam the door on further bilateral agreements with Russia, stating that “President Trump has been clear, consistent, and unequivocal that future arms control must address not one, but both nuclear peer arsenals” and that “arms control can no longer be a bilateral issue between the United States and Russia.” New agreements to resume constraints on nuclear weapons and their delivery systems are essential, but will be difficult to negotiate. If the US refuses to negotiate with Russia, and China refuses to negotiate with the US, the future of nuclear arms control looks bleak indeed.

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: Alamy, Alireza Boeini

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