Nuclear Arms Race Looms After Last Weapons Control Treaty Expires
For the first time in decades, no nuclear arms treaty is in place after a deal between the US and Russia that had capped the number of deployed nuclear warheads expired on Thursday.
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The last nuclear weapons control treaty between the US and Russia expired on Thursday, opening the door for a new arms race between two countries led by authoritarian leaders who are in precarious positions at home.
The so-called New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty), which was signed in 2010, had capped the number of nuclear weapons each country could possess at 1,550. Now, for the first time in decades, there are no restrictions on how many nuclear warheads countries can produce.
It puts the world in a precarious situation, as former President Barack Obama, whose administration had negotiated New START, made clear earlier this week when he urged lawmakers to not allow the agreement to lapse.
“If Congress doesn’t act, the last nuclear arms control treaty between the US and Russia will expire,” Obama said. “It would pointlessly wipe out decades of diplomacy, and could spark another arms race that makes the world less safe.”
His counterpart at the time, Dmitry Medvedev, agreed.
“I don’t want to say that [letting the treaty expire] immediately means a catastrophe and a nuclear war will begin, but it should still alarm everyone,” the former Russian president told media organizations.
Medvedev also suggested that the expiration of New START would speed up the “Doomsday Clock,” the symbolic clock operated by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
Last month, it was set to 85 seconds before midnight, the closest it has ever been to a global catastrophe, to account for the dangers posed by nuclear weapons, the use of artificial intelligence, and biological threats.
With Russia engaged in a costly war with Ukraine that has exposed the weakness of its military, and the US being led by an erratic Donald Trump whose poll numbers are cratering, the world certainly feels less safe.
When the US president was asked about New START last month, he nonchalantly declared that “if it expires, it expires.” In an interview with The New York Times, he added that he’d “rather do a new agreement that’s much better.”
Specifically, Trump also wants to include China in any new deal and make sure it encompasses new types of nuclear weapons, yet there is no indication that any such talks are underway.
However, in encouraging news, the US and Russia were trying to hammer out an informal agreement on Thursday according to which both sides would voluntarily agree to abide by the New START limits for another six months.
While that would be a positive sign, an informal agreement, especially one between Trump, who constantly goes back on his word, and Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is equally trustworthy, is no treaty.
And therefore, the world does feel more vulnerable today than yesterday.
