Name: End of 'New START' — How will it shift the global strategic nuclear balance?
Uploaded: 2026-02-05T17:18:42.000Z
Duration: 10 min 42 s
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The New START nuclear arms treaty between Russia and the US has expired, technically leaving both countries free to develop nuclear weapons without limits.

The United States has refused an offer by Russia's Vladimir Putin to extend warhead limits and says that any new deal would have to include China.

Beijing has rejected calls to enter the talks at this stage, Experts warn China's nuclear arsenal has been growing faster than any other countries.

Nuclear New Start was signed in 2010 by then US President Barack Obama and then Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

Russia and the US control more than 80% of the world's nuclear warheads.

But the absence of any treaty is prompting fears of a new arms race.

She researches nuclear policy at the Royal United Services Institute in London.

Daria, this was the last U. S. Russia nuclear treaty.

Does that mean there are no guardrails whatsoever anymore?

Well, this is the last arms control treaty between Russia and the United States.

There are still measures in place that will help with risk reduction.

The Nuclear Non Proliferation treaty is still in place.

This is the full collapse of efforts to try to limit the salience of nuclear weapons in global strategic dynamics.

But it is nevertheless concerning and certainly in the US Russia relationship.

As you said, this does take off the guardrails in the development of new delivery systems and fielding of new delivery systems that might destabilize the strategic balance between the two countries and in the deployment of additional nuclear warheads to existing delivery systems as well.

Let's talk about the strategic nuclear balance.

How has that shifted in recent years, especially since the war in Ukraine broke out?

Yeah, so the biggest, I mean, the concerns on the two sides vary slightly, but

there are drivers both on the Russian side and on the American side to be concerned about the sufficiency over their strategic capabilities.

So in the case of the United States, the main concern is over the growing arsenal of China and whether the United States has sufficient nuclear weapons and the types of nuclear weapons that the US has, whether it's sufficient are both Russia and China.

So we're dealing with what we call a two peer, increasingly a two peer environment.

For Russia, the concern is slightly different.

We have seen for some time, even before the war in Ukraine, the emergence of a Russian perception of vulnerability over the survivability of its strategic assets, both as a result of potential nuclear attacks by the United States, but

also growing conventional capabilities in the United States and in Europe.

That has obviously been exacerbated by the war in Ukraine.

And equally, the Russians seem to perceive vulnerabilities with regards to the ability of their strategic systems to penetrate missile and air defenses.

Hence the development of these, what they call novel nuclear systems, the nuclear propellant, torpedoes, cruise missiles, etc.

I want to look at the role China plays here in a second.

But first we heard it earlier, Russia offered an extension of the New START deal to keep negotiating with the U.S.

Yeah, so President Putin had made an offer to the United States to continue complying with the quantitative limits that New START had set out.

So the caps on deployed warheads, on deployed and non deployed launchers.

The offer that was put on the table, in my opinion, was, was a bit half baked.

I, I don't think it should have been accepted at face value.

The Russians did not offer to return to data exchanges and inspections of strategic systems which had been provided for under the New START treaty.

The Russians were also expecting, I don't remember the exact wording, but

they were expecting that the strategic, that the US Would not do anything that would unbalance the, the strategic, the strategic equations.

That was most likely referring to US plans to develop stronger air and missile defense with their Golden Dome initiative.

So I don't think the United States should have taken that offer at face value, but

it was an opening for further negotiations to try to extend to the limit somehow, potentially, or continue compliance with them.

And as you said, the United States does not seem to have taken that up.

The reasons for that are a little bit hard to say.

The administration seems to be spread across quite a few things at the moment.

And one of the reasons seems to have been the fact that China is at this point not willing to join negotiations.

Their nuclear arsenal has been growing faster than any other countries.

Do they have to be part of any future nuclear deal?

If we were talking about an extension of New START limits or continued compliance with New START limits, then perhaps we could let the Chinese that conversation.

But now that the board has been or the slate has been kept clean, I think it'll be very difficult to have any kind of conversation on arms control without considering the Chinese involving the Chinese.

The Americans expect the Chinese to have 1500 nuclear weapons by 2035.

That's basically where the caps were on deployed nuclear warheads for Russia and the US under New start.

So I don't see how you have arms control negotiations, or at least not sustainable ones without the Chinese at the table moving forward.

Daria Delshakova at Britain's Royal United Services Institute.

Thank you so much for all those insights.

And Suzy Snyder is joining us now from the Netherlands.

She is the program coordinator at the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.

Welcome to the program and thank you for joining us.

Could the US And Russia still reach an agreement at the last minute at such a crucial moment for nuclear proliferation?

It would be absolutely fantastic if they would reach such an agreement.

But unfortunately, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed that Donald Trump will not seek to maintain this bilateral limit with Russia and is not looking to do something right now, but

So while there could be a last minute reprieve or a last minute agreement to Russia's offer to extend the existing plan for a while, it's not looking very likely.

And that is extremely concerning to everyone in the world.

Did the US And Russia still respect the limits set by New Start even after cooperation was suspended?

Well, we did miss the bilateral consultation committee.

It's really important to have technical experts talking to one another about the arsenals.

But according to our open source estimates, we've seen that the limit of numbers of nuclear weapons, the numbers of delivery systems have been maintained in the requirements under the New START treaty.

But I do want to note those requirements were higher than what's existing even in the rapidly growing Chinese arsenal.

So it's not like the numbers are coming down to the level of the UK or France.

They still have some six, nearly 6,000 warheads each which are ready and can be used at any moment.

We have seen that Russia is also developing hypersonic missiles, which it's already being used in the war in Ukraine.

How significant has this shifted the strategic balance now?

The introduction of hypersonic missiles, which is not solely a Russian issue.

The US Is also developing hypersonic missiles, as are France and other nuclear armed countries.

But what this does is it confronts, uses the battlefield.

It makes what is easily identifiable, the parabolic arc from an intercontinental ballistic missile.

It's no longer makes it less predictable, which means that ideas of missile defense are also less likely to work in these situations.

So it decreases stability, it decreases transparency, and

unless we have some new efforts to negotiate limits and open access to information, we're going to see some real problems.

And one of my big concerns here is that those who are watching and ready to respond, should they detect an incoming missile, will not know if that missile is conventionally or nuclear armed.

And they may indeed fire a nuclear weapon in response, leading to the worst conflagration the world has ever seen.

Okay, so the threat of miscalculation has gone up then significantly, I'm hearing from you, there are many fears that we are in a new nuclear arms race.

And I'm wondering where that ranges on your spectrum of fears right now.

And if so, how could this differ or compare to the Cold War era?

So what we saw in the Cold War was a rampant and quick buildup of technology and capabilities on both sides, but

Now there are more actors involved and there are more hotspots involved.

Nevertheless, the US And Russia still remain the biggest actors on the nuclear playing field, and

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End of 'New START' — How will it shift the global strategic nuclear balance?

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