NTI President and CEO Christine Wormuth on the Expiration of the New START Treaty

New START, the last remaining arms control treaty capping U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, expires on February 5. This marks the beginning of a dangerous new era. For the first time in several decades, there will be no limits on nuclear weapons, less visibility into Russian nuclear weapons activities, and fewer tools to manage a crisis between the world’s two largest nuclear powers.

This problem will not solve itself, and the stakes are too high for inaction. An arms race already looms. New START has been instrumental to underpinning nuclear stability between the United States and Russia—but it was a treaty built for the past 15 years, not the next 15.

China’s nuclear expansion, increased Russian nuclear coercion, and growing competition in emerging technologies and the cyber and space domains make the strategic landscape more multipolar and multidimensional. Geopolitical flashpoints in Europe and the Asia-Pacific and an increasingly unpredictable international arena compound nuclear risks. The absence of guardrails on the U.S.-Russia nuclear relationship will further strain U.S. extended deterrence and an already fragile nuclear nonproliferation regime.

A renewed U.S.-Russian arms race would further increase pressure on U.S. nuclear weapons spending and divert funding from much-needed conventional defense and pressing domestic priorities. The wide-ranging, multi-decade U.S. nuclear modernization program is already confronting significant delays and ballooning costs. Maintaining a safe, secure, and effective nuclear deterrent will grow more challenging and costly in an unconstrained and more unpredictable strategic environment.

U.S. decisionmakers must prioritize:

• Engaging Russia in clear-eyed diplomacy to avert dangerous arms racing and rebuild guardrails that keep both nations safe from a nuclear crisis. An unconstrained and unpredictable Russian nuclear arsenal, which includes dangerous novel systems under development, undermines U.S. national security interests.
• Sustained and substantive talks with Beijing on nuclear risk reduction. Without good-faith dialogue, the likelihood of worst-case scenario planning and unintended escalation in the U.S.-China relationship only worsens.

These steps are not easy, and they should begin now. The world is entering a period of unpredictable and intensifying competition. New START expiration presents an opportunity to prioritize efforts to prevent nuclear use in an increasingly dangerous world.