WASHINGTON: The world’s final treaty restricting the deployment of nuclear weapons is set to expire on Thursday, barring any last-minute intervention, marking a major turning point in global arms control.
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The New START agreement — the last remaining nuclear arms treaty between the United States and Russia following decades of Cold War-era accords — is due to lapse, ending limits on the arsenals of the world’s two largest nuclear powers.
The expiry comes as President Donald Trump continues to pursue his “America First” agenda, withdrawing from or challenging international agreements that constrain US policy. In the case of New START, however, analysts say the delay may stem more from inertia than ideology.
Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed a one-year extension of the treaty in September. Trump later told reporters that an extension “sounds like a good idea,” but no concrete progress has followed.
Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, who signed New START with then-US president Barack Obama in 2010, said in a recent interview that Moscow has yet to receive any “substantive reaction” from Washington, though Russia remains open to dialogue.
Trump has maintained that any future arms control framework should also include China. A White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the president supports limits on nuclear weapons and wants Beijing involved in negotiations, adding that Trump would clarify his approach on his own timeline.
Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, said the current US administration is not functioning in a way that enables complex negotiations, noting that career diplomats have been sidelined and key decisions concentrated among a small circle.
Jon Wolfsthal, director of global risk at the Federation of American Scientists, said Trump and Putin could immediately agree to extend New START at a political level.
“This is low-hanging fruit that should have been picked months ago,” Wolfsthal said.
Wolfsthal is also among experts associated with the “Doomsday Clock,” a symbolic measure of humanity’s proximity to catastrophe, which was recently moved closer to midnight partly due to the looming collapse of New START.
Trump last October called for the United States to resume nuclear testing for the first time in more than three decades, though it remains unclear whether such plans will be implemented.
Russia, meanwhile, suspended a key provision of New START in 2023 — allowing on-site inspections — as relations deteriorated sharply with the previous US administration following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
