End of Nuclear Arms Control Era: New START Treaty Expires

The expiration of the New START treaty marks the end of over five decades of arms control agreements. The treaty, signed by Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama in 2010, limited each country's deployed strategic arsenal to 1,550 warheads and 800 delivery systems. With the treaty's end, the US and Russia are no longer bound by these limits, potentially triggering a new arms race.

While Russia has expressed willingness to extend the treaty for a year, the US has insisted on including China in any new agreement, a condition China has rejected. This impasse has led to the treaty's lapse, raising concerns about the future of nuclear arms control.

The end of New START also threatens the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), under which non-nuclear states pledged not to acquire nuclear weapons, provided that nuclear states made good faith efforts to disarm.

The New START treaty was an agreement between the US and Russia that limited the number of strategic nuclear weapons each country could deploy.

The treaty expired because the US and Russia could not agree on terms for its extension, particularly regarding the inclusion of China in a new agreement.

The expiration of the treaty could lead to a new nuclear arms race, increased geopolitical instability, and a weakening of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

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