A new era begins with no limits on nuclear weapons.

MoscowThis Thursday, February 5, 2026, is a historic date, one that truly honors this overused adjective. The New Start agreement expires. the latest treaty that limits nuclear weapons The strategic nuclear arms of the major nuclear powers, Russia and the United States, expires. With its expiration, more than half a century of control over the military development of the deadliest technology humanity has created comes to an end. Vladimir Putin has been offering Donald Trump a one-year extension of the agreement for months, but Washington has ignored his pleas, fearful of a China that has no intention of abandoning the production of nuclear warheads.

The treaty establishes limits on strategic nuclear weapons, that is, those that each side would use to strike the opponent's key political, military, and industrial centers in the event of a nuclear war. It limits the number of deployed warheads to 1,550 per country, with a maximum of 800 delivery systems (land-launched missiles, missile-launched submarines, and bombers), of which only 700 can be active and operational. Furthermore, it includes a system of on-site inspections and a shared database so that each party can verify at any time that the other is fulfilling its commitments.

However, trust between states, fundamental to these types of mechanisms, had long been fractured. These monitoring visits were canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic, and in 2023, in the midst of the war in Ukraine, Putin announced that he was suspending the treaty. because of US support for Volodymyr Zelensky. And yet, both sides continued to adhere to the limits set by the pact.

Trump's return to the White House, however, precipitated a change of position in the United States. Among American politicians and experts, a consensus spread that the time had come to expand the strategic nuclear arsenal. The main arguments are Russia's alleged violations of the treaty and the fear that the combined nuclear weapons of Moscow and Beijing would upset the balance of power. That is why Washington wants to have the potential to attack both capitals simultaneously.

As Pavel Podvig, one of Russia's leading specialists in nuclear weapons, explained to ARA, the American arguments are, to a large extent, "ideological." From his point of view, they seek to eliminate "any limitations imposed on the United States" and "simply want to seize the moment." The scholar believes the Trump administration is trying to send "a message of firmness to China," but warns them: "They will regret it. Some think that if they won the arms race with the Soviet Union, they will also win it with China. Well, good luck to them."

The Kremlin, meanwhile, has waged a pressure campaign on the White House, warning them of a catastrophic future without measures to curb nuclear expansion. On the one hand, according to Podvig, Putin wants to present himself as a "responsible" partner, but the reality is thatstatus quo This suits Russia: it has the advantage in the arms race, its security is guaranteed, and therefore it doesn't want to encourage the United States to gain momentum and upset the balance.

A new arms race?

On paper, once the treaty expires, each side will be free to increase its nuclear arsenals, but this won't happen overnight. Podvig doesn't see it as feasible for the Americans to substantially increase their nuclear missiles or submarines because they are already experiencing budget problems with land-based anti-ballistic missile systems. Russia, meanwhile, is immersed in a war that also prevents it from investing beyond the battlefield in Ukraine. And as for China, which might have more leeway, "a significant expansion is not to be expected either," he says. "Even in the worst-case scenario, in which the Chinese manage to acquire a thousand warheads by 2030, compared to those possessed by Russia and the United States, one could not speak of a true arms race," he concludes.

However, both Putin and Trump have been raising the specter of nuclear escalation for months. On the one hand, Moscow, boasting about the cruise missile tests The Burevestnik nuclear-powered submarine, the Poseidon nuclear submarine, and the Oreshnik ballistic missile, capable of carrying a warhead, are all examples of systems that fall under the limitations of the New START agreement. Meanwhile, Trump has responded by ordering nuclear tests and continuing to push forward with the Golden Dome project, a state-of-the-art missile defense system, which Moscow and Beijing perceive as a threat to the global strategic balance.

Is a new agreement possible?

The President of the United States is obsessed with include China in a new nuclear arms control treatyBut Xi Jinping doesn't want to hear about it until he achieves parity with Washington. Putin also wants France and Great Britain at the negotiating table. "I'm very skeptical," says Podvig, who explains that "treaties reflect the general state of relations" between powers and that, until they improve, a new agreement is not plausible.