​New beginnings: on the end of START as opportunity

On February 5, 2026, the ‘New’ Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) expired. A symbol of an older era in global geopolitics, where the U.S. and the then Union of Soviet Socialist Republics were engaged in an escalating spiral of one-upmanship such as ‘testing’ mammoth nuclear weapons and space races, START represented a pivotal shift in how they approached nuclear competition — from unlimited accumulation towards negotiated reduction. It emerged from decades of arms control efforts and altered the trajectory of the Cold War’s final years. The nuclear arms race that dominated the Cold War saw both superpowers accumulate massive arsenals. By the 1980s, they each possessed over 10,000 strategic nuclear warheads — the U.S. with a lopsided advantage. Earlier arms control measures such as the Strategic Arms Limitations Talks, in the 1970s, attempted to limit the growth of these arsenals, but were focused on capping numbers rather than reducing them.

START I negotiations began in 1982 and proved complex. The treaty was not signed until July 1991, just months before the Soviet Union’s collapse. It represented the first agreement between the superpowers to actually reduce strategic nuclear arsenals rather than merely limit their growth. The treaty required each side to cut strategic warheads to 6,000 and reduce delivery systems proportionally. This was a significant symbolic and practical achievement — each country would have roughly 30% fewer warheads than existing agreements permitted. Later agreements built on START’s framework and reduced deployable warheads to 1,700-2,200 a side, and the New START Treaty (2010) limited each side to 1,550 deployed strategic warheads. Each represented further progress down from Cold War peaks. The New START, with its 15-year lifespan, ought to have been replaced with more ambitious outcomes. But given that global geopolitics seems to be receding into imperialist structures — mercantilist tariff systems and a craving for territories — it is unsurprising that arms-race doctrines too will be resuscitated. U.S. President Donald Trump has stated that any future arms control must include China, given its growing nuclear stockpile, signalling that the U.S. will not be bound by limits if other major powers (such as China) are free to build up theirs. The end of START may have serious consequences for global agreements, such as the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. They are both noble in theory but the first is discriminatory in the way it seeks to rid the world of nuclear weapons. The end of START is an opportunity to restart discussion on more equal terms.