New START Treaty – Expiration
The US indicated that they ‘may want’ to re-negotiate the New START Treaty, but, they want China to be part of the negotiations. This has been the cry for years now. China has said for years now that they are a small nuclear power, not on the same level as Russia and the US, and their posture is ‘no first strike’. China says they do not belong in these negotiations. Russia has ratcheted up the tension with a comment by Dmitry Peskov: “When discussing the future system of strategic stability, we cannot ignore the nuclear capabilities of US allies in Europe. We are talking about the United Kingdom and France. Without this, further discussions will certainly be impossible,” – said the presidential press secretary.
This is an indication that the nuclear capabilities of the UK and France are considered part of the US, and this is of course accurate.
The Treaty expires on the 5th of this month. In just a few days, the world will be in a more dangerous situation than it has been so far, Peskov continued.
“For the first time, the USA and Russia, two countries with the world’s largest nuclear potentials, will be left without a fundamental document that would limit and control nuclear arsenals. This is very bad for global security.”
Ryabkov called it:
Russia will not make any demarches to the US ahead of the expiration of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), while Washington’s lack of response on the issue is also a response.
“In the remaining day and a half before the New START Treaty formally expires, we will not make any demarches or official appeals to the Americans. We did everything necessary in a timely manner, and they had plenty of time to think it over. The lack of a response is also a response,” he said while at the Russian embassy in China.
Basically from the US side, it is crickets. As far as I know, Trump mumbled once or twice that Russia wants to extend the treaty and in his style “we will see”. Exactly as Ryabkov states, the lack of a response is also a response.
We should now reassess the very negative responses to Professor Karaganov, when he stated a number of times over the past year, that Russia should maintain in their language their nuclear capability in a strong manner, and present it as a deterrent.
Nobody is scared enough!
If this abandonment of yet another treaty will put the world into a new long-range ballistic missile arms race, needs to be seen. I have no doubt that this is not good for the world. I also have no doubt that this was seriously discussed during Mr Shoigu’s recent visit to China. Similarly I have no doubt that Russia has long-range and submarine delivered ballistic missiles on their drawing boards and even at the ready phase.
Scott Ritter, whom one has to read very carefully, presents a history from the start of this treaty. This is part 2: https://scottritter.substack.com/p/an-abm-primer-part-two-closing-the
The Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation has an article as well. The End of the new Start.
New START—the Treaty on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms—signed by the United States and Russia in 2010, expires on 5 February 2026. Its expiration will mark the end of an era of US-Soviet/Russian arms control that began in 1969 with the launch of SALT I negotiations, as well as decline of arms control more generally. Almost all bilateral and multilateral agreements on nuclear and conventional arms, except for few limited confidence building measures, have either expired or been abrogated.
This will not be the first time the United States and Russia find themselves without an arms control treaty. In previous cases, however, negotiations were under way and a successor agreement was in sight. Today, there are no negotiations—bilateral or multilateral—and none are even planned. Instead, nuclear weapon states, not limited to the United States and Russia, have entered a phase of qualitative and, to a lesser extent, quantitative arms race. In the absence of the last remaining nuclear arms control treaty, this competition may become increasingly destabilising.
In a sense I am not content with any of these articles. Neither with what else I have seen. These treaties through the years fulfilled a function in preventing an arms race. The only comment that makes sense is that we are now in the hands of God who is not expected to join and help negotiate some realism in this issue that does threaten to wipe us out. I also remember Mr Putin’s comment: We will all die. Russians will die like heroes and they will die like dogs. If anyone has forgotten, Russia’s posture is that they will retaliate if anything that looks like a ballistic missile is sent to them, whether it has a nuclear warhead or not. They will make the assumption that it is nuclear. The US holds a first strike posture.