The expiration of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) between the United States and Russia marks a new era of uncertainty in global security. This pivotal agreement, originally signed in 2010, has lapsed without renewal, raising fears of a potential “runaway arms race” as both nations are now free to expand their nuclear arsenals without limitations.

As the clock struck midnight on Thursday, the treaty officially ended after negotiations for an extension failed. This development has left the world on edge, watching anxiously as the two superpowers, previously bound by strict nuclear caps, navigate this uncharted territory.

In the wake of the treaty’s expiration, tensions have escalated, with Russia pointing fingers at the United States for abandoning the agreement. Alexei Zhuravlev, a prominent Russian politician and First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Defense Committee, issued a stark warning. He emphasized Russia’s formidable nuclear capabilities, stating, “Russia currently possesses weapons capable of wiping out any country, or even completely destroying the entire planet.”

Before its expiration, the New START treaty had served as a crucial framework for nuclear arms control. It limited each country to 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear warheads and set a cap on long-range delivery systems, restricting both nations to 700 active platforms, including missiles, submarines, and bombers. The treaty also facilitated mutual inspections and data exchanges, promoting transparency and reducing the risk of misunderstandings.

With the treaty no longer in effect, the absence of such regulatory measures prompts concerns about accelerated nuclear development and the potential for increased geopolitical instability. As the situation unfolds, the international community remains vigilant, hoping for diplomatic efforts to avert a new arms race and maintain global peace.

A limit was also set on the number of long-range delivery systems the US and Russia could have, restricting each nation to 700 active platforms capable of carrying nuclear warheads, including missiles, submarines, and bombers.

Now that New START has expired, both countries are free to build up and deploy more of these weapons without any binding limits or required verification.

Daniel Holz, a member of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, warned that the world has never been closer to Doomsday than it is today, fearing that the end of New START will trigger ‘a runaway nuclear arms race’ involving multiple countries.

Russian President Vladimir Putin (Left) and US President Donald Trump (Right) allowed the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty to expire on Thursday

A worker prepares the B61-13, a nuclear ‘gravity bomb’ being produced by the US that is 24 times more powerful than the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan in 1945

Zhuravlev claimed that Russia was willing to extend New START for another year, but the Trump Administration has demanded that any nuclear arms treaty include restrictions on the country with the third-largest nuclear stockpile – China.

‘Moscow is playing the role of peacemaker,’ Zhuravlev told Russian online news outlet news.ru.

‘Washington, however, has often linked this issue to the inclusion of Beijing, which is rapidly nipping at everyone’s heels, in the agreement.’

The politician said that China, a close ally of Russia, ‘flatly refuses’ to be part of any nuclear treaty, as tensions between the communist nation, the US, and America’s allies in Asia remain high.

The first New START treaty was signed in 1991 and cut the number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads.

START II in 1993 aimed to significantly reduce strategic nuclear weapons, banning multiple warheads (MIRVs) on intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and eliminating Russian SS-18 missiles.

However, it never fully entered into force due to Russian delays related to the US withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, and Russia formally repudiated it in 2002, with later agreements like New START eventually taking its place.

New START was the only treaty that effectively held the US and Russia accountable for reducing their arsenals.

Researchers with the Federation of American Scientists claimed that both the US and Russia exceeded the limits of the New START treaty before its expiration on February 5, 2026

Moscow and Washington, both focused on the war in Ukraine, have not conducted formal talks on a successor to New START.

A new report by the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), a nonprofit global policy think tank, found the US and Russia still possess 86 percent of the world’s total inventory of nuclear weapons.

Overall, researchers estimated that nine countries possessed 12,321  nuclear warheads as of this year, with Russia having the world’s largest military stockpile of more than 4,300 weapons of mass destruction.

The US followed closely behind with 3,700 warheads in the current military stockpile, a number that includes both active weapons on long-range delivery systems and inactive bombs kept in storage.

China, the UK, France, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea are the other seven nations believed to have an active stockpile of nuclear bombs.

In terms of the weapons ready for launch in a nuclear war, scientists with FAS claimed that both countries had already violated the New START limit of 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear warheads at the start of 2026.

Their report alleged that Russia had 1,718 nuclear warheads deployed worldwide while the US had 1,670.

‘The exact number of nuclear weapons in each country’s possession is a closely held national secret, so the estimates presented here come with significant uncertainty,’ FAS said in a statement.

FAS added that the Biden Administration and the Russian government both elected to stop publicly sharing data about their deployed strategic warheads and launchers in 2023, despite it being mandated by the New START Treaty.

President Trump has insisted that a replacement to the New START treaty must include new restrictions on China, which is believed to have 600 nuclear warheads

China currently has approximately 600 warheads in its arsenal, with a recent warning from the Pentagon stating that the country was arming dozens of long-range nuclear missiles.

President Trump said in January that a replacement for New START will need to curb China’s rapid and unchecked expansion of nuclear arms.

‘If it expires, it expires,’ the president told the New York Times. ‘We’ll do a better agreement.’

Dr Jim Walsh, Senior Research Associate at MIT’s Security Studies Program, warned that the treaty’s expiration won’t immediately unravel nuclear restraint, but it could trigger a chain reaction with far-reaching consequences.

‘There’ll be a turn of events a month from now, a year from now, five years from now,’ Walsh told the Daily Mail. ‘Things always happen in international affairs. There’ll be a war, there’ll be a crisis.’