End New STARTSince the end of the Cold War, nuclear diplomacy has done far more harm than good to American interests and national security. It’s time for a different approach.
Much has been made by the liberal commentariat of the lapsing of the bilateral US-Russia nuclear arms reduction treaty known as New START. We’ve seen breathless articles in publications like The Atlantic and the New York Times, lamentations about the end of nuclear diplomacy from former president Barack Obama – who launched New START back in 2011 – and the moving of the Doomsday Clock to its most precarious position ever, 85 seconds to midnight.¹ Even the Pope has said his piece, arguing that “We must urgently replace the logic of fear and distrust with a shared ethic that can guide choices on behalf of the common good and make peace a heritage safeguarded by all.” These paeans to the arms control industry are boilerplate left-liberalism at this point, but they do have a basis in history; US-USSR nuclear limitation agreements during the Cold War did indeed help reduce the threat of global Armageddon and were mutually beneficial to both powers. But we do not live in the Cold War world anymore. In the rough-and-tumble world of 21st-century Great Power competition, agreements like New START are worse than useless; they are directly counterproductive to our interests. During the twilight struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union, nuclear armaments became the most fearsome weapons on the planet. Americans of all ages lived in terror of these nightmare warheads. The proverbial Sword of Damocles – nuclear annihilation – was ever-present, hanging just above our collective necks. These fears were present in Soviet society as well. And they weren’t necessarily unfounded; there were several near-misses across the decades. In that bipolar geopolitical situation, arms limitation treaties focused on nuclear weaponry had their place in reducing tensions and the possibility for fatal miscalculation. Even then, though, they were not a total salve. Now, however, the situation is so wildly different than that of the past that it calls for a novel approach. Since the end of the Cold War, the approach to arms limitation has been the same: bilateral deals between Washington and Moscow. This is clearly an outdated strategy, for a wide variety of reasons.
First, Russia is not even our greatest threat anymore; that honor belongs to the People’s Republic of China. The Chinese Communist Party has never agreed to limit its nuclear arsenal and, as such, has never been bound by the series of Cold War or post-1991 nuclear pacts. China is rapidly modernizing, expanding, and accelerating its nuclear forces, tacitly changing its posture from a purely defensive one to be more assertive and forward-oriented. They could easily have over 1,000 warheads by the end of the decade, most of which will be new, technologically-advanced systems. They are positioning this force to deter any response to Beijing’s aggressive attempts to dominate the Indo-Pacific – and given how shamefully we’ve responded to Russian belligerence in Europe, they very well might succeed. Any deal reached with Moscow would let Beijing off the hook, making us less safe and less prepared to combat Chinese aggression. Even if a bilateral deal made sense, it is unlikely that the Russians would comply. They already broke New START by stopping inspections during the pandemic in 2020 – conveniently allowing them to increase production and ignore limits until officially breaching the deal in 2022. Since then, they have continued to violate the treaty, as well as rapidly scale up their nuclear forces in non-covered weapons systems. To this end, they have spent billions on hypersonic missile delivery systems, nuclear-powered and armed cruise missiles, long-range undersea nuclear-equipped drones, and more. These new weapons systems were never included in New START, yet are just as dangerous to American security. Russia has also threatened the theater use of tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine – a conflict they started just 3 years after New START was ratified and intensified after they deliberately breached the deal. So much for the restraining effect of nuclear agreements.² That last sentence is somewhat unfair; nuclear deals do restrain some powers. The problem is that the only country being restrained here is our own. America has fully complied with every aspect of the nuclear treaties we have signed, even when those deals, like New START, basically codify Russian nuclear supremacy. We have avoided spending on nuclear modernization efforts, have not built out new nuclear delivery systems, and have assiduously tried to reduce our arsenal. Part of that approach was pushing for more of the same old arms control deals despite the changing world, speaking to a level of utopian thinking that should have been left for dead in the 1990s. If we wish to compete with our adversaries, we need to stop unilaterally limiting ourselves. We cannot self-restrain when our foes are tearing off their shackles daily.
New START was a failure. It did not restrain Russian aggression. It did not reduce Russia’s nuclear arsenal in a meaningful way. It did not stop their nuclear expansion efforts. It did not stabilize bilateral relations. It did nothing at all to stop Chinese nuclear acceleration, North Korean nuclear testing, or Iran’s nuclear ambitions. The deal only worked to limit America, not our enemies. It is time to chart a new course. That means realizing that our adversaries are not bound by treaties and negotiating with them is a fool’s gambit. It means spending what is necessary – and, to be clear, that will be a lot – to modernize our nuclear arsenal, compete with Russia and China in tactical nuclear weapons and other novel delivery systems, and build out an interceptor network to protect the homeland and deter attack. It means not ceding the field to our foes in this realm of destructive weaponry or restraining ourselves for no national benefit. It means taking strong, even kinetic, action against nascent nuclear weapons programs in adversarial states – you can call this the Iran playbook. And, most of all, it means realizing that we live in the 21st century, not the 20th. It is time for a new start when it comes to our nuclear posture. And that means scrapping New START. 1 The idea that the world is closer to nuclear apocalypse than ever before is simply laughable if you know even one iota of Cold War history. 2 Another case in point is Iran, quite obviously. Rational Policy is free today. But if you enjoyed this post, you can tell Rational Policy that their writing is valuable by pledging a future subscription. You won't be charged unless they enable payments.
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Thursday, 5 February 2026
End New START
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