Nuclear Limit Collapse: U.S. FACES Unchecked Arms Race

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China’s Defiance IGNITES U.S.-Russia Nuclear Standoff

America is staring down the first period in more than 50 years with no enforceable U.S.-Russia nuclear limits—because China still refuses to be counted.

Quick Take

New START expired on February 5, 2026, ending the last standing U.S.-Russia strategic nuclear arms-control framework.
The Trump administration has signaled it won’t lock the U.S. into a bilateral deal that leaves China’s expanding arsenal outside any limits.
U.S. and Russian negotiators discussed a short-term “good faith” understanding to keep observing limits after expiration, but it reportedly needed leader approval.
Russia previously suspended inspections and notifications, eroding verification and raising miscalculation risks even before the treaty lapsed.

New START Expired With No Formal Extension Mechanism

New START, signed in 2010 and in force since 2011, capped U.S. and Russian deployed strategic warheads at 1,550 and limited deployed delivery vehicles to 700, backed by data exchanges and inspections. The treaty was extended once in 2021 to February 2026, and its text does not allow a further formal extension beyond the treaty’s overall term. That legal reality is why talk shifted to informal post-expiration restraint rather than a clean renewal.

Russia’s compliance framework had already been fraying for years. After the Ukraine war began, Moscow halted inspections and later suspended participation, citing the conflict and broader tensions. Notifications and on-site checks—core tools that reduce worst-case assumptions—stopped functioning as designed. Even if both militaries stayed within numerical limits, the loss of visibility increased the chance that routine force movements could be misread as preparation for escalation.

The last remaining nuclear arms control treaty between the U.S. and Russia, New START, just expired.

For the first time in  several decades, there will be no limits on nuclear weapons, less visibility into Russian nuclear weapons activities, and fewer tools to manage a crisis… pic.twitter.com/uXOiQaCEu2

— NTI (@NTI_WMD) February 5, 2026

Trump’s Push: No More “Bilateral-Only” Deals That Ignore China

President Trump’s posture has been straightforward: the United States should not accept an arms-control structure built for a Cold War that no longer exists. Administration officials have argued that any durable agreement must account for China’s growing nuclear capability, since Beijing is not bound by New START. That position collides with the practical reality that China has resisted joining constraints, leaving Washington stuck between accepting an incomplete deal or risking none.

Diplomacy in early February also showed how crowded the agenda has become. Reporting described U.S.-Russia talks in Abu Dhabi that overlapped with discussions on Ukraine, while separate leader-level contacts continued with Beijing. The public U.S. readout of a Trump-Xi call did not include arms control. From a constitutional, America-first perspective, that’s the uncomfortable but honest picture: nuclear stability is now intertwined with great-power competition, trade, and regional wars—not handled in a neat, isolated lane.

Putin Briefed Xi as Beijing Signaled “Regret,” Not Commitment

Russian President Vladimir Putin held a virtual engagement with Chinese leader Xi Jinping as the treaty’s deadline hit, and reporting said Putin updated Xi on New START’s status. China’s foreign ministry described the expiration as “regrettable” and urged the U.S. and Russia to address the issue through dialogue, while also reiterating Beijing’s long-standing line that it pursues a minimum deterrent and does not seek an arms race. None of that amounts to accepting binding limits.

“Good Faith” Restraint May Buy Time, But Verification Is the Missing Piece

With formal extension off the table, the near-term question became whether Washington and Moscow would voluntarily keep observing New START’s limits for a short period while exploring an updated framework. Reporting indicated an informal understanding could last months, but that it depended on top-level approval. A temporary bridge can reduce immediate pressure for a rapid buildup, yet it cannot replace inspections, data exchanges, and predictable rules—the parts that prevent costly overreaction.

For U.S. taxpayers, the stakes are not abstract. If transparency collapses and worst-case planning returns, the incentive shifts toward higher spending on nuclear forces and supporting systems—exactly the kind of open-ended bill that voters have come to distrust after years of Washington’s overspending. The strategic bottom line is also simple: a deal that excludes China may feel like stability, but it can also lock America into limits while a rival expands. That dilemma is now front and center.