By Shuchita Jha. Bayeux, France
The global nuclear order is at its most fragile point since the end of the Cold War. With the New START Treaty set to expire in February 2026 and no serious negotiations underway to replace it, Russia’s nuclear posture has become the central variable shaping the future of strategic stability. Moscow currently fields the world’s largest nuclear arsenal, with approximately 5,580 warheads, of which 1,588 are strategically deployed under New START counting rules as of September 2024. It maintains a diverse triad and is modernizing virtually every leg of its strategic forces: RS-28 Sarmat ICBMs, Borei-A submarines with Bulava missiles, Tu-160M2 strategic bombers, and novel systems such as the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle and the Poseidon nuclear-powered torpedo. This modernization reflects both a desire to ensure survivability and a determination to offset perceived U.S. and NATO technological advantages.
The stabilizing architecture of arms control, painstakingly built over decades, is collapsing. For over fifty years, treaties from SALT I to New START capped and reduced deployed strategic weapons, providing predictability and transparency. That era now appears to be ending. Russia’s suspension of its participation in New START in 2023 crippled the treaty’s verification regime, leaving both sides operating with increasing uncertainty. The de-ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty in November 2023 further signaled Moscow’s willingness to live without constraints. Without New START’s limits, Russia could theoretically increase its deployed arsenal by up to 60% by uploading more warheads onto existing missiles and bombers.
While Moscow has floated temporary extensions, these are stopgaps, not solutions. Analysts such as SIPRI warn that bilateral nuclear arms control between Russia and the United States is now “almost over,” creating a vacuum that threatens to spur a new, more complex, and riskier arms race.
Russia’s nuclear behavior since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has eroded norms as much as treaties. Persistent nuclear saber-rattling, the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus, and repeated drills simulating limited nuclear strikes in Europe have blurred the line between deterrence and coercion. This weaponization of rhetoric undermines the longstanding “nuclear taboo” and makes the global environment more volatile. Russia’s doctrine has also shifted: updates in 2020 and 2024 lowered the threshold for nuclear use, listing conventional attacks on Belarus, massive aerospace strikes, or threats to sovereignty as possible triggers. Nuclear signaling has become a deliberate tool to deter NATO intervention and to coerce political concessions.
Two contrasting expert interpretations dominate the debate on where Russia is heading and what it means for arms control. Dr. Olga Oliker of Crisis Group argues that Russia no longer believes bilateral, legally binding arms control with the United States is possible or desirable. In her view, Moscow’s strategic goal is assured retaliation under any circumstances, not numerical parity. The suspension of treaties is not an emotional reaction but a deliberate signal that Russia is prepared to live in a world without constraints as long as its second-strike capability remains unquestioned. According to this school of thought, Russia is shifting from “arms control” to “risk management.” Future stability will rest on unilateral confidence-building measures, tacit red lines, and political frameworks rather than treaties. Moscow may accept a non-binding successor to New START after 2026, but only if it includes U.S. intermediate-range missiles in Europe, Chinese strategic forces, and space-based assets—conditions Washington currently rejects.
A more pessimistic reading comes from Prof. Dmitri Trenin, formerly of the Carnegie Moscow Center, who contends that Russia has abandoned the intellectual framework of mutual assured destruction in favor of escalation dominance and warfighting credibility. He sees Russia’s deployment of tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus and its repeated drills as evidence of a posture designed not merely to deter NATO but to coerce it. From this perspective, numerical arms control is a Cold War relic that constrained Moscow while the West built conventional and missile-defense superiority. The Kremlin is deliberately moving toward a posture where it can credibly threaten limited nuclear use in regional conflicts while maintaining strategic parity. In this world, arms control is not merely frozen—it is irrelevant.
Other experts echo these divergent logics. Dr. Sergei Ivanov emphasizes deterrence as rational survival in a hostile environment, arguing that treaties are tools of leverage rather than constraints. He sees Russia’s violations as tactical moves to gain concessions. By contrast, Dr. Elena Petrova insists that disarmament is the only rational path, warning that doctrinal ambiguity increases the chance of miscalculation and that exotic systems like Poseidon destabilize strategic stability. Similarly, Dr. Elena Morozov portrays Russia as a rational actor seeking updated rules in a multipolar world, while Prof. Aleksander Grant views it as a revisionist power exploiting nuclear risk for coercive diplomacy. Together, these perspectives highlight the trilemma facing nuclear arms control: security through deterrence, stability through treaties, and trust through compliance. Russia’s challenge is to balance these imperatives, though its current trajectory leans heavily toward deterrence.
The broader context complicates matters further. China is engaged in a historic nuclear buildup, potentially tripling its warhead count to at least 1,500 by 2035. India, Pakistan, and North Korea are also expanding their arsenals. This multipolar nuclear landscape makes future arms control vastly more complex. The United States insists that any post-New START agreement must include China, a demand Beijing rejects. Meanwhile, rapid advances in artificial intelligence, cyber capabilities, hypersonic missiles, and space-based weapons create new domains of potential conflict that old numerical treaties cannot address. Public opinion research suggests that deterrence and disarmament are not mutually exclusive in the global imagination: while the ultimate goal remains a world free of nuclear weapons, the immediate priority is managing and reducing nuclear risk.
Navigating away from the current precipice will require pragmatic steps. Even without a formal treaty, the U.S. and Russia should salvage transparency through reciprocal data exchanges and military-to-military communication to prevent miscalculation. Risk reduction measures such as de-alerting, clearer protocols for dual-capable systems, and rules of the road for cyber interactions with nuclear command systems could lower the chance of accidental use. A broader framework must eventually emerge, perhaps beginning with a trilateral U.S.-Russia-China freeze on stockpile sizes, followed by inclusive dialogue with other nuclear powers. Verification mechanisms must adapt to new technologies, and multilateral institutions like the UN and IAEA must develop next-generation tools to monitor compliance even in periods of treaty breakdown.
The conclusion is stark. Legally binding, verifiable nuclear arms control between Russia and the United States is effectively suspended for the foreseeable future, and possibly for good. Where experts differ is on Moscow’s endgame: some see a cold, interest-based stabilization without treaties, others see preparation for controlled escalation. Until Russia’s war in Ukraine ends and U.S.–Russian relations fundamentally change, neither a new treaty nor a return to Cold War–style détente appears likely. The world is entering an era where nuclear deterrence will be managed less by agreed numbers and more by raw calculations of survivability, resolve, and red lines—with all the risks that entails. The path chosen in the coming months will resonate for generations.
A failure to re-establish guardrails will normalize nuclear brinkmanship, incentivize proliferation, and make the unthinkable—the use of a nuclear weapon—incrementally more likely. The alternative, a renewed commitment to cooperative security and pragmatic risk reduction, offers the only viable route back from the brink. As long as these weapons exist, history teaches that one day they may be used, by accident, miscalculation, or design. The choice between managed deterrence and catastrophic conflict rests on decisions made today.
Note:This article is produced to you by London Post, in collaboration with INPS Japan and Soka Gakkai International, in consultative status with UN ECOSOC.
