Arms Control Didn't Die Slowly. New START's Expiry Was the Autopsy
New START expired February 5, 2026, and for the first time in 35 years, no legal limits constrain US and Russian deployed strategic warheads. China's ICBM silos now outnumber America's, and US officials allege a secret Chinese nuclear test in 2020 used acoustic decoupling to fool monitoring systems. The arms control architecture has already collapsed; the question is whether anyone builds something in the rubble.
By Dr. Nadia Osei · 3 min read