At midnight on February 5, 2026, the world crossed a threshold it had not faced in over half a century. The New START treaty — the final thread in a web of nuclear arms agreements painstakingly woven since the 1970s — quietly expired. No extension was signed. No successor was agreed upon. And just like that, for the first time since the Cold War, there are zero legally binding limits on the planet's two largest nuclear arsenals.
What We Just Lost
New START wasn't just a piece of paper. Signed in 2010 by Presidents Obama and Medvedev, the treaty capped each nation's deployed strategic warheads at 1,550 and allowed 18 on-site inspections per year — the kind of eyes-on-the-ground verification that satellites simply cannot replace.
Those inspections are now history. "We are flying blind," warned Dr. James Acton of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "Without verification, we have no reliable way to know what the other side is building."
Why No Deal Was Reached
Negotiations stalled over two irreconcilable demands. Moscow wanted the treaty expanded to include British and French nuclear weapons — a non-starter for NATO. Washington insisted that any new framework cover Russia's tactical nuclear weapons and novel delivery systems, including the Poseidon underwater drone and the Burevestnik cruise missile. Neither side budged.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the expiration "a grave moment for international peace and security" and urged both nations to return to the table without preconditions.
The Shadow Arms Race
Arms control experts warn that the real danger isn't an immediate sprint to build more weapons. It's the slow, invisible erosion of trust. Without inspections, suspicions grow. Without caps, modernization programs quietly expand. Russia has already tested hypersonic glide vehicles; the United States is investing $1.7 trillion in its own nuclear modernization.
This isn't 1962. But for the first time in a generation, the guardrails are gone — and the road ahead is unnervingly dark.