The Last Day of Nuclear Arms Control
Today, Wednesday, February 4, is the last day of the last remaining US-Russian nuclear arms control treaty. It‘s a sad goodbye and maybe our most detrimental one. A note by Prof. Steven Starr.
Pascal‘s Note: The following is an email that Professor Steven Starr, the former director of the University of Missouri’s Clinical Laboratory Science Program, sent out last night. It contains useful graphics and a reminder that today is the last day of an era of global nuclear common sense. It will be over at midnight. May the gods have mercy on us fools.
[Quick Background: Between 1991 and 2026, the two largest nuclear powers operated under agreements that limited their nuclear arsenals. Starting with the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I), followed by New START, agreed in 2010 and extended for five years in 2021. As ICAN explains, New START “limited the United States and Russia to 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear warheads on 700 deployed nuclear delivery systems (…) and to 800 deployed and non-deployed nuclear launchers of those missiles and airplanes that can launch nuclear weapons.”]
By Professor Steven Starr
Trump has to date failed to accept Putin’s offer to continue to abide by the terms of New START for another year. Tomorrow is the final day that the New START nuclear arms control treaty remains in effect.
Unless Trump agrees to have the US continue to respect the terms of New START, the last nuclear arms control agreement between the US and Russia will end at midnight tomorrow, February 4, 2026.
The end of New START means that the US and Russia will each move quickly to add thousands of additional strategic nuclear weapons -- now held in reserve -- to each of their deployed nuclear arsenals.
This will quickly lead to the doubling of the number of deployed US and Russian strategic nuclear weapons.
First to be added will be hundreds of nuclear armed air launched cruise missiles carried by their strategic nuclear bomber forces.
Then the process of “uploading” nuclear warheads to land based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and submarine launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) will commence.
The charts copied below illustrate the approximate numbers of nuclear weapons that will be moving to deployed status following the end of New START:
Trump still has the option of accepting Putin’s offer, which would require the US and Russia to abide by the terms of New START for an additional year. This would provide the opportunity to negotiate a follow-up nuclear weapons agreement that could include/return to the process of actually reducing the number of nuclear weapons through the dismantlement of nuclear warheads and their delivery systems.
Otherwise, we stand on the brink of an uncontrolled expansion of US and Russian nuclear arsenals -- as well as a global nuclear arms race -- that will progressively increase the probability of a civilization-ending nuclear war, which would almost certainly wind up creating a mass extinction event for many forms of animal life, including human beings.
And for those who wanna know more, watch Professor Starr and Professor Ivana Hughes explain what a nuclear war would actually mean.