As inspections end and limits vanish, Washington and Moscow enter a dangerous era of suspicion—while the shadow of a new arms race looms large
By TRH World Desk
New Delhi, February 7, 2026 — When the New START treaty quietly expired, it did not just mark the end of a document—it dismantled the last remaining safeguard constraining the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals. As broadcaster Jono Hayes explains to Al Arabiya English, this lapse fundamentally alters how Washington and Moscow view each other, replacing verified facts with fear-driven assumptions.
For over a decade, New START functioned as the final firewall against unchecked nuclear escalation. Its most critical feature was not merely the cap on deployed warheads, but the inspection regime—the ability of each side to physically verify what the other possessed. Transparency was the stabiliser. Everyone knew what everyone else was doing.
That era is now over.
With the New START treaty expiration, there are no legally binding limits, no inspections, and no verification mechanisms. The United States and Russia can no longer confirm the size or deployment of each other’s nuclear stockpiles. What fills the vacuum is not calm—but suspicion.
This is where danger creeps in. The absence of transparency does not mean missiles will launch tomorrow. But it dramatically increases the risk of miscalculation—the deadliest variable in nuclear politics. Decisions once anchored in verified data are now shaped by worst-case assumptions. In such an environment, restraint becomes harder, not easier.
The strategic consequence is stark: deterrence replaces diplomacy. Without treaties to enforce discipline, both sides are incentivised to outdo each other—to build more, deploy faster, and signal strength louder. That is how arms races begin: not with intent, but with insecurity.
Hayes points to an equally critical shift underway in Washington’s thinking. Russia, once the central rival in nuclear arms control, may no longer occupy that role alone. Increasingly, US strategic attention is drifting toward China, whose expanding nuclear capabilities and geopolitical weight now dominate Washington’s long-term calculations.
With high-level US–China engagements on the horizon, the question is no longer just what replaces New START—but with whom. If Washington concludes that future arms control is more urgent with Beijing than Moscow, the US–Russia nuclear relationship could enter a prolonged phase of unmanaged rivalry.
That is the true fallout of the New START treaty expiration. It does not announce a crisis with sirens. It engineers one silently—by normalising opacity, rewarding suspicion, and eroding the habits of restraint built over decades.
In nuclear strategy, what you don’t know can kill you. And right now, Washington and Moscow know less about each other than they have in years.
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