Updated on: February 5, 2026 / 4:27 AM EST / CBS News
The last remaining treaty that capped deployable nuclear weapons between the United States and Russia expired Thursday, ending decades of bilateral arms control between the two largest nuclear arsenals.
The New START treaty, signed in 2010, limited each side to 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear warheads and required on-site inspections and notifications to verify compliance. Russia suspended inspections and stopped providing notifications after its invasion of Ukraine, but the State Department’s most recent report found Russia had not clearly exceeded the treaty limits.
President Joe Biden extended New START for five years in 2021; that extension period is now over and the treaty cannot be extended further. In a January interview with The New York Times, former President Donald Trump said, “If it expires, it expires,” and indicated he would prefer a new deal that included China. A White House official told CBS News the president will outline a path forward on nuclear arms control on his own timeline and has said he wants to maintain limits while bringing China into future negotiations.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said this week it is “impossible” to reach a meaningful agreement without China because of its rapidly growing arsenal. The Pentagon projects China’s stockpile could exceed 1,000 warheads by 2035, a sharp rise from roughly 200 in 2019. The U.S. and Russia are estimated to have about 4,300 and 3,700 nuclear warheads, respectively, according to the Federation of American Scientists.
Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested in September that both sides could observe New START constraints informally for a year without signing a new treaty, a proposal former Under Secretary of State for Arms Control Rose Gottemoeller told senators is feasible. Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Gottemoeller argued that maintaining New START limits unofficially would let the U.S. “reestablish strategic stability with Russia and control nuclear weapons at the negotiating table.” She added that the next U.S. president should be “the president of nuclear peace” in this period.
Other former officials disagreed on the treaty’s value. Retired Adm. Charles Richard, former commander of U.S. Strategic Command, and Tim Morrison, who served as deputy assistant to the president for national security affairs in the first Trump administration, said New START failed to address a number of pressing issues. All three acknowledged the treaty’s shortcomings — it did not include China and did not cover non-strategic or tactical weapons — but Gottemoeller maintained it was still preferable to having no limits at all.
Gottemoeller warned it would be detrimental to U.S. security to confront China’s nuclear buildup while simultaneously facing a rapid Russian increase in deployed weapons. Morrison and others also raised worries about proliferation: the treaty’s lapse could encourage other countries to explore or expand nuclear programs.
Morrison stressed that the U.S. stockpile is aging and requires sustained investment to preserve credible deterrence. He told senators that by 2035, U.S. warheads and bombs will have exceeded their design lives on average by about 30 years, underscoring the need for modernization and a defense industrial base capable of producing necessary systems.
All of the former officials urged strengthening the industrial base to support the triad, particularly the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines that will replace aging Ohio-class boats. An artist’s rendering of a Columbia-class submarine highlights the program’s priority: 12 boats are planned to sustain the sea-based leg of the triad.
Richard said current planned force levels are insufficient across the triad, especially for bombers and ballistic missile submarines, and suggested considering additional capabilities alongside recapitalization and capacity increases.
Sara Cook contributed to this report.