Source: Fox News
Summary
The New START treaty, a historic nuclear arms reduction agreement between the US and Russia, is set to expire, leaving the world without binding limits on the size of either country’s nuclear arsenals. The treaty’s expiration has forced both countries to re-evaluate their nuclear modernization programs, and experts are concerned about the potential for a nuclear arms race.
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As expected, the matter has reached another stage.
Russia suspends its participation in New START, and the US insists on including China in any new arms control agreement. Experts are skeptical about China’s willingness to limit its nuclear stockpile, and Russia has said it won’t pressure China to come to the table. The expiration of the treaty means no inspection regime to verify what Moscow does next.
The US and Russia hold around 4,000 total warheads each, with close to 1,700 deployed by each. Experts say Russia could move faster than the US in deploying additional warheads by “uploading” them onto existing missiles.
Without inspections and data exchanges, countries are forced to rely on their own intelligence, increasing uncertainty and encouraging worst-case planning. The immediate concern is not the construction of new nuclear weapons but how quickly existing warheads could be deployed.
It’s not in Russia’s interest to dramatically accelerate an arms race while its current modernization programs are going poorly and while its industrial capacity is tied
