Donald Trump He continues that it will only further destabilize the already uncertain geopolitical panorama, but is it a big deal? For him New York Times yes and they expose it that warns about the possibility that the Republican president of the United States will initiate a nuclear escalation.
The nuclear board has just lost one of its last “brakes.” He treaty New START IIIwhich for years set verifiable limits on the strategic arsenals of the United States and Russia, without a substitute agreement, although the Russians had previously distanced themselves from it.
All of this means that, in practice, for the first time in more than half a century, there is no longer a bilateral framework in force that imposes legally binding limits on the two largest nuclear powers.
Furthermore, the NYT focuses on something even more uncomfortable: in the US only the president can order the use of nuclear weapons. Without a vote by Congress, without “formal” prior authorization from military commanders, and with a margin of minutes if the scenario is one of rapid response.
What changes after the end of New START: fewer limits, less transparency
New START (signed in 2010 and in force since 2011) It was extended for five years in 2021 and extended until February 2026.as the State Department itself recognizes. Its role was very specific: to monitor the number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads and delivery systems, in addition to supporting verification and data exchange mechanisms.
The key figures of the treaty (the ones that really organized the board) were these:
- 1,550 strategic warheads displayed as a limit for each part.
- 700 launchers deployed (ICBM, SLBM and heavy bombers), with a total of 800 deployed and non-deployed.
The problem is not just “how many.” Stop measuring and verifying yourself. Even before it expired, the treaty was already affected: inspections slowed down during the pandemic and Russia suspended its participation in 2023, although the framework formally remained in place until 2026.
The most delicate point: the “solo authority” to use nuclear weapons
Here is the core of the fear raised by various analyses: If the world enters a phase of arms race and aggressive signals, the risk of error also increases. And in the US, the system design prioritizes speed.
The president is the only one with the authority to order a nuclear attack. The process involves authenticating your identity and transmitting an operational order, and once the procedure is launched, there is no real “undo button”.
This is not theory. Is operating doctrine since the Cold Wardesigned for a possible surprise attack and to guarantee immediate retaliation. The political debate (which reappears when the president is a particularly polarizing figure) is whether this architecture makes sense in 2026, with added risks such as cyber threats, false alarms or rapid escalations.
More warheads and a return to testing: what is being discussed (and why it is disturbing)
With New START out, the question shifts from “What does the treaty allow?” to “What does each country decide?” In recent days, information and analysis has appeared about Whether the Trump administration could increase deployment and reopen the debate on underground nuclear testing. Here it is convenient to separate verifiable facts from scenarios:
USA has not carried out an explosive nuclear test since 1992 (data widely documented and repeated in recent analyses). However, in 2025 political noise reappeared (although with much discussion about what exactly test means in Trump’s mouth: explosive, subcritical, systems, etc.).
Many experts emphasize a point that is not ideological, but practical: if Washington breaks the de facto norm of not testifying explosively, it opens the door to reciprocal responses and for rivals to gain experience that they do not have to the same extent today.
And in parallel, the expiration of the treaty fuels the three-way race scenario (USA-Russia-China), something that analysis centers such as the CFR also point out.
