Farewell to arms control: last remaining US-Russian nuclear weapons treaty expires

END OF AN ERA: ‘IF IT EXPIRES, IT EXPIRES’: As of tomorrow, there will be no constraints on what the U.S. and Russia can do to build up and modernize their nuclear arsenals. The New START treaty, signed in 2010 by Barack Obama and Russia’s Dmitry Medvedev, restricted each side to no more than 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads on no more than 700 missiles and bombers. After a five-year extension was signed shortly after Joe Biden took office in 2021, it expires tomorrow, ending the last of the Cold War agreements aimed at limiting the spread of nuclear weapons.

While Russia has offered to abide by its provisions for another year, President Donald Trump seems happy to let it fade into history. “Well, there’s a lot