Whither New START

Trump's Dilemma

There is good support for downsizing our nuclear arsenal. [1] But does it matter?

Let’s expand the scope of our attention for a moment to include yet another evolving disaster for the Trump administration, this time returning to the prospects for continued restraint – if that is the right word – on the sizes of US and Russian nuclear arsenals. The status has not superficially changed since I gave a run-down of positions in October [2]. But there have been subtle changes, both in the US and Russian positions, even though there has been no agreement as to what is going to happen when the New START treaty expires at midnight on February 5^th – less than seven weeks from now.

On the Russian side, there appears to be increasing enthusiasm for a verbal agreement to leave the existing limitations in place for one year, during which time the terms of a new treaty can be hammered out. Putin made the offer in September, but there has been no response from the US. Indeed, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov appeared frustrated by the lack of a substantive response during his press conference on November 9^th [3]. Since then, there has been no response from the White House [4].

As to the reasons why Putin’s enthusiasm has increased and Trump has not responded, we can only speculate. Putin’s position has softened visibly since his invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and it is easy to understand why. Despite his nuclear saber rattling and machismo claims, his criminal war is not going well [5] and the Russian economy is edging toward collapse. Maintaining the status quo would mean avoiding additional expenses of a new arms race.

With Trump, the situation is much more complex. There are two factors that I can think of that work in favor of extending New START and negotiating a follow-on treaty:

• As noted in [2], Trump’s statements that he thinks the world has too many nuclear weapons; and

• Trump’s long record of obsequiousness toward Vladimir Putin. Putin wants to extend; why doesn’t Trump immediately agree? Holding out for a Trump Tower St. Petersburg, perhaps?

On the other hand, these are factors against extending New START:

• Trump’s dislike of treaties;

• Trump’s apparent favorite military program, Golden Dome, which is a major impediment to reductions in the numbers of nuclear weapons; and

• The long and fervent support of The Heritage Foundation for all things nuclear warfare: Nuclear weapons, Anti-ballistic missile defense, nuclear weapons testing, long predating but ratified by Project 2025.

For the record, there are additional factors which might be expected to be important but which are probably of no consequence in determining Trump’s course of action:

• The dismantlement of the National Security Council’s expertise in nuclear arms negotiating;

• The consensus of the electorate that reductions in nuclear arsenal sizes would be a good thing; and

• The recently announced National Security Policy, with its implicit withdrawal of the US nuclear umbrella for our former allies would be expected to argue in favor of a smaller US arsenal, as many of those countries opt for nuclear weapons of their own.

I am unsure as to how to characterize the influence of the nuclear arms industry, which plainly has a vested interest in maintaining or even expanding our nuclear weapons arsenal. The uncertainty concerns the scope of their monetary contributions influence, which is believed to be focused primarily on Congress. My latest information on this topic dates to before the 2024 election; once it is updated I plan to report on it.

The careful reader will note the absence of any reference to analysis informing policy. For instances, it would be useful to update the analyses that led to identification of the number of weapons necessary to destroy the Russian economy in light of Russia’s shrinkage since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, or to calculate estimated upper limits on the number of nuclear weapons that could be exploded in the course of a general nuclear war while avoiding a global environmental catastrophe. Those kinds of considerations require economic- and scientific expertise, words that are anathema to the MAGA cult.

It is pointless to attempt assessing the likelihood of Trump’s adoption of one approach or the other, even assuming the decision space to be limited to New START extension or not, because we are dealing with a random process. If there is indeed a decision, the real reason for it will be unknown and unknowable, despite any accompanying statement. The very most we might expect to learn is whether it was Putin or the Heritage Foundation that held sway at the moment the decision was made.

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Notes

[1] https://today.yougov.com/international/articles/53574-most-democrats-and-one-third-of-republicans-think-its-likely-the-us-will-get-into-a-nuclear-war

[2] https://stephenschiff.substack.com/p/limitations-on-strategic-nuclear

[3] Gottemoeller, Rose: Getting the most out of New START before it expires, Arms Control Today, December 2025, pp. 6-8

[4] I discount the mention of a New START extension in the so-called “Peace Plan” because it was clearly written by the Russians. In any event, it’s mercifully dead.

[5] Not going well, a massive understatement. Per the military “experts” of the Kremlin, Pentagon and main stream press, the war was supposed to be over within a few days. It’s been nearly four years now. So, a factor of 100 error and growing; that’s +10,000%, and yet those experts cling to their preconceptions, lacking the imagination to conceive of the possibility, much less the likelihood, of a Ukrainian victory.