A key nuclear treaty, the START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) expires on Feb 4th 2026. This bilateral treaty between the US and Russia caps the number of nuclear weapons each side may legally possess. It also mandates bilateral inspections to ensure the treaty is respected on both sides
Originally signed in 1991 by Gorbachev and President H. W. Bush, it successfully reduced the stockpiles on each side by 80%. This essentially put an end to the nuclear arms race between the US and the Soviet Union, which broke up later that year.
In 2010, a revised START treaty was negotiated by US President Clinton and Russian President Medvedev. This further reduced stockpiles to about 2000 nuclear warheads apiece. Ratified by both sides in 2011, it had a ten-year term and was renewed for another 5 years in 2021 under Biden.
Putin has offered to extend the treaty for another year, if the US reciprocates. President Trump said on January 8, 2026: "If it expires, it expires". Expiration of START would remove all constraints on expansion of nuclear stockpiles and delivery systems, as well as abolishing bilateral inspections.
By way of background: the first nuclear weapons were used on August 6th and 9th 1945, when the US dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Over the next 20 years, Russia, England, France and China also developed these weapons of mass destruction.
The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 frightened everyone. Soviet leader Khrushev attempted to place nuclear armed missiles on the island of Cuba, 90 miles from Florida, and President Kennedy threatened various sorts of retaliation, including nuclear. For 13 days, we didn't know if we would wake up the next morning.
This alarm set in motion a series of treaties designed to prevent nuclear war. A hotline was installed between the White House and the Kremlin. All nuclear testing except for those underground were banned, and the latter were also banned a few years later. The key Nonproliferation Treaty of 1970 was designed to stop the spread of nuclear weapons to countries that did not have them, although 4 more countries have since joined the "club"- India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel.
As of 2026, Russia, China and the US are all increasing their nuclear budgets exponentially. Global tensions are rising because of many factors: global warming, natural disasters, increases in the demand for energy, and scarcity of essential resources like water and rare minerals, to name a few. The risk of all-out nuclear war goes up dramatically without START.
An all-out nuclear war might well be suicidal for humanity; indeed, for most life forms. Scientists tell us that a number of factors would ensure widespread lethality.
With a nuclear exchange there would be many detonations, killing billions of people. As the fallout spread, billions more would sicken and die a slower death from radiation poisoning. The soot and smoke would block out sunlight, causing a "nuclear winter", a fall in temperature that would destroy most food-producing agriculture. The electromagnetic field on which the internet and much of modern technology depends would be disrupted.
All of these effects would multiply each other in unforeseeable ways. Civilizations would collapse. And radiation hangs around for millions of years. It disrupts DNA, so the long-term biological effects, assuming there are still life forms around, would be devastating.
We have lived with nuclear weapons for 80 years, since the A-bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Horrendous as those were, they were small compared to the hydrogen bombs, 5-40x more powerful, which are now routine in nuclear stockpiles. Russia and the US currently have at least 400 of these mounted on ICBMs - Inter Continental Ballistic Missiles. They are on hair-trigger alert, meaning that they can be launched within 10 minutes, giving hardly any time for deliberation if an incoming attack is suspected.
Trump and Putin- long time allies- are now facing off in Ukraine, Venezuela, Greenland. Each leader has significant domestic economic and political problems. Each has the sole authority to push the red button that launches a nuclear attack. If either man is backed into a corner, he could decide to commit suicide and take the rest of us with him.
It's a scary prospect, and far from unthinkable. Yet almost no attention is being paid to the crucial START Treaty and its imminent deadline. An AI search showed NO recent articles on the topic from The New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, AP News, The Wall Street Journal, NBC, CBS, or The LA Times. Only MSN has covered the topic, by quoting from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
There are many dire newsworthy events these days, especially the outrageous tactics of ICE in Minneapolis. The threat of fascism in the US is real and growing. Ecological crises are mounting. The international rule of law is under attack. Poverty is increasing around the world, and pandemics are more and more likely.
All of these menaces are gradual and potentially reversible.
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