These days, no kids in school are ducking and covering under their desks. American magazines don't have stories about families (with the money) building private nuclear shelters to guard against an attack on this country. And I can walk the streets of New York City without normally seeing one of those ancient yellow signs of my childhood indicating a fallout shelter (that you could quickly enter in case a war suddenly broke out and the Soviet Union -- yes, can you even remember that? -- lobbed a nuke our way). In truth, it's hard to believe anymore, but all of that took place in the previous century, when those of us living in New York actually feared a nuclear attack from the Soviet Union.
And yet, so many years later, with not two but nine countries now possessing nuclear weapons (and undoubtedly more to come), nuclear war seems strangely not part of the conversation anymore. It's true, of course -- and one of the great miracles of our history -- that, 80 years after the first atomic bombs destroyed the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, such a weapon has never again been used. Still, given this increasingly strange planet of ours, don't count on another 80 years like that.
In fact, as TomDispatch regular Michael Klare makes grimly (and strikingly) clear, at this very moment both our country and Russia (the Soviet Union being long gone) seem to be abandoning the basic nuclear restraints of so many decades and potentially expanding their already gigantic nuclear arsenals, already easily capable of wiping out several Earths. Fortunately, there are still groups organizing against such a nuclear nightmare, though you don't hear much about them these days. But if you want to know more, check out the websites maintained by the Arms Control Association and the Friends Committee on National Legislation. And then, if you're feeling anxious, instead of ducking and covering, check out Klare's latest piece on the all too strange world we now find ourselves in. Tom
Plunging Into the Abyss
Will the U.S. and Russia Abandon All Nuclear Restraints?
For most of us, Friday, February 6, 2026, is likely to feel no different than Thursday, February 5th. It will be a work or school day for many of us. It might involve shopping for the weekend or an evening get-together with friends, or any of the other mundane tasks of life. But from a world-historical perspective, that day will represent a dramatic turning point, with far-reaching and potentially catastrophic consequences. For the first time in 54 years, the world's two major nuclear-weapons powers, Russia and the United States, will not be bound by any arms-control treaties and so will be legally free to cram their nuclear arsenals with as many new warheads as they wish -- a step both sides appear poised to take.
It's hard to imagine today, but 50 years ago, at the height of the Cold War, the U.S. and Russia (then the Soviet Union) jointly possessed 47,000 nuclear warheads -- enough to exterminate all life on Earth many times over. But as public fears of nuclear annihilation increased, especially after the near-death experience of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, the leaders of those two countries negotiated a series of binding agreements intended to downsize their arsenals and reduce the risk of Armageddon.
The initial round of those negotiations, the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks I, began in November 1969 and culminated in the first-ever nuclear arms-limitation agreement, SALT-I, in May 1972. That would then be followed in June 1979 by SALT-II (signed by both parties, though never ratified by the U.S. Senate) and two Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties (START I and START II), in 1991 and 1993, respectively. Each of those treaties reduced the number of deployed nuclear warheads on U.S. and Soviet/Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and long-range bombers.
In a drive to reduce those numbers even further, President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) in April 2010, an agreement limiting the number of deployed nuclear warheads to 1,550 on each side -- still enough to exterminate all life on Earth, but a far cry from the START I limit of 6,000 warheads per side. Originally set to expire on Feb. 5, 2021, New START was extended for another five years (as allowed by the treaty), resetting that expiration date for February 5, 2026, now fast approaching. And this time around, neither party has demonstrated the slightest inclination to negotiate a new extension.
So, the question is: What, exactly, will it mean for New START to expire for good on February 5th?
Most of us haven't given that a lot of thought in recent decades, because nuclear arsenals have, for the most part, been shrinking and the (apparent) threat of a nuclear war among the great powers seemed to diminish substantially. We have largely escaped the nightmarish experience -- so familiar to veterans of the Cold War era -- of fearing that the latest crisis, whatever it might be, could result in our being exterminated in a thermonuclear holocaust.
A critical reason for our current freedom from such fears is the fact that the world's nuclear arsenals had been substantially diminished and that the two major nuclear powers had agreed to legally binding measures, including mutual inspections of their arsenals, meant to reduce the danger of unintended or accidental nuclear war. Together, those measures were crafted to ensure that each side would retain an invulnerable, second-strike nuclear retaliatory force, eliminating any incentive to initiate a nuclear first strike.
Unfortunately, those relatively carefree days will come to an end at midnight on February 5th.
Beginning on February 6th, Russian and American leaders will face no barriers whatsoever to the expansion of those arsenals or to any other steps that might increase the danger of a thermonuclear conflagration. And from the look of things, both intend to seize that opportunity and increase the likelihood of Armageddon. Worse yet, China's leaders, pointing to a lack of restraint in Washington and Moscow, are now building up their own nuclear arsenal, only adding further fuel to the urge of American and Russian leaders to blow well past the (soon-to-be-abandoned) New START limits.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
Post Article Comment and Rate This Article
