New START is dead — good riddance

Since 1972, the United States has always had some sort of ongoing bilateral nuclear treaty with the Soviet Union and its successor state, the Russian Federation. Or at least it did, until this week, when the last in this long line of treaties – New START – expired.

That treaty, signed during the Obama and Medvedev administrations, set limits on deployed nuclear missile launchers and warheads. But the Trump administration and other American conservatives, including myself, had expressed concerns in the past that the treaty failed to include China, a more significant threat to the United States than the modern Russian Federation. 

Many arms controllers are decrying the end of the treaty. Michael McFaul, President Barack Obama’s ambassador to Russia, wrote the treaty was “tragically” ending, a sentiment echoed by arms controllers across the Atlantic. Experts at organisations such as the Vienna Centre for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation urged Washington and Moscow to create a new bilateral treaty, which they said could later be expanded.

Read more at Brussels Signal.