“We continue to count on the valuable contributions of the Arms Control Association.”
Getting the Most Out of New START Before It Expires
December 2025
By Rose Gottemoeller
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, after mysteriously disappearing from the public eye for a few weeks, reemerged November 9 to give an interview to Russian news service RIA Novosti. He took a question about whether Moscow has proposed a meeting with Washington to discuss President Vladimir Putin’s offer to extend the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) limits for one year beyond February 5, 2026, when the treaty goes out of force. With an exasperated edge, his specialty, Lavrov answered,
The constructive initiative put forward by President Vladimir Putin in the post-New START context speaks for itself. It contains no hidden agenda and is perfectly clear for understanding. Its practical implementation would not require any special additional efforts. Therefore, we do not consider it necessary to hold in-depth discussions on this proposal.… So far, there has been no substantive response from Washington.1
In past times, the two sides could be expected to be engaged in sustained, even urgent, negotiations to determine the future of their nuclear relationship and the treaty that imposes the last remaining limits on their strategic arsenals, which together contain roughly 10,000 nuclear weapons.
But since Putin announced September 22 that Russia is “prepared to continue observing the … central quantitative restrictions” of New START for one year after its expiration if the United States “acts in a similar spirit,” there has been no formal U.S. response, just President Donald Trump’s off-the-cuff comment to reporters Oct. 5 that “it sounds like a good idea to me.”2
One Right Thing
Yet, Lavrov has one thing right: Putin’s proposal does not require any negotiation. Both Putin and Trump could simply declare their intention to continue to abide by the New START limits: 1,550 warheads, 700 delivery vehicles, 800 launchers.3 This handshake arrangement could hold until one side declared its intention to leave the limits, or started building up beyond the agreed numbers and the other side noticed through its national technical means of verification, which involve overhead satellites and other national monitoring assets.
Further, while the treaty remains in force, both presidents can actually do better than that—and still not need to negotiate.
Putin stopped implementing New START in February 2023 because he objected to the continuing U.S. assistance to Ukraine.4 The United States, for its part, quite correctly held Russia accountable, stopped implementing the treaty on a reciprocal basis, and pushed Russia to change course. For that reason, Russia and the United States no longer exchange New START data twice a year, nor do they exchange notifications about the movements of their strategic nuclear forces on a nearly daily basis. Similarly, the treaty-mandated short-notice, on-site inspections are on pause, depriving both sides of valuable and stabilizing insights into each other’s nuclear forces.
But even in this situation of suspended implementation, the treaty itself remains in force. That means implementation can easily be resumed until February 5, 2026. Trump could improve Putin’s offer by proposing that both sides resume implementation measures and do so quickly. This would allow each party to have up-to-date knowledge about the status of the other’s strategic nuclear forces when the treaty does go out of force in just over two months’ time. Our mutual knowledge would be “level set” after a period when Moscow and Washington had to depend only on national technical means for monitoring the other’s forces. The result is bound to be a mutual improvement.
The two sides would not have to negotiate; they only have to flip the implementation switch back on. Both countries have a legal obligation under the treaty to fulfill these measures which are clearly laid out in treaty protocols and procedures; notification formats, for example, are well-understood on both sides, and are transmitted by experienced teams at the Nuclear Risk Reduction Centers in Washington and Moscow. The data exchanges also are conducted in a well-practiced way by the center staffs.5
As for inspections, they were suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic but were ready to resume in 2023. Although in many instances, U.S. sanctions and visa requirements can impact work with Russia, in this instance, the treaty itself solves the problem. It obligates the parties to accept each other’s inspectors. As with the data exchange, there is “muscle memory” here, too; both sides have experienced inspectors who know how to navigate the procedures. The technical implementation teams were set to meet in the fall of 2022 to chart a post-COVID resumption of inspections— just when Putin ordered the cessation of contact.6
Simple and Fast Implementation
As a result, Russia and the United States could resume full implementation of New START before February 5, 2026. It could be simple and it could be fast. All it requires is that both sides resume implementing the treaty that remains in force until February. This “re-baselining” of insight into their nuclear forces would be a powerful complement to a handshake to abide by New START limits for one year after the treaty expires.
For the United States, the benefit of this move would be buying more time to decide what to do about the ongoing Chinese buildup without having to worry simultaneously about new Russian deployments. It also would permit the U.S. triad modernization program to proceed, unimpeded by new requirements: any decision to re-open that program would add to its already high cost and ever lengthening schedule.
For Russia and the United States, benefits would spring from restored predictability about each other’s nuclear forces, and from the renewed lines of communication that would pay dividends in mutual confidence. With effort, trust may be restored to a level sufficient to make progress on larger strategic stability topics, a process interrupted by the war in Ukraine.
After a nearly four-year pause, Russia and the United States have crucial questions to wrestle with in the strategic stability space, including what to do about the proliferation of drones and missiles at all ranges. One approach would be to ban nuclear weapons on missiles and drones in the short to intermediate ranges. This would challenge the boundaries of what has previously been agreed at the negotiating table but is well worth considering because of the widespread nature of the proliferation. Russia and the United States could look together for ways to propose such limits to other states possessing nuclear weapons. It should be in no one’s interest to face, in the future, a nuclear weapon amid a drone swarm.7
Moscow and Washington also could begin what should become a wider conversation about the need that all states will have to defend against drones and missiles—what is known as integrated air and missile defense—and sustain a balance between strategic offensive deterrence and missile defense. The preamble to New START was succinct on that point,
Recognizing the existence of the interrelationship between strategic offensive arms and strategic defensive arms, that this interrelationship will become more important as strategic nuclear arms are reduced, and that current strategic defensive arms do not undermine the viability and effectiveness of the strategic offensive arms of the Parties…8
Defending Against Drones and Missiles
Now the parties must think hard about how to build defenses against drones and missiles in multiple ranges, while ensuring that their strategic triads remain a viable means to deter nuclear attack on their homelands. It is a common problem, once again, that affects all states deploying strategic offensive forces, not just Russia and the United States. With long experience addressing this vital balance, the two largest nuclear powers can perhaps together lay the groundwork for a broader consideration, amid rampant missile proliferation, of the offense-defense relationship among all states possessing nuclear weapons.
The United States, of course, also must address the Chinese nuclear buildup, which will be a long-running challenge in the 21st century. The Chinese are fiercely reluctant to engage on the issue, not wanting to limit or reduce their nuclear forces until an uncertain point in the future. Either they want to build up to the levels of Russia and the United States, thus creating the two-nuclear-peer problem that so worries Washington, or they want to wait until Russia and the United States reduce their arsenals down to China’s level, Beijing’s canonical talking point.
Although China refuses to discuss limits or reductions, it seems more open to conversations about constraining nuclear risks. For that reason, the twin challenges of missile proliferation and defense necessity perhaps will be one way to open a conversation with Beijing about controls on nuclear weapons, such as a ban on nuclear weapons on short- and intermediate-range missiles. If Russia and the United States can advance the issue, then at a minimum, China might be ready to listen to what they have accomplished, perhaps in the context of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, the so-called P5.9 The P5 process, which also includes France and the United Kingdom, could be a practical place to discuss integrated air and missile defense and how it relates to the viability of strategic offensive deterrence.
By contrast, one place where China and the United States could take the lead is in fleshing out the meaning of the statement agreed by U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping at their Lima summit meeting in November 2024.10 The two leaders, discussing the security implications of AI, agreed that there should always be a human in the loop for nuclear command and control decision-making, but what precisely that means has yet to be determined. As the countries leading AI innovation on a global basis, China and the United States are in a good position to begin this conversation, with a view to expanding it apace to the rest of the P-5.
Because the level of geopolitical tension is so high, such ideas may seem outlandish, but it is important to stress that they are all on a sound foundation. Russia and the United States first tackled the offense-defense balance in the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, and that long-ago experience can inform current discussions, even if no one wants to negotiate another ABM Treaty. China, as standoffish as it has been on nuclear negotiations, has already agreed at the highest level that AI and nuclear command and control decision-making must be treated with supreme caution. This, too, is a sound basis for fruitful discussions.
Extending the limits of New START by one year would build momentum toward such engagements. Exercising the treaty now—while it remains in existence—is a positive and achievable step. And it does not require negotiation, just the flip of a policy switch.
ENDNOTES
1. “Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s interview with RIA Novosti, Moscow, November 9, 2025,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, November 9, 2025.
2. Vladimir Isachenkov, “Kremlin welcomes Trump’s comments on Putin’s offer to extend the New START nuclear arms pact,” Associated Press, October 6, 2025.
3. Under the New START Treaty, operationally deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and heavy bombers assigned to nuclear missions are limited to 700. Deployed and nondeployed ICBM launchers, SLBM launchers, and bombers are limited to 800. Operationally deployed warheads are limited to 1,550.
4. Vladimir Putin, “The President’s Address to the Federal Assembly,” President of Russia, February 21, 2023.
5. Rose Gottemoeller and Dan Zhukov, “Nuclear Risk Reduction Centers: A Stable Channel in Unstable Times,” Stanley Center for Peace and Security, October 2023.
6. Mike Eckel, “How Bad Are Things Between Russia and the U.S.? They Can’t Even Agree To Discuss Nuclear Weapons Inspections,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, December 2, 2022.
7. Rose Gottemoeller, “The US and Russia can lead the way in banning nuclear-armed drones,” The Financial Times, October 30, 2025.
8. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, “Ex. Rept. 111-6 - Treaty with Russia on Measures for Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (The New START Treaty),” Congress.gov, October 1, 2010.
9. Thomas Countryman, “The Potential of the P5 Process,” Arms Control Today, March 2025.
10. “Readout of President Joe Biden’s Meeting with President Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China,” The White House, November 16, 2024.
Rose Gottemoeller, William J. Perry Lecturer at the Center for International Security and Cooperation and a Hoover Institution Research Fellow at Stanford University, was chief U.S. negotiator for the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) and a former NATO deputy secretary-general. Paul Dean was senior legal advisor to the U.S. New START Treaty delegation and a former deputy assistant secretary of state responsible for implementing the treaty. He assisted Gottemoeller with this article.