Nuclear Disarmament Monitor
February 2026
Following the Feb. 5 expiration of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), President Donald Trump and senior administration officials say the United States seeks multilateral talks that involve Russia as well as China as a means to make progress on nuclear arms control and risk reduction.
Trump declined to take up a Russian proposal issued four months earlier by Russian President Vladimir Putin for each side to respect the central limits of New START for one year to maintain strategic stability and create time for negotiations on a new framework to supersede New START.
On Feb. 5, the day the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty expired, President Trump posted on social media that: “Rather than extend New START … we should have our nuclear experts work on a new, improved, and modernized Treaty that can last long into the future.”
Speaking Feb. 6 at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, U.S. Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Thomas DiNanno said, “Today marks the end of one era of arms control and hopefully the beginning of a new one.”
DiNanno said a new agreement would have to, “account [for] all Russian nuclear weapons, both novel and existing strategic systems, and [address] the breakout growth of Chinese nuclear weapons stockpiles,” he said.
DiNanno did not explain where or in what format talks on such an ambitious goal can be achieved, nor did he explain what the administration believes each side might gain from such an approach.
Since 2020, China has resisted “trilateral” nuclear arms control talks with the United States and Russia and has insisted that Washington and Moscow act first to reduce the sizes of their much larger nuclear arsenals. China has not ruled out bilateral nuclear risk reduction talks with the United States and, in November 2023, senior U.S. and Chinese officials met in Washington to exchange views on the topic.
Trump previously indicated he might support parallel bilateral talks with Russia and with China in a Jan. 7 interview with The New York Times.
“I think it would be appropriate for the Chinese [to be part of a new arms control treaty], but I would do a deal with Russia without the Chinese,” he told the newspaper.
President Donald Trump is scheduled to visit his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, in April, if a looming dispute over a $20 billion arms package for Taiwan does not derail the meeting.
Another administration official, Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control and Nonproliferation Christopher Yeaw, suggested yet another approach in Feb. 17 comments at the Hudson Institute.
“Following the expiration of the New START [...] the United States proposed multilateral strategic stability talks as a means to achieving future nuclear arms control.
“A multilateral approach can prevent an unmitigated nuclear arms race, limit the buildup of nuclear arms, and, as appropriate, address issues surrounding non-NPT states with nuclear weapons,” Yeaw said.
One possible venue for multilateral talks on new nuclear limits would be the existing P-5 Process, which is a semi-regular dialogue between representatives of the five nuclear-weapon states-parties to the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The P-5 dialogue is currently chaired on a rotating basis by the United Kingdom.
Diplomatic sources indicate the UK convened a meeting in December in Cairo at the experts level, with another planned to take place before the Review Conference of the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty which begins on April 27.
Meanwhile, a temporary agreement with Russia to informally observe the central limits set by New START could still be useful, according to former New START negotiator Rose Gottemoeller, who testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Feb. 3.
It would be detrimental to U.S. national security, she warned, “to have to address the Chinese nuclear buildup, while simultaneously facing a rapid Russian upload campaign.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in a Feb. 11 speech to the Duma that Russia will, for now, maintain strategic force levels steady if the United States does so as well. And DiNanno’s speech indicated that the United States would only expand its own forces “if directed by the President.”
Whether the two sides have reached an informal understanding not to upload warheads in the near future remains unclear. Despite a media report that U.S. negotiators discussed Feb. 5 such a gentleman’s agreement with Russian counterparts on the sidelines of other diplomatic talks in Abu Dhabi, Yeaw declined to confirm that a temporary deal had been made.
“I know of no such agreement,” he said in his Feb. 17 comments at the Hudson Institute.
“That is still in the President’s hands,” he said. –XIAODON LIANG, DARYL KIMBALL, LIBBY FLATOFF
U.S. Details Chinese Nuclear Test Allegations
In separate February speeches, two top State Department arms control officials said that China conducted a nuclear test of an unspecified explosive yield and sought to hide it using a technique called de-coupling.
The U.S. officials claim that the seismic signal was detected by a primary monitoring station that is part of the International Monitoring System (IMS) established by the 1996 CTBT, a treaty that the United States and China have signed, but which the Trump administration has opposed.
Trump threatened last October to resume U.S. nuclear testing “on an equal basis.”
In a Feb. 17 statement, the head of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization, Robert Floyd, said that: “On 22 June 2020, the CTBTO’s IMS detected two very small seismic events, 12 seconds apart” at locations more than 100km from the former Chinese nuclear test site at Lop Nur.
The CTBTO noted that: “The IMS is currently capable of identifying events consistent with nuclear test explosions with a yield equivalent to or greater than approximately 500 tonnes of TNT. These two events were far below that level.”
“As a result, with this data alone, it is not possible to assess the cause of these events with confidence. Verification mechanisms [namely on-site inspections] which could address disputed claims or smaller explosions are provided by the Treaty but can only be used once the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty enters into force,” Floyd said.
ACA’s Daryl Kimball told The Wall Street Journal the U.S. should seek to resolve concerns over possible Chinese and Russian violations by starting technical talks with those countries on voluntary confidence building measures to detect and deter very low-yield nuclear tests.
“Any U.S. resumption of testing in response to such allegations would be technically unnecessary and would set off a chain reaction of nuclear testing by other nuclear-armed states,” he added.
Disarmament Calendar
Feb. 22: 4th anniversary of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine
Mar. 1: 72nd Anniversary of the largest U.S. nuclear test, Castle Bravo
Mar. 5: International Day for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Awareness
Apr. 27- May 22: The 2026 nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference, New York
UK Rejects Second Nuclear Delivery System Proposal
In response to suggestions by independent experts quoted in a November 2025 UK Parliament Defence Committee report, titled “The UK contribution to European Security,” the UK Government reaffirmed Jan. 30 that a second sovereign nuclear delivery method is not needed.
On Jan 30, the UK government said in a written response to the report that, “A submarine based system remains the most effective and proportionate means of delivering the UK’s deterrent objectives, providing the survivability, assurance, and operational independence we [The United Kingdom] need.”
The Defence committee, examining the topic of a second delivery method for nuclear deterrence, “wish[ed] to understand why the Government dismissed this option.”
The committee noted that it had “not received sufficient evidence to recommend investing in a second sovereign delivery method,” but that there was concern over the decision as “it is clear that the nuclear threat has increased in the recent past.”
Last July, following the announcement that the UK would acquire U.S. F-35A dual-capable combat aircraft and participate in NATO nuclear sharing, Defence Secretary John Healey rejected the need for a sovereign tactical nuclear weapons option when the possibility was raised in parliament.
U.S. to Expand Intermediate-Range Missile Presence in Philippines
Following the 12th session of the Philippines-United States Bilateral Strategic Dialogue, the U.S. announced Feb. 16 that the two sides had agreed to “increase deployments of U.S. cutting-edge missile and unmanned systems to the Philippines.”
In comments to the Manilla Bulletin, Lt. Gen. Antonio Nafarrete of the Philippine Army said the U.S. medium-range capability (MRC) Typhon system could be deployed for this year’s iteration of the bilateral Balikatan military exercises. The missile system previously participated in the 2024 iteration of the exercise.
Asked whether the launchers were currently present in the Philippines, Nafarette declined to comment, citing “operational security” concerns.
The MRC system is capable of launching Tomahawk intermediate-range naval- and land-attack missiles as well as shorter-range dual-purpose SM-6 anti-air and attack missiles. As a ground-based launcher, the MRC system would have been banned by the now-defunct Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.
Following a Feb. 3 consultation on strategic stability between Russia and China, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov warned that U.S. deployment of the MRC system in Japan would trigger a Russian response.
The U.S. military deployed the launchers in Japan last fall for exercises with Japanese counterparts but withdrew them in November, according to local officials. The Chinese foreign ministry criticized the deployment, claiming that the missiles would “further undermine the legitimate security interests of other countries and pose a substantive threat to regional strategic security.”
In Case You Missed It
- Preserving the Moratorium on Explosive Nuclear Weapons Testing, Lynn Rusten, Deep Cuts Commission, Feb. 20
- The Growing Push to Halt and Reverse the Nuclear Arms Race, Libby Flatoff, Arms Control Association, Feb. 12
- The Experts Comment: New START Expires, Bringing both Risks and Opportunities, Daryl G. Kimball, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Feb. 6
- The Aftermath: The Expiration of New START and What It Means For Us All, Federation of American Scientists, Feb. 5
- New START Expiry and the Value of Arms Control, Thomas Countryman, Arms Control Now, Feb. 6
- Concerning Strategic Competition in an Unconstrained Post-New START Treaty Environment: Witness Testimony, Rose Gottemoeller, Feb. 3
- New START’s Expiration and the Need for Continued Nuclear Restraint, Deep Cuts Commission, Feb. 3
- Doomsday Clock Announcement, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Jan. 27
- Virtual Briefing: New Challenges and Next Steps After New START, Arms Control Association, Jan. 21
- Americans Across Party Lines Want the U.S. to Keep Nuclear Limits with Russia, New Poll Finds, Nuclear Threat Initiative, Jan. 21.
- Stockpile Stewardship and Nuclear Testing: A Technical Assessment, George H. Miller, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, November 2025