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Tomorrow, 5 February, the last remaining arms control agreement between the US and Russia, who control 87% of all nuclear weapons, expires.
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President Putin has offered to abide by its terms for another year while a successor agreement is negotiated, however President Trump has not responded officially and the treaty will lapse. From tomorrow, the two countries will be free to build and deploy more weapons, with the two sides unable to verify what the other is doing. The arms race between the two countries, which already involves the development of new generations of weapons, could accelerate and the risk of an accidental or even intentional nuclear conflict will increase at a time when nuclear tensions are as high as they have ever been, if not higher. In response, the Executive Director of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, ICAN, Melissa Parke, called for urgent new action on disarmament: “In the short term, the US and Russia should publicly commit to respect New START’s limits while a new framework is negotiated. They should restart serious disarmament talks and bring their warhead numbers down significantly. This would build confidence with the other nuclear-armed states that it is worthwhile engaging in broader disarmament discussions. All nuclear armed countries have to recognise that arms control alone is no longer enough. These weapons need to be eliminated before they are used again and the way to do that is through is through the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which a majority of countries have already signed or ratified only five years after it came into force.” Ms Parke added: “Without New START, there is a real danger the new arms race will accelerate between the US and Russia – more warheads, more delivery systems, more exercises – and other nuclear-armed states will feel pressure to keep up. That makes every crisis more dangerous and increases the risk of mistakes and miscalculation. It also sends the worst possible signal to the rest of the world: that the nuclear powers are going backwards on disarmament, just when they should be leading.” In a sign of the urgency of the nuclear threat, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists recently moved its Doomsday Clock to 85 seconds to midnight, the closest it has ever been to the time signyfing the end of human civilisation, in part because arms control is collapsing. |
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For further information and interview requests contact Alistair Burnett, ICAN Head of Communications [email protected] +41 78 238 7179 |
Further reading:
Almost three quarters of Swedes support joining UN Nuclear Ban Treaty and two thirds oppose hosting nuclear weapons – new poll finds
ICAN endorses Nobel Laureates’ Rome Declaration on AI and Nuclear Weapons
NATO leaders need to understand more nuclear weapons make them less safe – ICAN
Tonga becomes 100th country to join UN Nuclear Ban Treaty
Global spending on nuclear weapons increased 19% in 2025 to reach its highest recorded level at $118.8 billion
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