Beyond Nuclear International Weekly Digest, MONDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2026: START ended. How much danger are we in?
Posted: 13th February 2026
Beyond Nuclear International Weekly DigestIn another gloomy week for humankind, the last remaining nuclear arms reduction treaty between the US and Russia - New START - quietly expired. Our movement gives its perspective
A “charred wasteland”?
“New Start’s demise enables the US and Russia, which possess about 86 percent of the world’s 12,321 nuclear weapons, to move beyond the strict limits set by the treaty on the number of their strategic nuclear weapons (the most powerful, most devastating kind), thus enhancing the ability of their governments to reduce the world to a charred wasteland,” warns Lawrence Wittner. But while the arms race has been gathering steam for some time, we can still end it, he writes. READ MORE
Double danger ahead
The Nobel Peace Prize-winning IPPNW offered its own dire warning as New START expired. Without new nuclear restraints, Russia and the US could increase the size of their deployed arsenals (limited by New START to no more than 1,550 warheads) and even double the number of strategic deployed warheads, by uploading additional warheads on their existing long-range missiles, the first such increase in more than 35 years. READ MORE
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