Last Nuclear Arms Agreement Between Russia and the U.S. has Expired

What Happened?

The New Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) between the United States and Russia officially expired on February 5, 2026. SALT was the last remaining nuclear arms treaty between Russia and the United States. While in effect, SALT had capped the number of strategic nuclear weapons and launchers that both countries were allowed to possess, fixing the highest amount at 1,550 each. 

United Nations Secretary General Antonia Guterres issued a statement saying, ‘For the first time in more than half a century, we face a world without any binding limits on the strategic nuclear arsenals.’

Why it Matters

The United States and Russia combined possess more than ninety percent of the world’s nuclear weapons. Estimates on exactly how many each side has vary, but a combined total of about ten thousand is a credible assessment.

Without the SALT treaty in effect, both the United States and Russia are free to expand the size of their nuclear arsenals without any legal or international constraints. For the last fifteen years, SALT has kept the number of strategic nuclear weapons constant, but now it may increase.

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After reaching the expiration date of the SALT treaty, President Trump posted on social media that SALT was a ‘badly negotiated deal’ and that ‘we should have our Nuclear Experts work on a new, improved, and modernized treaty.’

But the reality is more complicated. SALT continued a long tradition of careful negotiations between the United States and Russia, and previously between the United States and the Soviet Union. Despite mutual mistrust and misgivings, treaties such as SALT had worked to limit the growth of American and Russian nuclear arsenals.

With more nations joining the nuclear weapons club and now no legal restraints on the two biggest nuclear powers, we live in a world where nuclear war is again becoming more likely.

That is one of the reasons the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists moved their Doomsday Clock to eighty-five seconds till midnight, the closest it has ever been. Even during the height of the Cold War, the Doomsday Clock never went past ninety seconds till midnight, with midnight representing the onset of nuclear war.

With the advent of low-observable delivery systems such as drones and stealth planes, which are difficult to detect with radar or by satellite, the ability to conduct an undetected first strike is now higher than ever. Those capabilities mean leaders will likely be more tempted to use them, making nuclear war more probable now than at any other time in the past.

In addition, the world is less prepared than ever for nuclear war because most people consider the idea a relic and don’t take the likelihood seriously. During the Cold War, bomb shelters and nuclear planning were commonplace, today they are nonexistent. 

How it Affects You

The passing of the final nuclear arms treaty between the United States and Russia puts the world in a position it hasn’t been in since 1963, when the U.S. and the Soviet Union first signed a limited nuclear test ban treaty.

That was passed one year after the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the U.S. and the Soviet Union perilously close to nuclear war. With the war in Ukraine entering its fourth year, the odds of a nuclear exchange between the U.S. and Russia are higher than they have been since the 1980s.

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