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Today's Topics:
1. US balks at nuclear limit extension, calls for new
US-China-Russia deal (Stephen Loosley)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Sat, 07 Feb 2026 15:18:55 +1030
From: Stephen Loosley <[email protected]>
To: "link" <[email protected]>
Subject: [LINK] US balks at nuclear limit extension, calls for new
US-China-Russia deal
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
Trump balks at nuclear limit extension, calls for new US-China-Russia deal
For first time in half a century, the world is without a legally binding
agreement to control nuclear weapons, as New Start accord expires
[Photo caption:] US President Donald Trump has called for a new nuclear treaty
with China and Russia after the New Start agreement expired on Thursday.
[Photo: AP]
By Mark Magnierin New York Published: 10:18am, 6 Feb 2026
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3342576/trump-balks-nuclear-limit-extension-calls-new-us-china-russia-deal?
Combine three wary nations, deep historical mistrust, rapid technological
change, the most destructive weapons ever developed and a US unwilling to
extend Thursday?s last formal nuclear weapons guardrail, and you have the
ingredients for much worse geopolitical tension, if not a slide towards global
disaster, warn nuclear weapons negotiators, analysts and former government
officials.
While Moscow has offered to formally extend its New Strategic Arms Reduction
Treaty (New Start) with the US for another year, US President Donald Trump has
refused, arguing he can forge a ?better agreement? that includes China, a move
many, including Beijing, see as a non-starter.
?Rather than extend ?NEW START? (A badly negotiated deal by the United States
that, aside from everything else, is being grossly violated), we should have
our Nuclear Experts work on a new, improved, and modernised Treaty that can
last long into the future,? Trump said on Thursday on social media.
But experts fear that could spell the death of arms control efforts at a time
of great global tension, given the president?s other priorities and short
attention span.
This week, for the first time in half a century, the world is without a legally
binding agreement to hold nuclear weapons in check.
[Other news: 02:37 Trump orders US military to resume nuclear weapons tests for
first time in 33 years]
?There is growing pressure in the United States to build up the US arsenal in
response to a variety of factors, including the build-up of China?s arsenal,?
said James Acton, nuclear policy co-director with the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace.
A worst-case scenario sees a US nuclear build-up prompting Russia to respond,
Acton said, heaping pressure on China to accelerate its expansion, causing the
US to bolster its weapons cache as the downward spiral continues. ?We are on
the verge of a new arms race,? he added.
Will risks be ignored in favour of more immediate gains?
At one level, little has changed, experts said, with any tit-for-tat moves
likely to play out over months and years.
But problems weighing on the world?s three largest nuclear powers ? from
midterm elections and military purges to national party congresses, wars and
wobbly economies ? also make it easy to all but ignore these risks in favour of
more immediate demands.
Amid expert debates over silos, delivery systems and payload calculations,
there is a parallel war of words as Moscow and Beijing work to score points
over Washington?s aversion to a treaty extension.
China?s foreign ministry has framed Moscow as a trustworthy player doing
everything possible to avoid an unfettered arms race, even as the US fails to
consider ?constructive Russian proposals? and exhibits a ?lack of political
will? to extend the limits.
This comes as both authoritarian states contrast their behaviour against
Trump?s volatile tariff increases, Venezuela attack, threats against Greenland
and
Canada and distrust of Nato and traditional US allies.
One factor behind Washington?s stance reflects the administration?s limited
number of decision makers, analysts said, as real estate developer and US
special envoy Steve Witkoff struggles to carry out Trump?s mandate: to ?win?
the peace in the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Gaza conflicts and enforce his
?locked and loaded? threats against Iran.
?You see Witkoff flying all around the world every other day to put down wars
and negotiate a bunch of agreements,? said Joseph Rodgers, a nuclear weapons
expert with the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. ?It?s also
really difficult to negotiate something like that when you fire all your
negotiators in the government.?
China has minimal nuclear arsenal, seeks no arms race with US: white paper
Arms agreements at the best of times take patience and a commitment to
incremental progress, analysts add, qualities that the headline-grabbing
president has not always embraced, not to mention what some see as his
conciliatory stance towards Russia.
Experts said the dynamics of a nuclear arms race would likely roll out in fits
and starts.
Russia and the US have significant numbers of disabled or mothballed warheads
that can be relatively quickly ?uploaded?. More warheads can replace existing
single-missile warheads, allowing them to hit separate targets independently.
The number and range of versatile dual-use strategic aircraft, such as the US
B-21 bomber, could be expanded. And submarines whose nuclear missile tubes have
been rendered inoperable under the treaty could be dry-docked to restore their
ability to fire.
But the US, with its ossified, bureaucracy-laden defence industrial base, faces
significant challenges relative to its more agile counterparts in China and
Russia.
Other factors, meanwhile, are fuelling tension and strategic uncertainty,
analysts said.
China no longer adheres to its ?no-first strike? doctrine
Beijing, long content to avoid the Cold War mud wrestling between Moscow and
Washington under its decades-long ?no-first strike? doctrine, has pivoted in
recent years in favour of a rapid nuclear build-up.
That?s seen it resist arms-control talks, with the Foreign Ministry arguing
this week that these are ?neither fair nor reasonable?, presumably until
Beijing reaches rough parity.
The US Pentagon estimates Beijing now has some 600 warheads, with 1,500
projected by 2035, compared with 1,550 deployed warheads and 700 active missile
launchers each for the other two under New Start limits.
?To have true arms control in the 21st century, it?s impossible to do something
that doesn?t include China, because of their vast and rapidly growing
stockpile,? US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters Wednesday.
Analysts said behind China?s no-talks stance is a belief that a large nuclear
arsenal is essential for an aspiring global power and provides China with
leverage and options in any showdown, including over Taiwan.
?Xi Jinping has decided that a larger nuclear arsenal is necessary to get China
respect,? said Acton.
Further impeding any treaty extension are divisions within US administration
ranks and among nuclear weapons experts, analysts said.
Hawks, including many in the administration, say an extension would only worsen
US disadvantages by freezing warhead totals even as Moscow and Beijing widen
their lead in ?exotic? missile launching systems.
After 1990, believing nuclear weapons were obsolete and that it had all but
?won? the Cold War, Washington essentially stopped innovating.
China, meanwhile, doubled down on fourth-generation fast-breeder reactors,
hypersonic missiles and fusion energy advances; and Moscow focused on
?doomsday? strategic weapons, nuclear-powered cruise missiles able to stay
airborne for days and Poseidon ?mega-torpedo? underwater drone that could
detonate and cause a tsunami, devastating enemy coastlines.
?The United States took and enjoyed a pretty long nuclear holiday,? said Philip
Sheers, a defence expert with the Centre for a New American Security. ?We?ve
been behind the eight ball.?
Furthermore, even if the three nuclear powers agreed to negotiate, their
asymmetric arsenals complicate efforts to impose equitable limits compared with
the Cold War, when the US and Soviet Union had roughly comparable weapon
systems.
Some of this gets too into the weeds, however, say others.
?As somebody who?s living relatively close to the Pentagon, in the event of a
nuclear war, I?m entirely indifferent whether I?m incinerated by a traditional
[intercontinental missile] or some newfangled hypersonic,? said Acton. ?I would
question whether that makes any sense in the real world.?
There?s also a numbers game.
Even if Beijing and Moscow accepted warhead limits on par with Washington?s,
the Pentagon would want more than either China or Russia has individually ? a
likely non-starter for those two ? fearful they might combine, forcing the US
to deter a potential two-front nuclear war.
There have been signs of cooperation. In recent years, Moscow has shared
early-warning systems and exported technology, fuel and technical expertise to
China for fast-breeder reactors used to amass plutonium stockpiles. The two
also conducted dual-use strategic bomber exercises off Alaska in July 2024 and
the South China Sea in December 2025.
Opposing US views on a treaty extension were aired in the Senate Armed Services
Committee testimony this week during a hearing titled: ?Strategic Competition
in an Unconstrained, Post-New Start Treaty Environment.?
Retired Navy Admiral Charles Richard, former commander of US Strategic Command,
argued that extending the ban was worse than useless and instead advocated a
rapid build-up of warheads and new delivery systems to bolster deterrence and
intimidate adversaries. Talks should not be held unless China participates and
all weapon systems are included, he added.
[Photo caption:] Retired Navy Admiral Charles Richard favoured a rapid build-up
of warheads and new delivery systems to bolster deterrence and caution
adversary]
?Russia is not a friendly potential partner. China is not a lesser threat,? he
said. ?China is growing its nuclear arsenal ? at breathtaking pace.?
?We cannot allow the credibility of our nuclear deterrent to erode.?
Hammering out details will take time, so early discussions are essential
Others argued that this all-or-nothing approach is doomed to fail and does not
reflect how the world works.
New Start limits were not achieved in an instant but were hammered out in
stages over decades, said Rose Gottemoeller, the lead US negotiator for the New
Start deal, through a series of agreements covering the size of test
explosions, the size and subsequent banning of above-ground testing, and
eventual cuts in warhead numbers.
?We have to be self-confident in our ability to work this problem over the next
decade,? she argued. ?As long as China is approached to wrestle with notions of
nuclear risk that it is concerned about, I think that we can get into early
discussions with them.?
?We can make progress with Russia and with China on parallel tracks,? she added.
Another huge concern is the risk of proliferation given the potential number of
rogue actors, and the risk that Trump?s pressure on traditional allies to pay
more for their defence could see Japan, South Korea and some European states
pursue their own programmes.
?Burden sharing is fine, percentage of GDP is fine,? said Angus King, an
independent senator from Maine. ?But when it intimates a withdrawal of extended
deterrence under the nuclear umbrella, so-called, it invites proliferation to
currently non-nuclear states.?
The depth of distrust and the enormous stakes are seen, perhaps most
poignantly, in the unwillingness of the big three to even forge a legally
binding agreement to ensure that humans are part of any artificial intelligence
decision-making when using the fearsome weapons.
?Fortunately, the world hasn?t seen their use in warfare since 1945,? said
Rodgers.
?There is hope if we keep pushing. But the door for diplomacy is still largely
closed.?
Mark Magnier
Mark Magnier
--
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