Editor’s note: Former US ambassador to Ukraine Steven Pifer suggests that the 2024 US presidential candidates be asked about their plan to avoid a nuclear arms race with Russia and China. (This is part of an “experts comment” series of questions for the candidates.)
 

Unfortunately, the nuclear arms control regime is collapsing. In 2019, the United States withdrew from the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which banned US and Russian land-based missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers, following Russia’s violation of the treaty. In 2023, Russia suspended the monitoring measures mandated by the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), to which the United States responded by suspending those measures as well. While Washington and Moscow assert that they continue to abide by New START’s three numerical limits, their confidence that the other is observing the limit of 1,550 deployed strategic warheads will erode with time. In any event, New START will expire in February 2026, leaving no agreement in place regulating US and Russian nuclear forces.

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