Goodbye Arms Control, Hello Nuclear Anarchy
The launch codes are always along for the ride.
Photographer: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
The era of nuclear arms control officially ends next week. On Feb. 5, New START, the last such treaty between the United States and Russia, will expire. That doesn’t necessarily mean that Washington and Moscow will begin deploying more than the 1,550 strategic warheads each that the treaty stipulated; both of them should, and probably will, observe the old limits for a while longer. Nonetheless, the moment is a milestone.
It marks the first time since the iciest Cold War when no formal arms-control regime will limit the two atomic superpowers. In that way the expiry of New START is yet another step out of a world in which the great powers restrained themselves with rules, and into a brave new world of anarchy, in which the only rules are the whims of strongmen.