Today, the world crosses a dangerous threshold. The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) has been allowed to lapse. This was the last remaining bilateral agreement between Russia and the United States which placed legal limits on the largest nuclear arsenals on Earth. The Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) expresses deep sorrow and grave concern at this failure of leadership — a moment that history will judge harshly.
New START stood as proof that even in times of extreme tension, nations can choose common sense restraint over escalation and cooperation over catastrophe.
Since entering into force in 2011, New START has played an indispensable role in reducing the risk of nuclear conflict by capping the number of deployed strategic nuclear weapons produced by the United States and Russia. It also established robust verification measures that improved transparency, predictability, and trust between the two countries, helping to lower the threat of misunderstanding and miscalculation for more than a decade.
New START stood as proof that even in times of extreme tension, nations can choose common sense restraint over escalation and cooperation over catastrophe. Through these guardrails, the treaty reduced the risk of nuclear conflict and offered a level of stability in an increasingly uncertain world.
The expiration of New START does not make a new nuclear arms race inevitable — but it makes the path toward one far easier and more dangerous. Without a follow-on agreement, the United States and Russia may now expand their nuclear arsenals unchecked, pouring even more resources into weapons capable of ending life on a massive scale and potentially encouraging other countries to do the same. This is not security. Allowing the treaty to expire without even beginning negotiations for a follow-on agreement is a foolish choice — one which risks devastating consequences.
The loss of New START’s guardrails is a warning, not a verdict, for humanity. There still remains another path.
Since the dawn of the nuclear age, faith communities across the United States have consistently warned that nuclear weapons represent both a strategic and moral failure. They threaten indiscriminate destruction, violate the sacredness of human life, and place the future of our planet in peril. The loss of New START’s guardrails is a warning, not a verdict, for humanity. There still remains another path.
Even now, governments of nuclear-armed nations can choose diplomacy over dominance. There is still time for the United States to show its longstanding support for nuclear nonproliferation. History shows that nuclear risk reduction works. Through, dialogue, and mutual transparency, and hard-fought diplomacy, the United States and Russia showed the world that they deeply understood their mutual responsibility to avoid nuclear war, with both countries previously acknowledging, “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”
The future is still being written. The expiration of New START must not mark the beginning of a new era of nuclear danger but instead serve as a wakeup call which sparks a renewed commitment to peace, mutual responsibility, the security of future generations, and the sustainability of the planet they will inherit.
FCNL remains steadfast in its witness that diplomacy saves lives. The world cannot accept endless nuclear competition and eventual extinction as its collective fate. We will continue to work towards the more peaceful and prosperous world we seek, speaking truth to the powerful few, until humanity is free from the threat of global annihilation.
