New START - the last treaty keeping both sides honest on strategic nukes - is dying by neglect, and Moscow just put Washington on blast.
Trump's new National Security Strategy talks about "re-establishing strategic stability" with Russia.
Saying: we want to negotiate arms control.
Russia's response? 'Prove it. Pick up the phone. Because right now, silence means you're fine with no limits.'
Here's what's actually at stake: New START caps deployed warheads, provides mutual inspections, keeps both sides from guessing.
Without it, there's zero verification, zero caps, and both nations modernizing arsenals with hypersonics and AI-guided delivery systems.
The treaty framework that survived the entire Cold War is about to vanish - not from deliberate termination, but from mutual ghosting dressed up as diplomacy.
What happens next? Neither side blinks, obviously.
Treaty expires. Both claim the other killed it.
The arms race restarts, except this time with weapons systems that move faster than human decision-making.
Every military upgrade by one side triggers matching escalation by the other - no transparency, no limits, no off-ramps.
Putin's betting Trump won't negotiate because it looks weak domestically. Trump's betting he can get a "better deal" later.
Both are probably wrong. What they'll get is an unconstrained race where mistakes become extinction level threats.
Clock's ticking. Nobody's dialing.
