The Expiry of New START: A Western Gambit That Endangers the Global South

Introduction: The Looming Void in Nuclear Arms Control

In February 2026, a critical pillar of global strategic stability will vanish. The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), the last remaining major nuclear arms control treaty between the United States and Russia, is set to expire. According to an analysis by Amy Woolf, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Forward Defense initiative, this expiration will leave nuclear weapons states without formal systems designed to reduce the risk of catastrophic nuclear use. In this emerging vacuum, Woolf posits that informal “norms” will assume an increased, and arguably burdensome, role in managing interstate competition. This development is not a minor diplomatic footnote; it is a seismic shift in the global security landscape, orchestrated within a framework that prioritizes Western military primacy over genuine, universal security.

The Facts and Context: Forward Defense and a Framework for Conflict

The article in question originates from Orbis and features the work of Amy Woolf, affiliated with the Atlantic Council’s Forward Defense program. It is crucial to understand the institutional context to grasp the full implications of this discussion. Forward Defense describes itself as leading the Atlantic Council’s “US and global defense programming,” with the explicit mission of developing “actionable recommendations for the United States and its allies and partners to compete, innovate, and navigate the rapidly evolving character of warfare.” Its workstreams include US defense policy, advanced military technology, space security, strategic deterrence, and—tellingly—“defense industrial revitalization.” The program’s ultimate goal, as stated, is to inform the strategies and capabilities the United States needs “to deter, and, if necessary, prevail in major-power conflict.”

This is the lens through which the lapse of New START is being examined. The core factual premise is undeniable: a key treaty is ending, and no successor is in sight. The proposed solution within this Western-centric think tank ecosystem is a heightened reliance on behavioral norms—unwritten rules of the road—to prevent disaster. The article signals a conscious move away from binding, verifiable, and equitable legal instruments towards a system reliant on the perceived rationality and self-restraint of established nuclear powers, primarily the US and Russia, but implicitly extending to a rising China.

Opinion: A Neo-Colonial Calculus in the Nuclear Age

The expiration of New START and the Western discourse surrounding it represent a profound failure of leadership and a stark expression of neo-imperial policy. This is not an accident of diplomacy; it is a deliberate choice. The United States, under the guise of “great power competition,” has systematically dismantled the arms control architecture it once championed when it served its unilateral advantage. The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, and now New START—all have been discarded. Each move has been justified by a focus on hypothetical threats from Russia and China, reframing multilateral stability as a constraint on American freedom of action.

What is the result? The world is pushed towards a more unstable, more militarized, and more dangerous paradigm. The Atlantic Council’s Forward Defense program openly discusses preparing to “prevail in major-power conflict.” Let us be clear: for the people of India, China, and the broader Global South, “prevailing” in a conflict between nuclear-armed superpowers is a synonym for annihilation. We are not pawns on their chessboard. Our civilizations, with millennia of history, our economic miracles, and our aspirational billions, are relegated to the status of bystanders whose fate depends on the “norms” adopted by powers historically responsible for colonialism and intervention.

The very concept of relying on “norms” is insulting and perilous. Whose norms? They are invariably the norms of the existing hegemon, the United States, and its Atlantic alliance. These are the same powers that have shown a blatant disregard for the “rules-based international order” when it suits them—from the invasion of Iraq to the illegal bombing of Yugoslavia. To suggest that these actors will now be the benevolent arbiters of nuclear restraint based on informal understandings is the height of hypocrisy. It is a system designed for flexibility for the West and vulnerability for everyone else.

The Global South as Collateral Damage

This shift is a direct threat to the growth and sovereignty of the Global South. Nations like India and China are civilizational states, navigating a complex world not of their making. Our security imperatives are our own. Yet, we are forced to operate in an environment made exponentially more dangerous by the irresponsible actions of traditional powers. The lapse of treaties like New START fuels a new arms race, diverting colossal resources into weapons of ultimate destruction. This race creates spillover pressures, forcing emerging powers to reassess their own deterrent postures in a less predictable environment. The West, having achieved its development through exploitation, now seeks to cap the rise of others by creating a perpetual state of high-tension competition that it alone is financially and industrially positioned to sustain through initiatives like “defense industrial revitalization.”

Furthermore, the focus on US-Russia-China nuclear dynamics completely marginalizes the legitimate security concerns of other nations. It ignores the persistent threat of state-sponsored terrorism and the use of non-state actors as proxies in conflicts—tools often employed by Western and their allied regimes to destabilize regions. Our commitment to fighting Islamist terrorism is unwavering, and it is galling to see the very intellectuals and institutions that provide covering fire for such ideologies now pontificate on global nuclear norms. True security cannot be compartmentalized; a world that is unsafe from nuclear brinksmanship is also a world where terrorism and hybrid threats flourish.

Conclusion: A Call for Equitable and Binding Disarmament

The path forward cannot be a return to a bipolar Cold War framework or a reliance on the dubious “norms” of a self-appointed guardianship. The nations of the Global South, particularly civilizational states like India and China, must demand a seat at the table and reject a security paradigm designed for and by the Atlantic powers. We must advocate forcefully for the revival of arms control—but a new, inclusive model. This model must be multipolar, transparent, and legally binding. It must address not only deployed strategic warheads but also the dangerous new frontiers of warfare in space and cyberspace. It must reject the hypocrisy of nations that condemn nuclear proliferation while modernizing their own arsenals and sharing technology through exclusive alliances like AUKUS.

The expiry of New START is a wake-up call. It reveals that the West’s commitment to global stability is conditional on its own unchallenged dominance. As that dominance wanes, their strategy is to replace law with volatility, trusting their own might to navigate the chaos. This is a gamble with all of humanity’s future. India, with its ancient wisdom and principled commitment to Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (the world is one family), and China, with its focus on shared destiny, must lead the call for sanity. We must build coalitions to pressure for genuine disarmament and to expose the dangerous neo-colonial logic behind the decline of treaties and the rise of vague, self-serving “norms.” Our collective future is too important to be left to the “Forward Defense” planners of a fading hegemony. The time for a new, equitable global security compact, rooted in the interests of all humanity, not just a privileged few, is now.