SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Midnight tonight marks the end of the last major treaty limiting Russian and American nuclear weapons. It's called New START, and for 15 years it has capped the number of nukes each side could deploy. Tomorrow morning, those limits are gone. Joining me to discuss what this means is science and security correspondent Geoff Brumfiel. Hey, Geoff.
GEOFF BRUMFIEL, BYLINE: Hi there, Scott.
DETROW: I mean, nuclear weapons - fair to say they are a big deal. However, I think a lot of Americans probably have not heard of New START. Tell us about it.
BRUMFIEL: Yeah, New START was negotiated with Russia under President Obama. A woman named Rose Gottemoeller led those negotiations for the U.S. Now she's at Stanford University. And she told me this treaty was just the latest in a decades-long effort to bring down the number of nukes each side kept pointed at each other.
ROSE GOTTEMOELLER: The New START Treaty brought us down to 1,550 deployed warheads. So it's been a steady, steady reduction from a very high number of 12,000 on each side down to 1,550 on each side.
BRUMFIEL: Now, 1,550 might sound like a lot...
DETROW: It is.
BRUMFIEL: And it is, for sure, but every nuke counts. And also, this helped reduce the chance of an accident or an unauthorized launch. You know, it matters. Also, New START did a lot more than just reduce the number of nuclear weapons. There was a whole system by which the U.S. and Russia notified each other every time they moved a nuclear weapon. Tens of thousands of these notifications went between the two countries over the course of the treaty, and the two sides even sent inspectors to their nuclear sites.
GOTTEMOELLER: We were going to each other's missile bases and bomber bases, submarine bases, and checking up that we were each abiding by our commitments under the treaty.
BRUMFIEL: And, you know, all of this - the limits, the notifications and inspections - they're all credited with creating a lot of stability between the world's two largest nuclear powers.
DETROW: Everything you said sounds like a good thing.
BRUMFIEL: Yeah.
DETROW: So why did the treaty end?
BRUMFIEL: The treaty was designed to last a decade, with an option for a five-year extension, and Russia and the U.S. did extend it in 2021. But, you know, you can do the math. It's now 2026, and that's it. Now, there could have been a new treaty. The problem is, right after New START got extended, Russia invaded Ukraine, and experts I spoke to said that was so disruptive to the U.S.-Russian relationship that it made it nearly impossible to undertake a new arms control negotiation process. And so we've arrived at the end of this treaty with no follow-on.
DETROW: OK, so the treaty is gone. Are there other ways to keep the number of nuclear weapons low, though?
BRUMFIEL: Yeah. Russian President Vladimir Putin has offered a one-year informal extension on the limits. Basically, both sides agree not to deploy more warheads, though there wouldn't be any inspections to verify that. It's more of a handshake kind of thing. President Trump hasn't taken Putin up on his offer yet, but a lot of experts sure wish he would. One of them is Christine Wormuth. She's president of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, an arms control advocacy group, and she told me she's worried about going back to a world where there are no limits on nuclear weapons.
CHRISTINE WORMUTH: My biggest concern is that we could start engaging in an unconstrained nuclear arms race with both Russia and China at the same time.
BRUMFIEL: Now, Wormuth is no dove. She's a former secretary of the Army. She says the real problem here is not just the risk of nuclear war - it's cost. Building new bombers, submarines and missiles adds up.
WORMUTH: That's going to be very, very expensive at a time where our national debt is tremendous. We have a lot of pressing priorities domestically that need investment. And frankly, the United States' conventional military needs investment.
BRUMFIEL: And, you know, the U.S. is trying to upgrade just the nukes it already has, and that's projected to be - cost around a trillion dollars over the next decade.
DETROW: I mean, that gets to the last question. Given how expensive it is to build a nuclear weapon, do you think now that the U.S. and Russia can, that they will?
BRUMFIEL: You know, that's the good news in all this. I think neither side is eager to increase the size of their nuclear arsenals, at least not right away. But especially with China, which is expanding its nuclear arsenal, the U.S. is feeling pressure. And Wormuth and others told me they're worried that we could eventually start rebuilding those levels of nuclear weapons.
DETROW: NPR's Geoff Brumfiel, thank you so much.
BRUMFIEL: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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