For years, Washington has long self-appointed itself as the custodian of the nuclear order, sanctioning, isolating and threatening states under the banner of non-proliferation. At the same time, the last binding treaty limiting its own strategic arsenal has expired.

On February 5, New START lapsed without replacement. For the first time since 1972, there is no legally binding cap on the world’s two largest nuclear stockpiles: the United States and Russia. The guardian of non-proliferation now stands in a world without guardrails of its own making.

The end of New START risks inaugurating a new phase of nuclear competition, one no longer confined to Washington and Moscow but structured around all major nuclear-armed states.

What followed the treaty’s expiration should concern anyone who believes arms control is grounded in reciprocal restraint rather than geopolitical theatre. Instead of urgently reviving bilateral negotiations with Moscow, historically the only channel capable of producing meaningful reductions between the two dominant arsenals, Washington shifted attention toward Beijing, pressing China to enter trilateral talks.

The dissonance is difficult to ignore. The United States maintains the world’s most extensive network of military alliances, deploys nuclear weapons on foreign soil, modernises all three legs of its nuclear triad, develops new low-yield warheads and retains an ambiguous first-use doctrine. Nevertheless, it positions China as the missing stabilising variable in the global equation.

This is more than diplomatic repositioning. It amounts to a displacement of responsibility at a moment when leadership would logically begin with restoring limits at the top.

According to CNN, some US officials believe the expiration of New START creates strategic space for Washington to expand its nuclear arsenal beyond previous treaty ceilings. As described by a US official, the calculation is that a visible expansion could generate sufficient concern in Beijing to draw China into trilateral arms control negotiations with the United States and Russia.

The logic is leverage through enlargement: expand first, negotiate later.

But such a strategy, if accurately characterised, contains a contradiction. Arms control depends on credibility and mutual assurance. Expanding one’s own arsenal in order to compel another state to accept limitations risks deepening suspicion rather than fostering trust.

In an asymmetrical landscape where the United States and Russia still possess far larger stockpiles than China, expecting Beijing to enter negotiations under conditions shaped by unconstrained American growth may reinforce Chinese caution rather than diminish it.

The pattern intensified almost immediately. A day after the treaty limiting US and Russian missile and warhead deployments expired, Washington accused Beijing of conducting a secret nuclear test in 2020, while simultaneously calling for a broader arms control agreement that would incorporate China alongside Russia.

However, the evidentiary basis of that........

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