By Michael R. Gordon and Robbie Gramer

President Trump is fast approaching his first major strategic arms decision since returning to the White House: whether to agree to a Russian proposal to extend limits on long-range nuclear weapons for another year or do nothing when the treaty expires next week.

The question is pressing because the 2011 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty is the last remaining accord limiting the nuclear competition between the U.S. and Russia. When it lapses, it will mark the first time that American and Russian nuclear forces aren't constrained by an arms-control agreement in over half a century unless the two sides fashion a new understanding.

In recent months, the White House hasn't staked out a clear position. In July, Trump told reporters that it was important to preserve the weapons ceilings in the accord. "When you take off nuclear restrictions, that's a big problem," Trump told reporters in July.

More recently, the White House has signaled that Trump might watch New START lapse and only later sketch out his proposals on how to limit the world's most dangerous weapons, according to former officials and Congressional aides familiar with the matter.

"The President will decide the path forward on nuclear arms control, which he will clarify on his own timeline," the White House said in a statement.

New START, which limits the U.S. and Russia to 1,550 nuclear warheads, is set to expire on Feb. 5. The Kremlin said Thursday that it has yet to receive an answer to its proposal.

In early 2021, then- President Joe Biden extended New START for five years in his first foreign-policy act as president.

The treaty can't be legally extended again, so the question is whether Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin should make a handshake deal that would provide some breathing room until a new accord is put in place.

Putin announced on Sept. 22 that Russia was prepared to adhere for a year to the "central quantitative restrictions" in the accord, which establishes ceilings on warheads as well as deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles and heavy bombers.

The next month Trump told reporters that Putin's proposal "sounds like a good idea to me."

But since then Republicans have debated whether the U.S. should take the deal, ask for more from the Russians in return or spurn Putin's proposal altogether.

Proponents of letting the treaty's limits lapse argue it would give the U.S. a free hand to begin loading more nuclear warheads on its missiles and bombers to confront China's growing nuclear arsenal and boost its leverage in trying to constrain Russia's nuclear forces. Those include short-range tactical nuclear weapons that aren't covered by any treaty.

Sen. Jim Risch (R., Idaho), the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he opposed New START from the outset as "Russia has a history of cheating and they proved me absolutely right all the way through this." He opposes an extension of the treaty's limits.

Arms-control advocates counter that such an approach risks triggering an unpredictable new arms race.

"Walking away from the last remaining guardrails without a plan would hand strategic advantage to Russia and China, trigger the onset of a new nuclear arms race and increase the risk of a devastating nuclear miscalculation," said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D., N.H.), the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The debate over New START comes as the arms-control process has been battered by tensions between Moscow and Washington over Putin's invasion of Ukraine and Moscow's selective compliance with past arms-control accords.

Russia has refused to allow the on-site inspections required by New START since 2022, a stance that led the Biden administration to charge Moscow with a treaty violation.

Other nuclear accords ended during the first Trump administration. A U.S.-Russian treaty banning intermediate-range nuclear forces was terminated in 2019 following American allegations of Russian cheating. A lesser accord -- the Open Skies Treaty, which allowed Russia and the West to carry out unarmed reconnaissance flights over each other's territory to boost transparency -- ended in 2020 following American charges that the Russians were using it to spy on sensitive installations.

Former officials and nuclear experts have been debating three potential approaches for how to respond to Putin's offer to extend New START ceilings.

Some say that the U.S. should accept Moscow's proposal to extend the treaty ceilings for a year only on the condition that the Russians also agree to resume on-sight inspections.

"Extending it without inspections and verification is pointless, as ensuring that Russia is in compliance with the treaty's central limits is already becoming increasingly difficult without them," said Vipin Narang, an MIT professor who served as a senior Pentagon official on nuclear, space and missile-defense policy during the Biden administration.

Others say that the U.S. should spurn Putin's offer altogether and plan for the projected two-peer world in which the U.S. will need to deter China's nuclear forces as well as Russia's. A Pentagon report issued in December said that China, which has steadfastly resisted being drawn into talks on limiting nuclear weapons, has a stockpile of nuclear weapons that was in the low 600s through 2024 but is projected to grow to more than 1,000 by 2030. Previous Pentagon estimates say China's arsenal of nuclear warheads could rise to about 1,500 by 2035.

"The tendency has been to kick the can down the road. It's time to face the new reality," said Matthew Kroenig of the Atlantic Council, a former Pentagon official and adviser to the 2016 Marco Rubio presidential campaign.

Still others say it makes sense to accept Putin's offer to extend the weapons caps for a year so the U.S. can try to draw Russia and potentially China into a discussion for new arms-control agreements.

"If the U.S. lets it pass, they give up the opportunity to say we will extend these caps with you if you and China agree to have a productive dialogue with us about verification and strategic stability," said Mallory Stewart, chief executive of the Council on Strategic Risks and a former senior State Department official during the Biden administration.

"Trump could then take the upper hand in the narrative, telling the international community that he is willing to talk about something that everyone cares about," Stewart said.

Write to Michael R. Gordon at michael.gordon@wsj.com and Robbie Gramer at robbie.gramer@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 30, 2026 09:07 ET (14:07 GMT)

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