Matthew Kroenig says a new arms race started “years ago.”
But the United States, by not seeking the renewal of its New START Treaty with Russia, only recently signaled its intention to join.
“Russia and China were racing, and we were sitting on the sidelines,” says Dr. Kroenig, Atlantic Council Vice President for Geostrategy and the Senior Director of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and a longtime advocate for a stronger U.S. nuclear deterrence posture. “Now we’re back in the race. And I think that’s a good thing.”
In an interview with Independence Avenue Media, Dr. Kroenig argues that the most dangerous place the United States and its allies can find themselves is not in a new arms race, but in a world in which the U.S. nuclear umbrella does not hold dominance over the nuclear capabilities of Russia and China.
And with China as the world’s nuclear upstart, the era of bilateral treaties between the U.S. and Russia, he says, is over.
The following interview, recorded on March 6, 2026, has been edited for length and clarity.
Nika Lomidze: Independence Avenue Media (IAM): As we conduct this interview, I would like to keep our conversation tied to the broader perspective of great power competition. The New START Treaty has concluded and was not renewed between the United States and Russia. Could you talk to us briefly about what that means for the global order of nuclear stability?
Matthew Kroenig, Senior Director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security: Ultimately, I think it’s a good thing. The reason is that due to China’s rapid nuclear buildup, for the first time in history the United States is going to need to deter not just one nuclear superpower in Russia, but two nuclear superpowers — Russia and China — at the same time. In order to do that, the United States is going to need to build up its nuclear arsenal … for the first time since the end of the Cold War.
With New START now gone, the United States will be in a position to strengthen its nuclear arsenal to deter Russia and China, and to effectively extend the U.S. nuclear umbrella over our allies and partners in Europe and Asia.
IAM: Are we entering a new era of strategic nuclear stability or was this a setback in a sense?
Kroenig: I think it’s a step forward because the treaty made sense in 2010 when it was signed, but the world has changed a lot since 2010. Russia is launching the biggest war in Europe since World War II. China is engaged in this massive nuclear buildup, as I said. The United States needs to adjust for the current era.
I don’t know that I’d call it a period of nuclear stability, though. I think we are entering a new strategic arms competition and a new period of history that in some ways will look more like the Cold War than the post-Cold War period. The post-Cold War period was the anomaly where great power competition receded into the background, and nuclear weapons receded into the background along with it. But now the great power competition is returning. Nuclear weapons are once again at the forefront of international politics, and the United States needs a strong nuclear deterrent to protect itself and its allies.
IAM: For our European audiences, could you tell us a little bit about what the New START Treaty actually did for the United States and its strategic deterrence, what it did not do, and what we can look forward to moving forward?
Kroenig: Yes. First the benefits: it kept the strategic deployed nuclear forces of both the United States and Russia at 1,550 nuclear weapons. This is much lower than the Cold War highs when both sides had tens of thousands of nuclear weapons. It also had an inspections regime where the United States could send over inspectors and verify that Russia was complying with the treaty and vice versa.
And at the time, 2010, which was a time where conflict between the United States and Russia almost seemed impossible — there was talk about going to global zero. The Obama administration hoped that 1,550 would just be a way station as they continued to go to lower and lower numbers of nuclear weapons. So that was the idea.
The downside even at the time was that the treaty didn’t cover Russia’s so-called non-strategic nuclear weapons. Russia has roughly 2,000 battlefield nuclear weapons, short-range missiles, gravity bombs and mines that aren’t covered in the treaty. That’s a problem that was identified [even] at the time.
And then over time, the case for the treaty has gotten weaker. During COVID-19, the Russians stopped the on-site inspections. And then after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia ceased compliance with the inspections and verification measures. They said that they would voluntarily comply with the limits, but they wouldn’t allow American inspections to actually verify that … That was a real problem.
And then again, as I mentioned, China’s nuclear buildup just made it so this treaty no longer made sense for the United States.
IAM: A lot of the commentary that we’re seeing in the media is indicating that we’re entering a new era of a nuclear arms race of some sort. Is that the case that you see with the end of New START?
Kroenig: Well, the arms race actually started years ago and the United States was just sitting it out. Russia and China were racing, and we were sitting on the sidelines. Now we’re back in the race. And I think that’s a good thing. Often the media talks about arms races as if that’s somehow a bad thing. But that’s not the worst outcome. The worst outcome is adversaries building up weapons to threaten the United States and its allies and the United States not responding, leaving ourselves weak, leaving ourselves vulnerable. That only invites aggression.
Arms races can be good things. It means that the United States is building the forces it needs to protect itself. That causes real dilemmas for our adversaries like Russia and China. Does Russia, with something like 2% of global GDP, really want to get into an arms race with the United States with 26% of global GDP? We bankrupted Moscow during the Cold War doing this. If Russia wants to play this game again, then they can be our guest. They’re going to lose.
Let’s hope it’s an arms race. That’s much better than deterrence failure and nuclear war, which is what the alternative is.
IAM: What do you think the takeaways will be from the ongoing [U.S.-Israeli] military operations in Iran? The nuclear question was the central issue in negotiations between the United States, Israel and Iran. What are the takeaways for other states regarding the benefits of proliferation versus entering into new treaties?
Kroenig: The big takeaway is that this potentially transforms the U.S. in the global security environment. Until recently, I would have said that the greatest threat facing the United States and its allies is this new axis of aggressors — China, Russia, Iran and North Korea — working together more closely, including with Russia’s war in Europe. The Iranians are providing drones. The North Koreans are providing soldiers. China is providing an economic lifeline and much else. Removing one of those pieces from the chessboard — removing the Islamic Republic [of Iran] or significantly weakening it for a decade or so — weakens that axis of aggressors, and allows the United States and its allies to focus on the remaining adversaries, and greatly transforms the international security environment.
IAM: There are fears now that with ongoing operations in Iran, states such as Saudi Arabia might be inclined to build nuclear weapons of their own for deterrence and security. Do you see any reality to those claims?
Kroenig: You’re right that there are those fears, but I think the current campaign in Iran is going to be good for [non-]proliferation in the region. One of the reasons that a country like Saudi Arabia was interested in possibly building nuclear infrastructure is because if Iran built nuclear weapons, they wanted to build nuclear weapons [too]. And I think what the military operation of the past week or so shows is that Iran is not going to build nuclear weapons anytime soon, if ever. The motivation for Saudi Arabia to build nuclear weapons has been eliminated.
IAM: As the United States has doubled down on its red lines and reintroduced deterrence, do you see a possibility where Russia and China reach out to enter into a new nuclear treaty of some sort?
Kroenig: Well, Trump wrote “The Art of the Deal.” He loves good deals. And in the first Trump administration, he tried to negotiate a trilateral arms control treaty with Russia and China. And so that’s what the future of arms control would need to look like. Negotiating a bilateral agreement with Russia, while the United States’ most important and most powerful adversary, China, remains unconstrained, really makes no sense.
Bilateral arms control with Russia is dead. The future is trilateral that puts constraints on both Russian and Chinese forces. The United States should try. I suspect the Trump administration will try, but it’s going to be very difficult. China historically has been unwilling to even talk about arms control. I suspect we’re going to see arms competition.
IAM: What sorts of asymmetries exist currently in that relationship between Russia, China, and the United States? What advantages does the United States have? What advantages do [Russia and China] have?
Kroenig: Well, one of the big advantages [the Russians] have, and I referenced this before, is large arsenals of theater nuclear weapons. And the United States really doesn’t. The United States focuses on its strategic forces. We have a couple of hundred gravity bombs in Europe, but that’s it.
Meanwhile, Russia and China have large stockpiles of theater nuclear weapons. At those lower levels of the escalation ladder, with smaller nuclear weapons that could be employed on the battlefield, they have a big advantage.
The big U.S. advantage is that we are still the world’s technology leader when it comes to effective command and control, accuracy of our delivery vehicles, efficiency and yields of our warheads, stealthiness of our submarines, etc. They can’t match us. And also, as I mentioned before, we’re the world’s largest economy still. If this does get into an economic competition of who can build more or better nuclear weapons, I’d rather be in the U.S. position than in the Russian or Chinese position.
IAM: You’ve made recommendations to the United States regarding its strategic posture. You’re an expert in this field. What advice do you have to your European counterparts in observing U.S. strategic and deterrence policy moving forward? What factors of policy change should they be looking for?
Kroenig: I know from many conversations over the years with European colleagues, often the biggest divides on these issues run between European capitals. You have the ministries of foreign affairs that are often very focused on arms control and non-proliferation and disarmament. And I think they’re probably looking at this moment with alarm. But then on the other side of the street at the ministries of defense, they’re looking at U.S. extended nuclear deterrence, and they want to make sure that the United States has an effective deterrent as part of their country’s overall defense strategies.
What I’d say to my colleagues in ministries of foreign affairs, or maybe the broader public, is that the United States strengthening its nuclear deterrent in this moment is not a cause for concern. That should be a cause for reassurance. And if you want to make future progress on arms control and disarmament, the problem is not in Washington. The problem is in Moscow and Beijing. Focus your diplomatic efforts there. Then allow your colleagues at the Ministry of Defense to work with the United States to strengthen NATO’s overall defensive posture. American nuclear weapons are, of course, an important part of security and defense for the Transatlantic Alliance.
IAM: What do the next 10 to 15 years hold? Which way do you see the wind blowing? Are we going to enter into more treaties or is it going to be a free-for-all, so to speak?
Kroenig: I think one possible indicator is how we did this in the first Cold War. You did get an intense arms competition from 1945 leading up until the early 1970s. [The Soviet Union] had tens of thousands of nuclear weapons at the time. And they said, “OK, I think this is enough. Let’s agree to limits.” And I suspect we’re going to repeat that pattern. I suspect there will be a vigorous arms competition among the three powers for 10, 15, 20 years until they reach a certain point where they say, “OK, I think we have enough here. Now’s the time to negotiate limits.” And again, the problem is not in Washington. I think Washington would negotiate limits right now. The problem is really in Beijing and in Moscow.
IAM: If we enter into that new era of competition and then we try to draw back again, what lessons should countries like Ukraine, for example, take away from this? They had a nuclear stockpile. They gave it up. Let’s say in 2050, what should countries be looking for if we enter into this cyclical phase again?
Kroenig: Well, I think Ukraine made the right decision by giving up its nuclear weapons because think back to the time — the 1990s. Nonproliferation was a major priority of the Clinton administration. If Ukraine had hung onto nuclear weapons, it would have been treated like North Korea or Iran over the past 10 or 20 years — under sanction, under military threat, maybe even military strikes. I think it did the right thing.
I think where the West went wrong in defending Ukraine was at the [2008] NATO Summit in Bucharest. We should have offered Ukraine membership in NATO at that time. Instead, we put them in this kind of gray zone of “you’ll be in NATO eventually, but not quite yet.” This created a closing window of opportunity for [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to strike. The lesson going forward is countries are better off aligning closely with the United States. And the lesson for Washington is that the U.S. nuclear umbrella has been the greatest source of peace in the world over the past 80 years. Extending that to countries like Ukraine that want to be part of the free world is the right way to go.
IAM: When there is peace in Ukraine, if Ukraine’s NATO membership were on the table, would that be better for European peace and nuclear stability, when it comes to Russia and the United States?
Kroenig: I think on balance, yes, because if you just look at Putin’s behavior, he’s invaded or used military force against almost every neighboring country that’s not a member of NATO, but he has never used military force against a member of NATO. He sees that as a bright red line. If Ukraine were a member of NATO, I think we’d have peace along the Russian-Ukrainian border. And that in turn makes the rest of Europe more peaceful and secure as well.
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