The United States and Russia could embark on an unrestrained nuclear arms race for the first time since the Cold War, unless they reach an eleventh-hour deal before their last remaining arms control treaty expires this week.

The New START treaty is set to end on February 5. Without it, there would be no constraints on long-range nuclear arsenals for ‌the first time since Richard Nixon and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev signed two historic agreements in 1972 on the first-ever trip by a U.S. president to Moscow.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has proposed the two sides should stick to existing missile and warhead limits for one more year to buy time to work out what comes next, but U.S. President Donald Trump has yet to formally respond.

Trump said this month that "if it expires, it expires", and that the treaty should be replaced with a better ⁠one.

Some U.S. politicians argue Trump should reject Putin's offer, freeing Washington to grow its arsenal to counter a rapid nuclear build-up by a third power: China.

Trump ‍says he wants to pursue "denuclearisation" with both Russia and China. But Beijing says it is unreasonable to expect it to join disarmament talks with two countries whose ‍arsenals are still far larger than its own.

WHY ‍DO NUCLEAR TREATIES MATTER?

Since the darkest Cold War days when the United States and the Soviet Union threatened each other with "mutually assured destruction" in the event of nuclear war, both have seen arms limitation treaties as ⁠a way to prevent either a lethal misunderstanding or an economically ruinous arms race.

The treaties not only set numerical limits on missiles and warheads, they also require the sides to share information - a critical channel to "try to understand where the other side is coming from and what their........

© Japan Today