U.S. President Donald Trump said he had discussed nuclear arms control with Russian President Vladimir Putin at their summit in Alaska, stressing that China should also be involved, with the ultimate goal of “denuclearization.”
Just a day before meeting Trump, Putin suggested Moscow and Washington could strike a new deal on nuclear arms control. The talks come as both countries, along with China, are undertaking major modernizations of their nuclear arsenals, and with the last major arms treaty between the U.S. and Russia set to expire.
The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which limits the number of strategic nuclear warheads and delivery systems each side can deploy, is due to run out on February 5th, 2026. Russia currently has about 4,300 stockpiled and deployed warheads, while the U.S. has about 3,700, together accounting for roughly 87% of the world’s nuclear weapons, according to the Federation of American Scientists.
The collapse of earlier Cold War-era agreements continues to cloud relations. Washington blames Moscow for undermining the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. The U.S. withdrew from the ABM Treaty in 2002 and from the INF Treaty in 2019, citing Russian violations that Moscow has denied. Russia has since said it would resume nuclear testing if the U.S. did and raised concerns over Trump’s proposed ‘Golden Dome’ missile defense shield.
The U.S. has long pushed for China to join arms control negotiations. Beijing, with an arsenal of about 600 warheads, has resisted, even as U.S. intelligence assessments say it remains “intent on modernizing, diversifying, and expanding its nuclear posture.” China is the world’s third-largest nuclear power, followed by France with 290 warheads and Britain with 225. Israel is widely believed to hold nuclear weapons—according to SIPRI (the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute), anywhere between 90 and 300 warheads—but follows a policy of “strategic ambiguity,” meaning the country neither denies nor confirms possession of nuclear weapons.
Both Trump and Putin have publicly warned of the risk of a nuclear confrontation. Putin last year lowered the threshold for a Russian strike, expanding the doctrine to allow nuclear use in response to a conventional attack on its territory. Trump, in turn, said earlier this month he had ordered two U.S. nuclear submarines to be deployed to “the appropriate regions” after former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned of possible war between the two nuclear powers.
It is hard to judge Moscow-Washington relations at this point. While President Trump reported a productive meeting in Alaska and a familiar relationship with President Putin, the two global powers seem to disagree on more things than they agree on. China historically has not wanted to join any global treaties that would legally be above the Chinese government; Beijing only accepts legal frameworks within its own court systems.
