GPI Global Policy Institute

The New Nuclear Disorder

By Malkah Nobigrot

February 19,2026

For years, we grew accustomed to thinking of the nuclear threat as a ghost of the Cold War. Something belonging to documentaries, with images of Soviet missiles, American schoolchildren crouched under their desks with gas masks, and presidents speaking on the “red telephone.” The feeling was that, despite its conflicts, the world had moved beyond that nuclear crisis scenario and learned to keep the most destructive weapons ever created under control.
Today, that confidence is faltering. The legal framework that, for decades, provided predictability for nuclear power is coming apart. For the first time since 1972, no treaty formally limits the strategic arsenals of the two main nuclear powers –the United States and Russia, the country that inherited the Soviet Union’s nuclear arsenal. The danger is not only proliferation, but the disappearance of the limits that contained it.

The old order is gone

Since the 1970s, strategic stability between the United States and the Soviet Union—later Russia—rested on legally binding treaties that limited and regulated their strategic arsenals. The SALT agreements (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, 1972 and 1979), START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, 1991), and New START (2010) established numerical ceilings, on-site inspections, communication and crisis-management protocols, and technical mechanisms to prevent misinterpretations. They did not imply disarmament, but they did reduce uncertainty and risk.
The last agreement—New START—expired this February 2026 without being replaced by any new agreement. Russia has indicated it will continue to observe the previous limits as long as the United States does the same. But a commitment without legal backing, combined with erratic and unpredictable leadership, can be altered or abandoned at any moment, leaving stability at the discretion of governments.

The new era

We are not returning to the Cold War arms control regime. That era, with all its dangers, was structured around rules, inspections, and verifiable limits. We are now entering a more unstable period: nuclear arsenals without firm legal anchors and with more state and non-state actors aspiring to acquire nuclear weapons.
In nuclear weapons matters, the difference between political commitment and legal obligation is decisive. Deterrence does not depend only on the assured capacity for mutual destruction (MAD), but on each side knowing the other’s arsenal, the damage it can inflict, and how it is expected to respond in a crisis. That information reduces mistakes and prevents hasty or impulsive decisions.
When binding agreements disappear, stability no longer rests on clear rules and becomes exposed to the prudence—or impulsiveness—of governments. History offers clear warnings. In 1983, Soviet officer Stanislav Petrov chose not to report a nuclear alert as a real attack; it turned out to be a technical error. Had he followed the automatic protocol, the world might have faced an irreversible escalation. Legal limits did not eliminate the risk, but they contained and reduced it. Removing those buffers significantly increases the probability of an accidental crisis. For a few minutes, nuclear peace rested on a human decision, not on a legally binding control system.

More nuclear states

This legal weakening is compounded by a critical geopolitical shift. The balance is no longer bipolar. China is accelerating the expansion of its arsenal and building hundreds of new intercontinental missile silos, with projections suggesting it could triple its number of warheads by 2030. At the same time, Russia has suspended inspections and, in the context of the war in Ukraine, reinforced a doctrine that broadens the scenarios for the possible use of nuclear weapons. The United States, for its part, is modernizing its nuclear triad—land-based missiles, nuclear armed submarines, and strategic bombers. The competition is not rhetorical; it is budgetary, technological, and strategic.
It is worth noting that existing controls were designed for two actors with comparable capabilities. The emergence of a third player –China– with equivalent ambitions alters the strategic calculation and strengthens incentives for competition. The nuclear balance is not shrinking; it is being redistributed and made more unpredictable.

Disarmament and non-proliferation are distant dreams

At the same time, the discourse has shifted. For decades, the declared goal of a progressive reduction of arsenals dominated the language of security, grounded in Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which obliges nuclear powers to negotiate in good faith toward disarmament. Today, the emphasis is no longer on the numerical reduction of arsenals. It has moved toward qualitative modernization: hypersonic missiles, quieter submarines, and advanced penetration systems. Not necessarily more weapons, but more sophisticated ones, potentially more precise and more devastating.
The NPT remains the cornerstone of the global non-proliferation regime. It was built on an unlikely scenario. Non-nuclear states renounce the development of nuclear weapons in exchange for access to peaceful nuclear technology under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), while nuclear-armed states commit to make progress toward disarmament. When reductions stall, and technological competition intensifies, that old promise loses any credibility, this way weakening the treaty’s legitimacy. The lack of effort towards the reduction of nuclear arsenals by the U.S., Russia and China sends a clear signal to the rest of the world. If those with the largest arsenals abandon verifiable limits, other states may conclude that the system offers neither security nor fair enforcement. They will begin to consider their own proliferation options, this way triggering a broad arms race.

Deterrence works, for now

For now, deterrence –the threat of guaranteed massive retaliation in case of a surprise attack– still functions; but nuclear stability was never natural. It depended on negotiated agreements that came with verifiable rules.
Today, those Cold War era walls are crumbling. In an unregulated environment, every mistake, every false alarm, or impulsive decision can ignite a preventable crisis. Weapons are being refined, while the rules are weakening. And the problem is no longer confined to the major powers. Leaving aside Great Britain and France, India and Pakistan acquired their nuclear weapons long ago. North Korea is a nuclear state. Iran is on the nuclear threshold. Non-state actors with a history of interest in acquiring radiological materials, such as ISIS or Al Qaeda, also press against that boundary.
The world is not disarming. We are having instead nuclear rearmament and proliferation, but without any binding rules.

 

 

 

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Ms. Malkah Nobigrot is a Global Policy Institute Senior Adviser. She is a Mexican lawyer and journalist with expertise in project management, leadership, and strategic communication. She holds a law degree from the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City, a Diploma in Project Management from Georgetown University, and a Master´s degree from Harvard Law School, where she was awarded a full merit-based scholarship and was invited as a Visiting Researcher.

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