Russia and the United States are equally to blame for ending a process begun in the 1960s and marked by the first strategic arms limitation treaty (SALT) in 1972. The construction of over a dozen interlocking agreements over these decades worked to first limit the growth of nuclear stockpiles and then manage their reduction. We went from 70,000 nuclear bombs at the height of the Cold War to just over 12,000 today.
For authoritarian leaders like Putin and Trump, however, these treaties are a restraint on their power. Ending arms control is part of their assault on the global international order; part of the same impulse that caused Putin to invade Ukraine in violation of existing laws and Trump to rupture the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance in pursuit of territorial expansion. Although they may still agree to voluntary limitations on their weapons, these do not have the binding force of a treaty and can easily be violated. In their view, their power and wealth depend on military might, not pieces of paper.
Source:
Joseph Cirincione, Le Monde Editorial: ‘Today, 96% of the world’s nuclear weapons are held by states with authoritarian leaders’ https://www.lemonde.fr/en/opinion/article/2026/02/18/today-96-of-the-world-s-nuclear-weapons-are-held-by-states-with-authoritarian-leaders_6750613_23.html
