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points by tristanj 10 hours ago | 0 comments

START and New START have both expired. New START effectively ended in 2023 after Russia stopped complying due to US materiel support for Ukraine. It formally expired earlier this year.

Regardless, the treaties are strategically irrelevant since China is a non-signatory and it has refused to sign on to a joint arms control agreement.

[–] twoodfin 10 hours ago

Sure, but the legal techniques of subterfuge developed under those treaties were designed to be effective against satellite and other intelligence in combination with treaty inspections. That those inspections have at least temporarily stopped is no reason to stop playing three-card monte with the missiles. These are big missiles, on which decades of information was collected by Russia, treaty-directed and otherwise.

[–] vkou 59 minutes ago

Isn't China's nuclear arsenal a tiny fraction of that of Russia and the US?

Why is its non-involvement relevant, but the non-involvement of Israel, Pakistan, India isn't?