Bonus Ep! Bring on the Nukes

Summary

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History As It Happens — Bonus Episode: Bring on the Nukes

Date: February 11, 2026
Host: Martin Di Caro
Guest: Joe Cirincione, Nuclear Arms Control Expert

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Episode Overview

In this urgent bonus episode, Martin Di Caro examines the demise of nuclear arms control agreements between the U.S. and Russia, focusing on the expiration of the New START treaty. With guest Joe Cirincione, a respected authority on nuclear weapons policy, the conversation traces 50 years of arms reduction efforts. The discussion places that history in stark contrast with today’s hazardous realities: no treaty limits, expanding arsenals, and a tougher, multipolar nuclear landscape, especially as China modernizes its nuclear forces. The tone is anxious but clear-eyed, highlighting how the collapse of arms control shapes today’s more precarious world.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Legacy of Arms Control Treaties

• Martin opens by recalling iconic moments—Nixon and Brezhnev, Reagan and Gorbachev—that inspired hope for nuclear restraint. He notes a "half-century of diplomatic work is now dust" with the expiration of New START. (00:47–01:12)
  • Quote:
    “From Nixon, Brezhnev and the ABM Treaty to Reagan and Gorbachev and the INF Treaty, A New Start Under Obama and Medvedev, a half century of diplomatic work is now dust.”
    — Martin Di Caro (00:47)

2. The Repercussions of New START’s Expiration

• New START was the last remaining nuclear arms pact between the U.S. and Russia. Its lapse means:
  • No more ceilings on deployed strategic warheads or delivery systems.
  • Dismantling of mutual inspections and data exchanges that maintained transparency and credibility. (01:30–01:58)
  • Quote:
    “The treaty’s demise... has dismantled a system of shared knowledge inspections, data exchanges, and notification regimes that made credible commitments possible.”
    — Quoting Stephen Holmes, Project Syndicate, read by Martin (01:34)

3. The Shift to a More Dangerous World

• With arms control frameworks gone:
  • U.S. and Russian arsenals are unconstrained for the first time since 1972.
  • China is amassing and modernizing its nuclear stockpile—never covered by previous treaties.
  • Other nations contemplate acquiring nuclear arms, raising global risk. (01:15–01:29)
  • Quote:
    “As a result, the world is becoming more dangerous.”
    — Martin Di Caro (01:27)

4. What Did New START Achieve?

• Joe Cirincione explains New START’s function:
  • Imposed modest caps (1,550 deployed warheads; 700 launchers).
  • Required mutual inspections, telemetry/data exchange, and notifications for exercises/movements—preventing miscalculation and surprise. (03:41–04:52)
  • Built on earlier treaties from Nixon (1972), Reagan, and George H.W. Bush.
  • Quote:
    “So all this system had been in place and that system had built on the previous limitation treaties that Richard Nixon had negotiated back in 1972.”
    — Joe Cirincione (04:32)

5. Implications: The End of an Era

• Cirincione declares:
  • “54 year long process of limiting and then reducing the nuclear weapons of the two largest holders on the planet. That is now over. The era of strategic arms control has ended.” (05:07–05:32)
  • No more limits, inspections, or data sharing—the world is in a strategic free-for-all.
  • The tone suddenly darkens:
    • Quote:
      “Rest in peace. Or in a mushroom cloud.”
      — Martin Di Caro (05:32–05:34)

6. The Policy and Political Dynamics

• Trump’s worldview is dissected, via Stephen Holmes’ essay:

  • Treats durable institutional knowledge as a constraint, not an asset.
  • Negotiations seen as isolated transactions for leverage, not as incremental trust-building. (01:58–02:28)

• The Biden/Obama approach had been to keep New START as a “holding step” until a new treaty could be negotiated—including China and further reductions. (06:25–06:51)

7. China’s Rise and the Multilateral Challenge

• Cirincione and Martin discuss how New START’s original vision included pulling China into future agreements as its stockpile grew.
• The episode closes on the point that the arms control architecture wasn’t updated or expanded in time to address the China challenge—now nukes races loom larger. (06:25–06:51)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Nixon, on ABM Treaty optimism:
  “This agreement is a major step in breaking the stalemate on nuclear arms talks... Intensive negotiations, however, will be required to translate this understanding into a concrete agreement.” (04:52, archival)

• Soviet Leader (archival):
  “And this ideal has not yet been attained in the world... While liberating the world from fear, we are making steps toward a new world.” (00:32, archival)

• Gorbachev’s favorite saying, recalled by Reagan:
  “The maxim is doviai no provaii trust but verify.” (02:35, archival)

• Joe Cirincione:
  “There are no longer any limits on how many weapons the U.S. or Russia can deploy. The inspection process is over. The data exchange is over. The era of strategic arms control has now ended.” (05:07–05:32)

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Key Timestamps

• 00:00–00:47 — Introduction; the gravity of arms control’s death
• 01:30–01:58 — Stephen Holmes’ analysis
• 03:41–05:07 — Joe Cirincione details New START’s regime
• 05:32–05:34 — Tone shift: “Rest in peace. Or in a mushroom cloud.”
• 06:25–06:51 — The missed opportunity to update arms control and include China

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Tone and Style

• The episode is urgent, reflective, and tinged with nostalgia and foreboding. Martin balances historical context with present-day urgency, while Cirincione offers clear, expert analysis and a note of solemnity.

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Summary

This episode of History As It Happens spotlights the collapse of decades-long nuclear arms control and asks: What happens now that rational, institutionalized restraint is gone? With pointed insights from guest Joe Cirincione and archival clips grounding the discussion historically, the episode illustrates how the end of New START heralds a new, uncertain nuclear era—one less predictable and markedly more dangerous.

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Transcript

[Martin]

This is a bonus episode of history as it happens. It's February 11, 2026. Arms control rest in peace if we.

[Richard Nixon]

Succeed this joint statement that has been issued today may well be remembered as the beginning of a new era in which all nations will devote more of their energies and their resources not to the weapons of war, but to the works of peace.

[Soviet Leader]

And this ideal has not yet been attained in the world, and it could not be attained in the world of animosity and confrontation. And therefore, while liberating the world from fear, we are making steps toward a new world.

[Martin]

The United States will take concrete steps towards a world without nuclear weapons. From Nixon, Brezhnev and the ABM Treaty to Reagan and Gorbachev and the INF Treaty, A New Start Under Obama and Medvedev, a half century of diplomatic work is now dust. New Start was the last remaining nuclear arms pact between Russia and the United States. It has expired, eliminating any caps on the two largest atomic arsenals for the first time since 1972. But a new nuclear arms race was already underway. China has been amassing and modernizing its stockpile. China wasn't covered by the Cold War and post Cold War era treaties and powers that currently do not have nukes are now weighing whether to acquire them. As a result, the world is becoming more dangerous. Writing for Project Syndicate, Stephen Holmes says the lapse of the New START treaty has done more than remove numerical ceilings on the nuclear weapons arsenals of Russia and the United States. The treaty's demise, he says, has dismantled a system of shared knowledge inspections, data exchanges, and notification regimes that made credible commitments possible. This outcome, he says, reflects more than a discrete policy failure. It reflects Donald Trump's worldview. Call it a dealmaker's epistemology. In this view, he says, durable institutional knowledge is not an asset but a constraint. Negotiations are not cumulative processes through which states learn more about one another over time, but discrete transactions in which leverage matters more than memory now. Share a link to this essay in the show notes for this episode. Indeed, the extinction of arms control agreements is a sad reflection on the state of international relations. It can make us yearn for what seem like a more tranquil age when American and Soviet leaders could laugh together in public.

[Richard Nixon]

Mr. General Secretary, though my pronunciation may give you difficulty, the maxim is doviai no provaii trust but verify.

[Joe Cirincione]

You repeat that at every meeting.

[Martin]

But now the New York Times reports Washington is actively weighing the deployment of more nuclear weapons, and it is also likely to conduct a nuclear test of some kind. Both steps would reverse nearly 40 years of stricter nuclear control by the US which has reduced or kept steady the number of weapons it has loaded into silos, bombers and submarines. President Trump would be the first president since Ronald Reagan to increase them again, if he chooses to do so. Joe Cirincione is a national security analyst and career nuclear arms control expert. He writes the strategy and history newsletter on Substack. Welcome back to the podcast.

[Joe Cirincione]

Thank you, Martin. Pleasure to be with you.

[Martin]

What was actually in New Start, which was agreed about 15, 16 years ago, President Obama and Dmitry Medvedev. What was in the treaty?

[Joe Cirincione]

Right. New Start was a very modest treaty. It was designed to be a quick fix because the existing treaties, the START treaties that had been negotiated by Ronald Reagan and George H.W. bush, those were set to expire. So in order to stop them from expiring, Obama and Medvedev negotiated a quick extension. So these treaties limit the number of operationally deployed strategic weapons that the United States and Russia can have, that is nuclear bombs. How many can you have? What are they on? Where are they? And set up a system of inspection so that Russia could inspect ours. We could expect theirs. Telemetry exchanges, data exchanges, warning systems. If you're going to do an exercise, you're going to be moving a missile around, let us know about it. So we don't mistake that for an offensive threat. So all this system had been in place and that system had built on the previous limitation treaties that Richard Nixon had negotiated back in 1972.

[Richard Nixon]

This agreement is a major step in breaking the stalemate on nuclear arms talks. Intensive negotiations, however, will be required to translate this understanding into a concrete agreement.

[Joe Cirincione]

So this was a 54 year long process of limiting and then reducing the nuclear weapons weapons of the two largest holders of nuclear weapons on the planet. That is now over. There are no longer any limits on how many weapons the US or Russia can deploy. The inspection process is over. The data exchange is over. The era of strategic arms control has now ended.

[Martin]

Rest in peace.

[Joe Cirincione]

Yeah. Well.

[Martin]

Or yeah, or in a mushroom cloud. New Start. Each side was limited to no more than 1550 nuclear warheads on no more than 700 missiles and bombers deployed and ready for use. So this was not your stockpile, this was what you had ready to use, deployed.

[Joe Cirincione]

Right.

[Martin]

And as you mentioned, there was also the inspection regime, which went by the wayside during COVID In February 2023, Vladimir Putin suspended Moscow's participation in the inspections, saying Russia would not allow U.S. inspections at its sites because Washington and NATO had openly declared Moscow's defeat in Ukraine as their goal. One criticism of New Start, Joe Cirincione was that it didn't involve China and also needed to be updated. Well, that's fine, so update it right?

[Joe Cirincione]

The original vision back when New Start was negotiated in 2010 was that this would be just a holding step. Just keep the mechanism, the inspections in process and that Medvedev and Obama said they were going to negotiate a new treaty cutting by one third the arsenal. So get it everybody down to 1,000 warheads each. That was seen as a significant level precisely because that would allow us to then reach out to China which at.

[Martin]

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