US priorities amid future efforts to develop new nuclear arms control treaties with Russia will likely reflect a longstanding US focus on controlling nuclear warhead numbers, a former US chief arms control negotiator has said. 

Speaking at the Royal United Services Institute in London on 20 February 2026, Rose Gottemoeller – who was US lead negotiator on the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) talks in 2009-10, NATO Deputy Secretary General from 2016-2019 and is now a lecturer at Stanford University – highlighted two elements relating to warhead numbers that likely will feature at the core of the US approach. 

First is the longstanding US proposal that both parties freeze current warhead levels, reflecting Washington’s wider position of maintaining the status quo as the baseline for re-starting arms control talks following New START’s recent expiration. Signed in April 2010 and entering into force in February 2011, the treaty expired in February 2026 (following a five-year extension of the original 10-year timeframe). 

Second, another US priority is to ‘get a handle’ on Russian non-strategic nuclear warheads (known also as tactical nuclear weapons and associated with shorter-range missiles), Gottemoeller said. Addressing this area of Russian advantage is a long-established US aim, she explained. 

“We have been worried for many years that the Russians could dominate our allies here in Europe, and on the Asian periphery of Russia as well, with its preponderance of weapons more suitable for regional and theatre deterrence,” said Gottemoeller. “So for a long time we’ve been focused on this as the priority for the next negotiation.” 

New START’s specifications did limit warhead numbers. The main restrictions were: deployed warheads not to exceed 1,550; deployed and non-deployed nuclear weapons-capable intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) and heavy bombers limited to 800; and operationally deployed ICBMs, SLBMs and heavy bombers capped at 700. 

Status quo 

Gottemoeller noted recent reports of Trump administration aspirations to move on from New START by seeking an improved arms control treaty, but for any talks to proceed from the starting point of the status quo. “It seems they have decided to leave the status quo – essentially, the limits of New START – in force, and to move forward negotiating on that basis,” Gottemoeller explained. 

Reports indicate that US and Russian officials, while meeting to discuss a resolution to Russia’s war in Ukraine, have considered options for re-commencing arms control negotiations. 

Gottemoeller noted too that, during the first Trump administration, Russia had agreed to a US proposal that arms control conversations should recommence from the baseline of a freeze on all warheads, deployed and non-deployed, strategic and non-strategic. “So, I hope and I believe that will be a ‘first order of business’ – to get the Russians to renew the agreement to a freeze on all warheads,” said Gottemoeller. 

Gottemoeller recognised that focusing on warheads would add to the verification challenge in any new treaty and would be perhaps the most difficult of the technical issues to tackle in any negotiations. “The tough work will be monitoring and verification. We have never tried to directly monitor warheads before,” Gottemoeller explained. “These are the most sensitive facilities on both sides, so it will be a complex and difficult matter to monitor and verify constraints on those systems. 

“It’s the warhead problem that’s the new problem, and that’s where the new negotiation is going to be. We wouldn’t do much to change the way we inspect delivery vehicles,” Gottemoeller added. 

Previous approaches presumed any missile to be carrying the maximum warhead number with which it was declared to have been tested. Gottemoeller said New START had a very robust and effective monitoring and verification structure and that excellent work has been done including in non-governmental settings to work through warhead monitoring procedures and technologies. 

Further priorities 

A further US priority is to ‘get a handle’ on new Russian nuclear weapon technologies, Gottemoeller said. These weapons – often referred to as ‘exotic’ systems – include among others the 2M39 Poseidon (‘Kanyon’) long-range torpedo/uncrewed underwater vehicle and the 9M730 Burevestnik (‘Skyfall’) ground-launched cruise missile. Both Poseidon and Burevestnik are reported to be nuclear powered and nuclear armed; according to media reports, both were tested in October 2025. 

“These [systems] have been marched out since New START was negotiated and brought into force,” said Gottemoeller. “They’ve been marched out and displayed in a very public way … particularly as a way to counter US missile defence developments, but also as a way of rattling the nuclear sabre during this Russian war of aggression in Ukraine. 

“So, I think that will also be a very high priority for the United States,” said Gottemoeller. 

Regarding Russian areas of potential interest, Gottemoeller said these could include US missile defences and its Conventional Prompt Strike programme, both of which have been of longstanding concern to Russia.  

Gottemoeller added that the development of advanced air-defence interceptors, wider missile proliferation (particularly cruise missiles) and the emergence of uncrewed aerial vehicle technologies would probably mean the missile defence question would need to be addressed in the context of an holistic integrated air and missile defence (IAMD) construct, with the US focused here on maintaining the viability of its strategic offensive deterrent forces. 

What is clear in the debate – a point Gottemoeller reinforced – is that US focus will fall currently on controlling nuclear weapons levels. When considering continued global instability, Russian new nuclear weapons developments and the need to address China’s nuclear weapons progress, controlling – rather than reducing – such levels will be a US starting point, too. 

“At the moment we’re politically not going to talk about reductions; I can tell you that right now. The United States body politic just won’t put up with reductions,” said Gottemoeller. “So I’m hoping we could stick with the status quo limits, focus on monitoring of warheads, get that going, and get rid of some of those exotic systems.”