Nuclear weapons

In a few weeks—on 5 February 2026, to be exact—the 2010 New START Treaty will expire. For the first time since the early days of the Cold War, the world will be without a binding agreement limiting the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals.

The main reason for the treaty’s impending expiration is that neither the US nor Russia trusts the other. All such treaties rely on inspections to verify that signatories are upholding their end of the bargain. START inspections have ceased.

Washington and Moscow agreed to a mutual suspension of inspections in March 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, before the health crisis ended, Russia invaded Ukraine and the US imposed sanctions and travel restrictions. Moscow argued that these measures made inspections impossible and in August 2022 blocked US inspections. In February 2023, Russia formally suspended its participation in New START, effectively rendering the treaty unenforceable.

Both sides will soon be legally free to expand and deploy additional nuclear weapons. This includes the option to increase the number of warheads deployed on existing delivery systems, although it should be noted that New START already allowed multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs) within overall limits.

There are no restrictions on missile defense systems under New START, so the treaty’s expiration does not remove any formal limits in this area. However, the absence of arms control constraints may encourage renewed emphasis on missile defense projects, including Donald Trump’s proposed “Golden Dome.” Vladimir Putin is also free to expand deployment of Russia’s S-500 Prometheus air- and missile-defense system, which focuses on protecting key installations rather than national coverage.

The treaty did place limits on delivery systems and deployed warheads, which indirectly constrained the deployment of emerging technologies. While hypersonic glide vehicles are not explicitly banned, they are counted under New START limits when mounted on intercontinental ballistic missiles. Their speed is meant to render missile defense systems redundant.

The New START Treaty was imperfect. It needed—and still needs—to be renegotiated to account for new technologies such as cyber warfare, space-based systems, and novel delivery vehicles. Nevertheless, its existence provided an element of stability and transparency that helped restrain the dynamics of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) that once dominated nuclear strategy. MAD rules again.

Climate change

Slipping under the geopolitical radar at the start of 2026 was another major blow to climate change activists.

Venezuela, Epstein, Minneapolis and Iran meant that few noticed when Donald Trump signed a batch of 60 Executive Orders which included US withdrawal from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC).

The UNFCC was adopted in 1992 at the Rio Earth Summit. It commits the signatories to limiting greenhouse gas emissions; introducing measures to adapt to climate change; sharing data and technology  and meeting regularly.

But perhaps most importantly, the UNFCC is the umbrella treaty under which all subsequent agreements are designed to sit. American withdrawal ensures non-US compliance in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and the 2015 Paris Climate Change Accord.

Trump’s edirective, however, may not be the end of the matter. US law requires a one-year’s cooling off period before Congress approves withdrawal. Before the year is up the US will have held mid-term elections and the political complexion of Congress is likely to have changed.

By the way, the batch of 60 Executive Orders included issues related climate change, biodiversity, migration, fender, development and population changes.

Cuba

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is torn. He wants to be President of the United States. But he comes from a Cuban exile family and would love to return to the island as its political leader.

Donald Trump has promised him the job and with the fall of Venezuela it looks as if Rubio might get at least one of his wishes.

The United States’ decisive intervention in Venezuela isn’t just a seismic shift for Venezuelans. It is a potentially existential turning point for Cuba, a small island nation whose economic survival and political narrative have been inextricably linked to its southern neighbour for more than two decades.

At the heart of Cuba’s vulnerability is the loss of Venezuelan oil and financial backing. For years, Havana’s economy depended heavily on Caracas in an “oil-for-services” exchange that saw tens of thousands of barrels shipped monthly in return for Cuban doctors, educators, and intelligence personnel. That arrangement  is now unraveling. As US control of Venezuelan oil has turned off the taps.

Cuba’s electricity grid was suffering rolling blackouts before US intervention in Venezuela. The island’s GDP has been contracting since 2010. Inflation has soared and essential importers have become harder to secure. With US control of Cuba’s oil supplies things can only get worse.

The island’s problems are not just economic. Cuba’s political legitimacy rests  on its revolutionary credentials and anti-imperialist defiance, bolstered by alliances with leftist regimes like Venezuela’s. With that partnership in tatters, Havana loses not just resources, but symbolic support in a region where political currents are shifting toward democratic governance or right-leaning government.

The immediate risk for Cuba is economic collapse. Experts warn that the combined effects of lost oil, enduring U.S. sanctions, and structural weaknesses in the Cuban economy is expected to push the country into deeper recession and over the brink into failed state category.

And yet, economic collapse does not automatically translate into political collapse. Unlike some authoritarian regimes, Cuba’s leadership has navigated severe crises before . In 1991 the island economy shrunk overnight by 50 percent when the collapsing Soviet Union ended its subsidies.  Through tight social controls, migration management, and appeals to nationalism the regime survived.

But in 1991 the Castro brothers were still alive. Their anti-American based  charisma was a focal point around which Cubans rallied. We are not, however, in 1991. Cuban is now led by charisma-free party technocrat Miguel Diaz Canal. So far, the only thing that Diaz-Canal has done is refuse talks with the Trump Administration “before (according to President Trump) it is too late.”

* Tom Arms is foreign editor of Liberal Democrat Voice. He also contributes to “The New World” magazine and lectures on world affairs. He is the author of “America Made in Britain,” two editions of “The Encyclopaedia of the Cold War” and “The Falklands Crisis.”