Absolutely, extend the START treaty. I grew up in the days of weekly “duck and cover” drills and within walking distance of MinuteMan missile silos, built within residential and highly populated city limits of Cleveland suburbs. I absolutely do not want my grandchildren to ever have to live under the doomsday mentality that dominated our country in those days- knowing that a nuclear conflict could, in mere minutes, easily become a life-extinction event. I don’t much care if one side or the other “cheats”, there are numerous ways to catch those that do. Nuclear weapon testing of any type is monitored globally and cannot go unnoticed. Anything we can do to prevent a re-escalation of this threat to humanity is mandatory. I never again want to hear that our defining defensive strategy is “mutually assured destruction”.

Maybe we should focus on reducing the number of weapons in the world such as nukes instead of increasing them. Everyone should want to live on a planet that isn’t endangered by the threat of nuclear Armageddon, but apparently this moronic President is only interested in building up our amount of weapons of war instead of promoting peace and stability.

Extending New Start buys the United States 60 more months, which should make the prospect of new, more comprehensive talks realistic. The six-and-a-half years until February 2026 is enough time to determine whether China will meaningfully engage in an arms control discussion, decide which new technologies should be in the scope of a new agreement, and agree on a new inspection regime. If potential Russian violations are of concern, an extension could be made conditional on Moscow’s compliance and engagement with the new process. However, the extension is not a substitute for other necessary steps that maintain the nuclear balance, including investing in nuclear modernization—recapitalizing the infrastructure to keep the U.S. triad safe and reliable. Extending the New Start Treaty until 2026 is the choice that will best serve long-term goals, as the extension can be used to improve the nuclear arms reduction regime, strengthen nuclear control and verification systems, and deliver important U.S. national security goals.