On February 5, 2021, the United States and the Russian Federation agreed to extend the New START Treaty for five years, preserving the last remaining bilateral arms control agreement limiting their strategic nuclear arsenals. That extension expired on February 5, 2026, bringing the treaty formally to an end and removing the final legally binding cap on the world’s two largest nuclear stockpiles. With its expiration and political tensions deepening, the future of enforceable nuclear restraint has become deeply uncertain. Meanwhile, the Biological Weapons Convention continues to function without a verification protocol, and the Non Proliferation Treaty faces mounting strain as nuclear modernization accelerates across major powers. The global arms control architecture appears fragile and fragmented.
Amid this erosion, one multilateral regime stands as a demonstrable success: the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention and its implementing body, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. Unlike nuclear and biological weapons, whose taboo remains uneven and whose treaties often lack robust verification and enforcement, the CWC has not only stigmatized chemical weapons but measurably reduced their existence and use. There is both moral authority and practical architecture in the CWC that the nuclear and biological regimes should examine, particularly as the world confronts a post New START strategic landscape.
This article argues that the nuclear and biological disarmament architecture can and should learn from the CWC’s normative framework, its verification and compliance regime, its institutional mechanisms, and its Universalist ethos. These lessons are crucial if the next generation of arms control, especially a post New START treaty, is to be meaningful, enforceable, and resilient in the face of geopolitical competition.
The first reason the CWC works lies in its comprehensive and universal prohibition. At its core, the Chemical Weapons Convention is not a limitations agreement. It is a categorical ban. Article I of the CWC obligates States Parties never under any circumstances to develop, produce, acquire, stockpile, retain, transfer, or use chemical weapons. This clarity matters. The treaty does not legitimize possession for some while prohibiting it for others. It establishes a universal norm. By contrast, the Non Proliferation Treaty does not prohibit nuclear weapons for all states. It recognizes five nuclear weapon states and permits their continued possession while obligating non-nuclear weapon states to refrain from acquisition. Article VI commits parties to pursue negotiations in good faith on nuclear disarmament, yet it does not establish concrete timelines or enforcement pathways. New START, signed in 2010, was fundamentally a bilateral limitations agreement. It capped deployed strategic warheads and delivery systems between the United States and the Russian Federation but did not prohibit nuclear weapons themselves. The Biological Weapons Convention mirrors the CWC in its prohibition logic, yet it lacks the verification and institutional backbone that gives the CWC operational force.
A regime that asserts categorical prohibition rather than accommodation creates moral clarity. The CWC’s unequivocal language made it easier for states to internalize a shared understanding that chemical weapons are inherently illegitimate. Nuclear doctrine, in contrast, continues to justify nuclear weapons as instruments of deterrence and strategic stability. If the nuclear regime is to evolve, it must gradually move beyond numerical limitations toward embedding prohibition as a legal and normative objective.
A second defining feature of the CWC is its robust verification and confidence building architecture. The Convention mandates detailed declarations of stockpiles, production facilities, and relevant industrial sites. The OPCW conducts routine inspections of declared facilities and retains the authority to carry out challenge inspections upon request of any State Party. These mechanisms reduce reliance on political trust alone and institutionalize transparency.
In the nuclear realm, verification remains narrower and more politically constrained. The International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards system monitors civilian nuclear materials, yet it does not directly verify nuclear weapon dismantlement within nuclear weapon states. New START incorporated data exchanges, notifications, and onsite inspections, but these mechanisms applied only to strategic systems and only to two countries. The Biological Weapons Convention lacks any comparable inspection regime.
A future nuclear arms control framework can learn from this model in several ways. It could establish (a) a standing international verification body mandated specifically to oversee nuclear weapons reductions, (b) comprehensive declaration requirements covering total warhead stockpiles including non-deployed and non-strategic weapons, and (c) managed access inspection procedures that protect sensitive information while verifying compliance. Advances in warhead authentication technology and chain of custody procedures make such mechanisms increasingly feasible. Verification must be institutionalized rather than left to fluctuating political goodwill.
A third lesson concerns institutional independence. The OPCW is not merely an administrative secretariat. It serves as the operational arm of the Convention. It interprets treaty obligations, conducts inspections, investigates allegations of use, and reports findings to the international community. Its institutional credibility has reinforced the stigma against chemical weapons.
The Non Proliferation Treaty lacks a centralized enforcement body. While the IAEA plays a crucial safeguards role, its mandate is limited and often entangled in geopolitical pressures. New START relied on bilateral consultative mechanisms without creating a permanent multilateral institution. The Biological Weapons Convention maintains only a small Implementation Support Unit without verification authority.
A successor to New START should therefore incorporate a permanent international body with authority comparable to the OPCW. Such an organization could (a) oversee routine and challenge inspections, (b) verify warhead dismantlement and fissile material disposition, (c) facilitate data exchanges and transparency measures, and (d) issue periodic compliance assessments. Embedding nuclear arms control within a standing institutional structure would reduce its vulnerability to shifts in bilateral political relations.
The fourth lesson lies in universality and stigmatization. The Chemical Weapons Convention has achieved near universal membership, with 193 States Parties.It covers approximately 95% of relevant chemical industry and 98% of global population. This breadth has entrenched a moral taboo against chemical weapons. Their use now triggers widespread condemnation and collective investigation. Even states outside the treaty face sustained diplomatic pressure.
Nuclear arms control has not achieved comparable universality in operational terms. The Non Proliferation Treaty enjoys broad membership but codifies structural inequality between nuclear and non-nuclear states, privileging the five recognized nuclear-weapon states under Article I while obligating others to forego acquisition. New START was strictly bilateral, and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, though advancing a strong humanitarian critique, lacks participation from nuclear-armed states. The discriminatory nature of the global nuclear regime is further reflected in institutions like the Nuclear Suppliers Group, which historically has excluded Pakistan from full membership despite its proven nuclear capabilities, while granting India a waiver in 2008 allowing civilian nuclear trade despite it never being a signatory to the NPT. Such examples highlight how the P5 and certain favored states have been systematically privileged, entrenching inequality and undermining the universality and moral authority of nuclear arms control frameworks. The Biological Weapons Convention, though widely supported, similarly lacks enforcement mechanisms that could give the treaty practical strength and normative weight.
To replicate the CWC’s normative success, a post New START framework should be designed as an open and progressively multilateral architecture. Initial commitments by the United States and the Russian Federation would remain essential given the scale of their arsenals, yet the treaty should include accession provisions enabling other nuclear armed states to join under phased obligations. Over time, universality strengthens stigma, and stigma shapes doctrine.
The biological domain offers parallel lessons. The Biological Weapons Convention prohibits development and possession but lacks verification. A CWC inspired reform would develop a structured compliance regime incorporating facility declarations, transparency measures, and on site visits under managed access protocols. While biotechnology presents dual use complexities, institutionalized verification can still enhance confidence and deterrence against clandestine programs.
Designing a replacement for New START on CWC inspired grounds would require several core components. First, the treaty should articulate an unambiguous commitment to the eventual elimination of nuclear weapons, reinforcing Article VI of the Non Proliferation Treaty and aligning with humanitarian principles. Second, it should cap and progressively reduce not only deployed strategic warheads but total stockpiles including non-strategic weapons. Third, it should prohibit the development of new categories of nuclear weapons and restrict destabilizing delivery systems that heighten first strike incentives. Fourth, it should establish a permanent verification organization with authority to conduct inspections and monitor dismantlement.
Skeptics argue that nuclear weapons occupy a unique role in national security doctrines, unlike chemical weapons which had already lost strategic relevance before the CWC entered into force. Yet norms do not emerge spontaneously. The stigma against chemical weapons developed over decades, beginning with the 1925 Geneva Protocol and culminating in the CWC’s comprehensive prohibition and verification regime. Law shaped behavior, and behavior reinforced law.
The erosion of New START should serve as a strategic warning. Without legally binding constraints and transparency mechanisms, mistrust deepens and arms racing accelerates. The international community cannot rely solely on voluntary restraint. It must build institutions that outlast political cycles and anchor competition within predictable rules.In an era of renewed great power rivalry, such reconstruction is not idealism. It is strategic necessity.
Author: Abdul Rehman, Research Officer, Center for International Strategic Studies AJK.
