India, Feb. 7 -- Nuclear armageddon may be the stuff of fiction, but the fact is that the world has been a safer place because of global treaties that have tried to restrict - with differing degrees of success - the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Take the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty or New START that the US and Russia signed in 2010, under which both agreed to cap their strategic nuclear warheads at 1,550 and limit strategic delivery vehicles to 800, including both deployed and non-deployed systems. It came into force in 2011, with compliance mechanisms, including annual on-site verifications, and promised a 30% reduction in warheads, from what had been promised in the earlier SORT agreement. New START focussed on the legatees of the two Cold War bloc leaders, the US and Russia, who were involved in an arms race for decades. With New START expiring on Thursday and the US and Russia refusing to negotiate another extension (the treaty was extended for five years in 2021), the world needs new guardrails to avoid nuclear arms proliferation. US President Donald Trump has promised "a new, improved, and modernized treaty that can last long into the future", and Moscow seems to agree on the need for a new treaty, subject to conditions, though there is no clarity on how and when it will be worked out. The elephant in the room is China. Washington has rightly said that any new treaty must involve Beijing, whereas the latter has ruled out participating in nuclear disarmament negotiations at this stage. Washington has a point because China possesses the third-largest nuclear arsenal in the world - 600 warheads - though far behind the US and Russia, which together have 90% of the world's nuclear warhead stockpile (as of January 2025). (In comparison, India has 180). However, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) estimates that the Chinese arsenal is growing by about 100 new warheads a year since 2023, faster than that of any other country. Beijing has promised a "no first-use" policy, but its refusal to cap its stockpile is of concern to New Delhi. India has adopted a credible minimum deterrence doctrine, a necessity of sharing borders with two nuclear-armed nations. But, it will be hard for New Delhi to ignore Beijing's expanding nuclear capabilities. On its part, Russia wants the UK and France also to be signatories of a new treaty, considering that both have a significant arsenal of warheads. Moscow's demand is also in step with the emerging security situation in Europe, where Russia and Western Europe have been in a standoff since the former's invasion of Ukraine. Russia revised its nuclear doctrine in 2024: According to the new doctrine, it is now prepared to use nuclear weapons in retaliation, even to conventional strikes that threaten the sovereignty or territorial integrity of Russia or Belarus. Surely, much of the global treaties on arms control, including New START, privileged the interests of big powers and stood out for their hypocrisy in ignoring the Global South's concerns, just as in climate talks. These mechanisms also failed to penalise proliferation, as countries such as Pakistan and North Korea built their arsenal surreptitiously with aid from countries such as China. As global power relations change, the big power world view is being challenged by emerging powers. New multilateral treaties will have to be more inclusive and factor in the concerns of the Global South if they are to survive the present moment, where national self-interest has emerged as the key factor in diplomacy. And, in a world of multiple conflicts, concerns of nuclear armageddon can't be dismissed as overblown....