Heritage Foundation: After End of New START, U.S. Should Triple Its Deployable Nuclear Weapons

Feb. 10—Into the void created by the Trump administration’s decision to let the New START Treaty expire on Feb. 5—which Treaty limited the number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads for Russia and the United States to 1,550 each— a bevy of proposals has come forward. One would have the United States build the Golden Dome layered anti-missile defense shield. However, perhaps the most alarming proposal is that put forward by the Heritage Foundation: For the U.S. to roughly triple its deployable nuclear weapons arsenal for attacks principally against China and Russia.

Robert Peters, the Heritage Foundation’s Research Fellow for Strategic Deterrence and its leading authority on nuclear conflict, authored Oct. 3, 2025, a Heritage Foundation special report, “The U.S. Nuclear Arsenal of 2050: A Proposal for American Survival.” It argues:

“The United States maintains a strategic deterrent that is insufficient for the current degrading security environment, much less an unknown and potentially far worse security environment of the coming half-century. For this reason, the United States should increase its strategic arsenal significantly, while also rebuilding its largely ossified non-strategic nuclear arsenal.” Peters continued, “To this end, this Backgrounder recommends that by 2050, the United States should field a strategic arsenal of roughly 3,500 operationally deployed strategic weapons and a non-strategic arsenal of 1,125 operationally deployed weapons deployed across three theaters for a new total of roughly 4,625 operationally deployed nuclear weapons.”

This proposal would triple the United States’ deployable nuclear weapons. Some of the increases may be achieved by equipping missiles with additional warheads that had been reduced to a single warhead under the New START Treaty. Apparently, the increase in the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal will also be satisfied by the U.S. production of new missiles.

Peters asserts later in his report: “Beyond ICBMs, the United States could build and field nuclear variants of theater-range ground-launched ballistic missiles and forward deploy them in allied states, giving a highly responsive, visible theater option as a means to shore up theater-deterrence postures. They can be deployed as required or be deployed continuously.” He further adds: “Hypersonic missiles. Nuclear-armed hypersonic missiles could provide additional, responsive, penetrating options from either the homeland or from within a theater, giving the United States greater optionality for discrete low-yield effects that require penetrability and can be put on target quickly.”

These nuclear weapons, the study declares, would be deployed across the North American theater, the Indo-Pacific theater, and the European theater.

Peters served in various capacities with the Department of Defense during a 17-year tenure, including as the special advisor for Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He was a strong proponent for letting the New START Treaty expire.