[News] The Bombs Which Polish the Skulls of the Dead
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Thu Feb 19 11:23:49 EST 2026
The Bombs Which Polish the Skulls of the Dead: The Eighth Newsletter (2026)
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The Bombs Which Polish the Skulls of the Dead: The Eighth Newsletter (2026)
With New START now expired, the United States’ withdrawal from arms
control treaties and its embrace of nuclear ‘warfighting’ doctrines are
raising the risk of catastrophic conflict between nuclear powers.
Yoshito Matsushige (Japan), /Hiroshima/, 1945.
Dear friends,
Greetings from the desk of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
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On 5 February 2026, the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START)
expired, ending the last surviving legal constraint on the strategic
nuclear arsenals of the United States and the Russian Federation. New
START, which was signed in 2010 and entered into force in 2011, should
have been replaced by a successor agreement. The treaty limited
strategic warheads and delivery vehicles deployed by each side and
established a verification regime of inspection, notification, and
information exchange. These measures were not cosmetic; they were thin
threads that restrained the most destructive machinery ever assembled.
The expiration of New START did not arrive suddenly. Due to the
decade-long breakdown in US-Russia relations, on-site inspections were
paused by both sides in March 2020 and never resumed. In February 2023,
Russia suspended its participation in New START, and the US responded in
kind (Russia has publicly said
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it intends to continue observing New START’s numerical limits, provided
the US does the same). By the time the treaty formally lapsed, its
verification spine had already been severed.
We now live in a world where the two largest nuclear powers are
unrestrained by any binding treaty limits.
Hilma af Klint (Sweden), /The Atom Series no. 7/, 1917.
Since 2002, the United States has unilaterally exited one arms control
treaty after another, eroding the architecture that helped stabilise
deterrence. These treaties include the following:
1.
The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972 – US withdrawal, June 2002.
2.
The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty of 1987 – US
withdrawal, August 2019.
3.
The Treaty on Open Skies of 1992 – US withdrawal, November 2020.
4.
The New START of 2011 – expired, February 2026.
The end of New START unfolds within a broader turn toward nuclear
‘warfighting’ doctrines, including a renewed emphasis on the diabolical
idea of counterforce – the outlines of which appear in the 2018 US
Nuclear Posture Review
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(NPR). The idea is simple: to attack an adversary’s nuclear forces and
command systems rather than its cities. Such an attack is seen to be
more rational and even more humane. In reality, an attack of this kind
destabilises all deterrence systems. Counterforce doctrines reward
speed, pre-emption, and first-strike advantage, thereby compressing
decision-making time. The doctrine creates a use-it-or-lose-it pressure
– the fear that you must launch before your forces are destroyed – that
makes miscalculation structural, not accidental. As warfare technologies
advance, this logic is amplified. Highly developed conventional strike
systems, missile defences, hypersonic delivery systems, and integrated
command-and-control networks (shared systems that link sensors,
communications, and decision-making) blur the boundary between nuclear
and non-nuclear war. A missile launched with conventional intent may be
interpreted as a nuclear strike. Dual-use platforms – systems that can
carry conventional or nuclear payloads – undermine signalling clarity by
making it difficult to determine whether a launch is conventional or
nuclear. Escalation ladders shorten. The margin for error narrows to
seconds.
Enrico Baj (Italy), /Two Children in the Nuclear Night/, 1956.
The counterforce doctrine is not merely an abstract debate but has
materialised in government budgets and arms procurement contracts. The
2022 US NPR
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affirmed the modernisation of the nuclear triad: land-based
intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic
missiles, and nuclear-capable strategic bombers. Crucially, the 2022 NPR
rejects ‘no first use’ and ‘sole purpose’ policies (‘no first use’ means
committing not to use nuclear weapons first; ‘sole purpose’ means
limiting their role to deterrence and, if necessary, for responding to
nuclear attack). The current policy holds that the US would only
consider the use of nuclear weapons, under ‘extreme circumstances’, to
defend its vital interests or those of its allies and partners, but it
does not foreclose first use, and leaves open a ‘narrow range of
contingencies’ in which nuclear weapons may deter attacks with
‘strategic effect’. This posture preserves the option to target
adversary military capabilities – including their strategic forces if
necessary – without overtly committing to the counterforce doctrine. The
2023 Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United
States
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took this further, arguing that US nuclear planning should continue to
target what adversaries ‘value most’. In these texts, nuclear weapons
are not presented as tragic necessities of modern statecraft but as
normal tools that can be used in certain circumstances.
The madness behind these attitudes is fuelled by the enormous profits
earned by the arms industry, which seeks to modernise nuclear systems
around the counterforce doctrine. A 2025 report by PAX and the
International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) titled /At
Great Cost: The Companies Building Nuclear Weapons and their Financiers/
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found that, between January 2022 and August 2024, 260 global financial
institutions (including pension funds, insurance companies, and asset
managers) financed 24 nuclear weapons producers, with investors holding
just under $514 billion in shares and bonds and with around $270 billion
provided in loans and underwriting. These companies include Airbus, BAE
Systems, Bechtel, Boeing, General Dynamics, L3Harris Technologies,
Northrop Grumman, and Rolls-Royce. ICAN’s 2025 report /Hidden Costs:
Nuclear Weapons Spending in 2024/
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estimates that the nine nuclear-armed states spent $100.2 billion on
their nuclear arsenals in 2024, with the private sector earning at least
$42.5 billion from nuclear weapons contracts. That sum could have paid
the UN’s budget 28 times and fed 345 million people facing the most
severe hunger for nearly two years. The nuclear weapons industry is a
striking waste of human resources.
Le Corbusier (France), /Composition avec photo de la bombe ‘H’
/(Composition with Photo of the ‘H’ Bomb), 1952.
Despite the collapse of the bilateral arms control regime, the global
nuclear deterrence and eradication system has not vanished. But what
remains is irradiated by US domination over the architecture of nuclear
policy:
1.
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
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(NPT, 1970) remains in force even though it reinforces the system of
nuclear apartheid (despite Article VI, which asks nuclear-armed
countries to pursue disarmament). The expiration of New START
deepens the NPT’s crisis of legitimacy and exposes the disarmament
promise as perpetually deferred. India, Israel, and Pakistan never
signed the NPT; the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK)
signed it in 1985 but withdrew in 2003.
2.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA, 1957) operates a
safeguards regime of inspections, material accountancy, and
monitoring. The 1997 Additional Protocol
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to the IAEA extends these capacities, yet this mechanism remains
plagued by selective enforcement. The IAEA’s investigations of Iran,
for instance, are not shaped by evidence but by the Global North’s
hostility to the Iranian government.
3.
The Nuclear Suppliers Group
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(NSG, 1975) is an informal export-control regime for sensitive
technologies and dual-use materials used in nuclear fuel-cycle and
weapons-related programmes. While the purpose of the NSG is to
constrain proliferation (reinforced by UN Security Council
resolution 1540
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it ends up reinforcing technological hierarchies. The nuclear-armed
states dominate the informal institutions, exercising their
authority while insisting on restraint from others.
Krassimir Terziev (Bulgaria), /Family/, 2015.
Some tattered norms remain outside the full control of the United
States, but they are fractured and unable to advance a comprehensive
agenda. These include:
1.
*The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons*
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This is a legally binding instrument that represents a categorical
rejection of nuclear arms. As of late 2025, ninety-nine countries
had either ratified or signed the treaty, but none of the world’s
nine nuclear-armed states are among them. In Europe, only Austria,
the Holy See (Vatican), Ireland, Malta, and San Marino have ratified
the treaty. The treaty, which was driven by the International
Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
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is largely a Global South initiative.
2.
*Nuclear Weapon Free Zones*
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Five regions of the world adopted treaties to make their territories
free of nuclear weapons. These agreements are the Treaty of
Tlatelolco (1967) covering Latin America and the Caribbean, the
Treaty of Rarotonga (1985) covering the South Pacific, the Treaty of
Bangkok (1995) covering Southeast Asia, the Treaty of Pelindaba
(1996) covering Africa, and the Semipalatinsk Treaty (2006) covering
Central Asia. These treaties are, in practice, among the most
successful achievements in nuclear disarmament.
3.
*The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test Ban Treaty*
<https://thetricontinental.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6a79324d3b4acfde1e7e546c6&id=af044a07cd&e=d206d0a40d>*(1996).*
This treaty has not been able to enter into force because several
required states have not ratified it, yet it remains politically
significant because it prohibits nuclear test explosions and has
helped make nuclear testing internationally taboo. The treaty’s
monitoring system functions daily, detecting seismic and atmospheric
signals, making tests harder to hide.
The post-New START landscape contains some institutions and norms, but
the central restraint on the largest nuclear arsenals has vanished. What
we have now are three overlapping crises:
1.
*A crisis of stability.* With no transparency and verification on
the largest nuclear weapons arsenals there is only suspicion between
the major powers.
2.
*A crisis of legitimacy.* The countries with the largest arsenals
demand obedience to non-proliferation while abandoning their own
treaty commitment to disarmament.
3.
*A crisis of conscience.* Horrifyingly, nuclear weapons are now
being spoken of as being usable, manageable, and necessary – as
legitimate options on the battlefield.
A return to an arms control regime is necessary. But we need to consider
a broader agenda. Even the best treaties only manage danger but do not
eliminate it. The deeper contradiction remains intact: a world in which
a few states claim the right to annihilate humanity in the name of
security. The demise of New START strips away illusions to reveal a
nuclear weapons order that preserves power and does not advance peace.
Libya abandoned its nuclear weapons programme in December 2003. Eight
years later, a UN Security Council resolution (no. 1973
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imposing an arms embargo and a no-fly zone was used by NATO to justify
the military intervention that destroyed the Libyan state. It was
logical, therefore, for the DPRK to test a nuclear weapon in 2006 and
build a shield against the regime-change ambitions of the US and its
East Asian allies. The counterforce doctrine of the US encourages
countries to build such a shield, a painful reality in a world marinated
in the anxieties provoked by hyper-imperialism
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Shin Hak-Chul (Korea), /Planting Rice/, 1987.
In 2003, the British playwright Harold Pinter (1930–2008), exasperated
by the Global War on Terror, wrote a powerful poem called ‘The Bombs’. I
remember hearing Pinter read this poem in London, the cadence powerful,
the hope in the ugliness clear. In his memory, here is the poem:
There are no more words to be said
All we have left are the bombs
Which burst out of our head
All that is left are the bombs
Which suck out the last of our blood
All we have left are the bombs
Which polish the skulls of the dead.
Warmly,
Vijay
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