The Geometry of a Cold Peace

This picture was taken when the Cold War was giving way not to a warm peace, but to one that was just as frosty.

On 31 July 1991, US President George H.W. Bush (left) and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev (right) signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I), the first major agreement between the two superpowers to reduce strategic nuclear weapons.

The photograph conveys both the great solemnity of the occasion and a distinct froideur. Its composition is geometrically precise: the American flag on the left, the Soviet flag on the right, together frame the scene as two rival entities, momentarily aligned by an historic agreement. Seated side by side yet carefully apart, the two leaders concentrate on their respective documents, leaning slightly away from one another. Their gestures unfold in parallel, synchronized yet separate, following a carefully rehearsed diplomatic choreography. Bush is left-handed, which accentuates the mirroring effect of their movements. Commentators have sometimes joked that the White House has appeared almost ‘reserved’ for left-handed presidents, such as Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton and Obama.

At each end of the table stands a central architect of late-Cold War diplomacy: on the American side, James Baker, US Secretary of State and one of the principal strategists of Washington’s engagement with Moscow; on the Soviet side, Alexander Yakovlev, a leading reformist intellectual and close adviser to Gorbachev. In their respective ways, Baker and Yakovlev foreshadow what the 1990s would become: the former, who negotiated German reunification and helped shape the talks on strategic nuclear arms reduction, embodies the pragmatic management of a new international order; the latter, a fierce critic of Stalinism and Soviet orthodoxy and often described as the ‘godfather of glasnost’, represents the ideological transformation that would ultimately unravel the Soviet system. The image captures an unmistakably historic turning point. This scene unfolds within a highly unstable context: the USSR was weakened by economic crisis and nationalist pressures, and the Cold War was ending without a clearly defined new strategic balance. The event is taking place just weeks before the failed August 1991 coup.

Today, with the START I replacement, New START, having officially expired on 5 February 2026, there are no legally binding limits on US and Russian strategic nuclear forces for the first time in decades. After the Trump administration’s openly transactional reframing of arms control, the image resonates differently today. It captures a moment when rivalry was disciplined by rules; the present is increasingly defined by their absence.