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chairman donald trumpThursday’s comments suggesting the United States would resume testing its nuclear weapons reverse decades of US policy regarding the bomb, but come as Washington’s rivals are conducting nuclear tests of their own and expanding their arsenals.
Nuclear weapons policy, once considered a relic of the Cold War, is rapidly emerging Russia Both the US and Europe have been made repeated nuclear threats during the war over Ukraine. moscow This week it also acknowledged testing of a nuclear-powered and capable cruise missile called Burevestnik, code-named Skyfall by NATO.
China is building more ground-based nuclear missile silos. During this time, north korea A new intercontinental ballistic missile has recently been unveiled that plans to test, part of a nuclear-capable arsenal capable of reaching the continental US.
Recently this threat has also begun to appear in popular culture with director Kathryn Bigelow’s new film “A House of Dynamite.”
But what does Trump’s announcement mean and what impact will it have on what’s happening now with nuclear tensions? Here’s what you need to know about it.
This comment of Trump came before his meeting with China’s Xi Jinping.
Trump’s comments came in a post on his Truth Social website just before his meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. In it, Trump mentioned weapons testing by other countries and wrote, “I have directed the War Department to begin testing our nuclear weapons on an equal basis. This process will begin immediately.”
The President’s post immediately raised questions. Who maintains America’s nuclear arsenal? Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration, a semi-autonomous agency within—not the Department of Defense. The Department of Energy has overseen nuclear weapons testing since its creation in 1977. Two other agencies – not the Defense Department – had previously conducted the tests.
Trump also claimed that the US has “more nuclear weapons than any other country.” According to the Washington-based Arms Control Association, Russia is believed to have 5,580 nuclear warheads, while the US has 5,225. Both countries possess about 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons.
America last conducted nuclear test in 1992
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The first US tests were atmospheric, but then they were moved underground to limit nuclear fallout. Scientists have come to call such tests “shots.” The last such “shot”, called Divider, took place on September 23, 1992, at the Nevada National Security Sites, a vast complex about 105 kilometers (65 mi) from Las Vegas.
America stopped its tests for some reasons. The first was the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War. The US also signed the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty in 1996. Since the treaty, tests have been conducted by the world’s newest nuclear powers, India, North Korea and Pakistan. The United Kingdom and France also possess nuclear weapons, while Israel has long been suspected of possessing a nuclear bomb.
But broadly speaking, the US also had decades of data from tests that allowed it to use computer modeling and other techniques to determine whether a weapon would successfully detonate. Every president since Barack Obama has supported a plan to modernize America’s nuclear arsenal, which would cost about $1 trillion over the next decade to maintain and upgrade, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
The US relies on the so-called “nuclear triad” – nuclear-tipped missiles in ground-based silos, aircraft-carrying bombs and submarines at sea – to deter others from launching weapons against the US.
Restarting the trial raises additional questions
If the US did resume nuclear weapons testing, it was not immediately clear what the goal would be. Nuclear nonproliferation experts have warned that any scientific objective could be eclipsed by the reaction to the test – and it would likely be a starting gun for other major nuclear powers to begin widespread testing of their own.
“Resuming the US nuclear testing program could be one of the most consequential policy actions the Trump administration could take – a US test could trigger an uncontrolled chain of events, with other countries potentially responding with nuclear tests of their own, destabilizing global security and igniting a new arms race,” experts warned in an article in the Bulletin of the Nuclear Scientists in February.
“The goal of conducting fast-track nuclear testing can only be political, not scientific. … This would give Russia, China, and other nuclear powers free rein to restart their own nuclear testing programs, essentially without political and economic repercussions.”
Any future US tests will likely take place at test sites in Nevada, but a lot of work will need to be done at the sites to prepare them, as it has been more than 30 years since the last test. A series of slides created for a presentation at Los Alamos National Laboratories in 2018 posed challenges, explaining that in the 1960s Mercury City, Nevada, – the testing ground – was Nevada’s second largest city.
An average of 20,000 people were present on site to organize and prepare for the tests. That capacity has diminished in the decades since.
“Planning and executing an effects shot will take two to four years,” the presentation reads. “These were massive undertakings.” ,
The Associated Press receives support for nuclear security coverage from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Outrider Foundation. AP is solely responsible for all content.