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Donald Trump has repeatedly called the proliferation of nuclear weapons the “N-word”, his way of warning that bringing “nukes” into existence puts the world on a path to mutually assured destruction.
But 10 months into his second administrationis the president Ordering officials to resume nuclear weapons testingwhich would end America’s 33-year embargo and invite a global arms race In a volatile political moment.
Claiming that the United States must achieve parity with China and Russia in weapons development, Trump on October 30 ordered the Pentagon to “begin testing our nuclear weapons on an equal basis”, a process that would begin “immediately”.
The last confirmed nuclear test by the United States was in 1992 under then-President George H.W. Bush, who imposed a moratorium on all nuclear testing. China has reportedly not tested a nuclear weapon since 1996, and Russia’s most recent tests involved the delivery system, not the actual detonation of a nuclear device.
It is unclear whether Trump wants to test nuclear-capable missiles or launch full-scale explosive testing. But the world’s leading nuclear scientists and Pulitzer Prize-winning nuclear organizations are sounding alarm bells.
According to Alexandra Bell, president of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, “This is the kind of reckless inaccuracy we should not tolerate from the person who has the sole authority to launch American nuclear weapons.”
Before Trump’s announcement, the bulletin set the Doomsday Clock to 89 seconds from midnight, “the closest it will ever come to disaster.”
“Words matter, especially for those communities in the United States and around the world who suffer from the effects of nuclear explosive testing,” Bell said in a statement. Independent.
What does an explosive test look like?
On July 16, 1945, the United States tested a plutonium detonation device about 200 miles south of Los Alamos, New Mexico, the world’s first nuclear explosion. The “Trinity” test released more than 18 kilotons of electricity, which instantly vaporized the tower housing the device and turned the surrounding asphalt and sand into green glass.
The intense heat wave knocked nearby observers to the ground. Witnesses up to 200 miles away reported seeing a massive explosion that filled the sky with fire and black smoke.
The United States did not publicly reveal what actually caused the massive fires until after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, in August 1945, which killed thousands.
According to the United Nations, the US government has since conducted more than 1,000 tests, accounting for more than half of all global nuclear weapons tests in the decades that followed.
Most of those tests were conducted underground, with nuclear devices detonated at various depths below the Earth’s surface.
Underground explosions are believed to emit negligible nuclear emission levels compared to atmospheric tests, but those explosions can produce dangerous radioactive debris if they “vent” to the surface, or leak into groundwater.
By the 1990s, more than 900 American tests were conducted at the “Nevada Test Site”, about 60 miles from Las Vegas. Most of those tests were conducted underground, although dozens of atmospheric tests conducted at the site have resulted in dozens of iconic mushroom clouds visible from the Vegas Strip and beyond.
The United States has also conducted explosive tests in the Marshall Islands and Kiritimati Island in the Pacific Ocean, although numerous other tests have been conducted across the United States, including in Alaska, Colorado, and Mississippi.
Most nuclear weapons testing, except underground tests, was banned under the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty. Underground tests were not banned until the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, which was signed by the world’s nuclear powers in 1996.
But the treaty was never ratified in the United States; It was rejected by the Senate in 1999, making it effectively unenforceable. Russia revoked its ratification of the treaty, pointing to the United States’ failure to do so in 2023.
North Korea is believed to be the only country this century to openly test a nuclear weapon in 2017.
Could America start explosive testing again?
If the United States were to resume explosive testing, the process could take more than a year and would require approval from Congress, According to Hans ChristensenDirector of the Nuclear Information Project with the Federation of American Scientists.
The White House would have to direct the Department of Energy to order nuclear laboratories to begin preparations, “and since the United States does not currently have a nuclear weapons test detonation program, Congress must appropriate the funds,” he wrote.
According to Christensen, “It will be expensive and it will take time: a simple detonation takes 6–10 months, a full device test takes 24–36 months, and a test to develop a new nuclear weapon takes about 60 months.”
Any “scientifically useful” test would take years, According to Dylan SpauldingSenior Scientist of the Global Security Program of the Union of Concerned Scientists. “Anything smaller than this would be nothing more than a dangerous political demonstration and would not allow the collection of useful data,” he wrote.
Trump said he ordered the Defense Department to conduct the test, but it is the National Nuclear Security Administration under the Energy Department that is responsible.
However, the Pentagon may test nuclear-capable missiles.
If Trump is referring to those types of tests, Trump’s statement appears to be similar to one he made on Aug. 1, when he sent two nuclear submarines to “appropriate areas” in response to Russia’s nuclear threats. “If anything, these foolish and inflammatory statements go further than that,” he said at the time.
“Trump’s statement was provocative but meaningless, as US submarines are always within range of Russia,” Stephen Young saidAssociate Director of Government Affairs for the Global Security Program of the Union of Concerned Scientists.
During the 2024 presidential campaignTrump’s former national security adviser Robert O’Brien called on his administration to resume nuclear testing “for real-world credibility and safety for the first time since 1992.”
Reactivating nuclear tests “would maintain the technological and numerical superiority of the combined Chinese and Russian nuclear stockpiles,” he wrote at the time.
Nuclear weapons testing and weapons stockpiling are also key parts of the defense recommendations in Project 2025, a 900-page Heritage Foundation-backed manifesto for Trump’s second term.
Project 2025 calls for the rejection of existing arms control treaties, which are considered “contrary to the goal of strengthening nuclear deterrence”.
Those proposals, written by Trump’s former Defense Secretary Christopher Miller, called for accelerating all weapons production and prioritizing nuclear development over any other security programs, including boosting supplies above treaty limits and building a new nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile.
How will other world powers respond?
According to the Federation of American Scientists, world powers possess more than 12,000 nuclear weapons. The United States and Russia possess approximately 87 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons stockpile and 83 percent of the weapons available for military use.
According to Bell of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, “Any real move to return to explosive testing would lead to confrontation with other nuclear-armed states.”
“Nobody would benefit from this more than China, because they are currently building up their nuclear forces, but they lack the extensive testing data that the United States has,” he said.
But another vital safeguard against a global arms race between the two major nuclear powers is set to expire in February.
The new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty seeks to limit the United States and Russia to no more than 1,550 deployable warheads on more than 700 operational launchers, but no other agreement is being negotiated.
According to Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, failure to renew the agreement “risks the first major buildup of deployed American and Russian strategic nuclear weapons in more than 35 years”.
Melissa Parke, director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, said in a statement Independent That Trump’s comments are an “unnecessary and reckless escalation of the nuclear threat” that ignores “the damage already being caused over the last 80 years by nuclear explosions.”
“Well, that’s no way to win the Nobel Peace Prize,” she said.