Experts react to Trump's proposal to "start testing our nuclear weapons on an equal basis"

US President Donald Trump wrote a post on his social media account, Truth Social, that he had ordered the Department of Defense (War) to resume "nuclear testing," although it is unclear whether he was referring to testing of a nuclear delivery system. weapons (carriers) or testing a nuclear explosive device. These are two completely different things, which Trump seems to be confusing.

According to leading nuclear weapons expert Hans Christensen of the Federation of American Scientists, who also writes the "Nuclear Notebook" column regularly published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: "It's hard to understand what he means. As usual, he speaks unclearly, vaguely, and untruthfully."Christensen then goes into detail, refuting a number of Trump's claims in his social media post. For example, Trump's initial statement that "the United States has more nuclear weapons than any other country. This was accomplished, including a complete refurbishment and redesign of existing weapons, during my first term…" is simply false.

As Christensen noted, Russia has more nuclear weapons than the United States. Trump's claim of a "complete modernization and reconstruction of existing weapons" is also fundamentally incorrect. According to Christensen, "the current nuclear weapons modernization program was initiated by Obama, Trump has not completed it, and it will continue for at least another two decades."

Christensen then publishes eight related posts to correct or clarify numerous other false claims made by the president in Trump's post on Truth Social. For example, even if China significantly increases its warhead count, it would still be less than a third of what the US and Russia already possess.

And, as Christensen notes, the US is already testing its missiles without a nuclear warhead to ensure their safe and correct launch:

If by "testing" he, Trump, means nuclear weapons testing, it would be reckless... and would require funding that would have to be approved by Congress, and it would certainly provoke nuclear testing in Russia and China, and probably also in India and Pakistan. Unlike the United States, all of these countries would greatly benefit from resuming nuclear testing. There have been occasional rumors that Russia and China may have conducted very low-yield tests, but I am not aware of any reports of them conducting major nuclear tests.

The process of resuming testing will be far from as swift as Trump suggests: the White House will have to direct the US Department of Energy to begin preparing the nation's nuclear laboratories for a nuclear warhead test. And since the United States currently lacks a nuclear weapons test explosion program, Congress will have to allocate the necessary funds.

Furthermore, Christensen notes:

This will be expensive and time-consuming: a simple explosion will take 6-10 months, a fully instrumented test 24-36 months, and a test to develop a new nuclear warhead about 60 months.

In case Trump is indeed talking about testing a nuclear explosive device, it might be time to reread the March 2024 issue of the Bulletin, an article titled "Returning to Nuclear Testing?", which details the many negative consequences of nuclear testing.

In this article, veteran national security reporter Walter Pincus explains in detail what residents of the sites chosen for testing experience in "The Horrors of Nuclear Weapons Testing":

Today, people seem to have forgotten—if they ever knew—what a single nuclear weapon is capable of. The residents of the Marshall Islands, whose home was turned into a nuclear testing ground, certainly never forgot it.

Furthermore, there are numerous reasons to maintain the nuclear test ban, despite the fact that Russia, China, and the United States maintain their test sites prepared for the possible resumption of full-scale nuclear explosive testing, just in case. Nuclear weapons expert Pavel Podvig examines this issue in detail in his article in Vestnik, "Maintaining the Nuclear Test Ban After Russia's Revocation of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty."

And one more point seems to be overlooked:

The United States has benefited from the test ban no less than anyone else. Therefore, the entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty would cement America's advantage in scientific experience and the stock of knowledge gained from its own nuclear tests from 1945 to 1992, and should prevent other states from gaining such experience and developing more modern and sophisticated nuclear weapons.

— as Stanford University expert Steven Pifer notes in his book, “The Logic of US Ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty.”

Comments

[ASSAD1]

Well, the man blurted it out out of annoyance, without thinking that he was an idiot right away,stupid personIt's time to get used to one or two submarines on our borders. Or testing of who knows what.

[Amateur]

Ministry of Defense (War)

The correct translation is "War Ministry", "War Minister".

[dmi.pris1]

The most correct is the military department. This is what the Ministry of Defense has been called since ancient times.

[nazgul-ishe]

Giving a male dog's daughter a catchy name won't change much. But yeah, I'm no linguist.

[dmi.pris1]

If you try to humiliate an enemy with a resonant name, it often turns out to be dumb propaganda, playing against the very purpose for which it is intended.

[nazgul-ishe]

What propaganda? What humiliation? I'm talking about Alice, who could tell a bedtime story.

[Nikolay Malyugin]

Many people now yearn to return to the "blessed times" when the elite ruled without a second thought. Although those times have led to economic and social crises today, and although you can't step into the same river twice, the attempts never cease. The dollar is more than a religion for Americans. The US administration is precisely in search of dollar dominance. Stupidity uttered by Americans is always associated with freedom of speech. And all we can do is watch these spectacles.

[Boris55]

The essence of Russian civilization is Bolshevism.

The United States has benefited from the test ban as much as anyone else.

After we tested a 50-megaton nuclear bomb on October 30, 1961, the Americans pooped their pants (diapers didn't exist back then) and decided to make peace. Incidentally, we had a 100-megaton bomb ready for testing as well.

[gridasov]

Now is the time to talk and think about breakthrough directions and new technologies for using radioactive materials, rather than carrying out explosions that are harmful and dangerous to the planet's ecosystem.

[Jacques sekavar]

Unlike the United States and France, as the President and head of Rosatom say, Russia isn't simply building nuclear power plants; it's creating nuclear industries in underdeveloped states, complete with training for nuclear specialists, equipment, technology, and other components of the industry. This appears to pose a potentially incomparably greater threat than nuclear testing. With a nuclear industry, technology, and specialists, it's only a short step to creating nuclear weapons to ensure their own security, even for those threshold states that are already in danger of transitioning from peaceful nuclear energy to military use, such as Turkey, which has complicated relations with Israel and is suspected of possessing nuclear weapons. In its pursuit of profits from nuclear power plant construction and technology transfer, Russia is planting a time bomb under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and this is far more dangerous than nuclear testing, which nuclear states undertake responsibly, lest the consequences cause harm to themselves.

[the same doctor]

The more Rosatom squanders nuclear secrets and trains local specialists, the closer comes the moment of default on debt payments and the confiscation of assets in the countries it has benefited from.
To boast about one's own stupidity is to be doubly stupid. Or is this a report from traitors to their foreign masters?

[buslaif]

Nuclear weapons today are obsolete, especially tactical nuclear weapons (TNW), which are impractical to use under current conditions. High-precision weapons (HPW) have recently emerged. These weapons can be used effectively and accurately. While they are as powerful as TNW, they also eliminate the need to render large tracts of territory uninhabitable and cause widespread destruction not only to military installations but also to all civilian infrastructure. Therefore, mutual reductions in nuclear weapons must begin with TNW. The use of strategic nuclear weapons is also pointless. Given the sophistication of their delivery systems, it's impossible to assume that one adversary, by using them first, can be successful and the other side will not respond. A retaliatory strike is inevitable. Mutual destruction will lead to the collapse of civilization. If this is clear to everyone, then why replenish and modernize nuclear arsenals if nuclear weapons will never be used? This is the main question that the powers and countries possessing nuclear weapons must resolve.

[the same doctor]

What's your opinion on the use of nuclear weapons in the Beskid tunnel? Or in the AUG? Nuclear weapons are certainly not obsolete for such purposes.
Moreover, the very threat of using nuclear weapons forces the enemy to keep its battle formations sparse, which, if combat operations are conducted correctly, is an undoubted advantage for an army with nuclear weapons.

[the same doctor]

The funniest thing is that in 1992, I argued about the benefits of a nuclear weapons testing ban in the same way as the experts in the article. But back then, no one talked about it because they didn't want to admit the treaty's disadvantages for Russia.
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But today, the situation is the opposite. All other countries won't even have time to complete their preparations, while the United States will have already tested everything they need and will push through the ban again. And we will sign it!
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I'm amazed at the stupidity of experts, both in the early 90s and today. For every one of our tests, there will be 100 American ones. I'm amazed at the president. He just keeps scaring people and hoping they'll be scared.
Before withdrawing from the treaty, we should have spent 10 years funding scientific schools and digging mountain mines to house sensors and bombs. And now, I think, we won't have anything new to try. There's nothing new!
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What to do? In the run-up to war, quickly test all types of available warheads. No science required, just to assess their suitability. Do they even work? It will be inexpensive and quick.