Trump announces nuclear weapons tests - why now?
US President Donald Trump has announced plans to resume nuclear weapons testing. On his Truth Social platform he justified the move citing tests carried out by other countries. China has reminded the US of its commitment to a moratorium on nuclear testing and to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. The last US nuclear test was carried out in September 1992 under former president George H. W. Bush.
Confusion over terms
Kommersant suspects that Trump is mixing up key concepts:
“No country is currently conducting tests with nuclear bombs, but tests are being carried out with weapons that can carry nuclear warheads: Russia, for example, recently tested the Poseidon unmanned submersible and the Burevestnik cruise missile. Both have nuclear propulsion systems, the function of which was verified during the tests. However these devices were not equipped with nuclear warheads. Russia has never carried out any nuclear tests - the last time the USSR did so was in 1990 with an underground explosion at the Novaya Zemlya test site. China carried out its last nuclear test in 1996. So it's not clear what Trump means when he says that the US must be on a par with other countries that test nuclear weapons.”
Nothing more than an empty gesture
Deutschlandfunk doesn't believe the move will make any impact on Russia and China:
“Both have an imperial agenda and will stick to it. Putin has repeatedly seen that he has nothing to fear from Trump in terms of significant measures. Xi Jinping can afford to respond to Trump's pressure in kind thanks to China's economic clout. Quite apart from the fact that the American capacities for nuclear testing would first have to be rebuilt from scratch, the strategic opponents of the US and the West will see Trump's threat of nuclear testing for what it is: an empty gesture.”
New arms race looming
Key arms control treaties are coming to an end, Dagens Nyheter points out:
“The three major nuclear powers - the US, Russia and China - have complied with the current moratorium on nuclear weapons testing under the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. But the latest agreement on strategic arms limitations between the US and Russia, New Start, is due to expire in February 2026. The bad news is that there are no new negotiations underway for a similar agreement. And China has never signed a disarmament agreement in the first place. One thing is clear, however: if the US were to resume nuclear testing, Russia and China would follow suit, triggering a new nuclear arms race.”
Distrust instead of communication
The situation is precarious, La Repubblica worries:
“We are facing a maelstrom of distrust in which everyone is getting ready to take up arms for fear that the enemy might do so first. ... During the Cold War it was understood that mutual mistrust created the greatest dangers. ... This is why lines of communication were set up between the military leaders in Moscow and Washington, starting with the famous 'red telephone'. Today, these rules have been forgotten and there is a competition - so far verbal - to conjure up the ghosts of Hiroshima and destroy the architecture of the treaties that have kept the nuclear nightmare at bay since the late 1980s.”