Mushroom Clouds On the Horizon? What Trump’s Threat Means For Global Nuclear Testing

Mushroom Clouds On the Horizon? What Trump’s Threat Means For Global Nuclear Testing

RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY

In June 2019, the director of the Pentagon’s main intelligence agency made an eyebrow-raising allegation about Russia and its nuclear programs: Moscow is testing its atomic weapons.

“The US government, including the Intelligence Community, has assessed that Russia has conducted nuclear weapons tests that have created nuclear yield,” Lieutenant General Robert Ashley said.

China may also be conducting its own tests, Ashley added, possibly by using “zero-yield” methods in which no actual atomic explosion — a fission chain reaction — takes place.

Fast forward six years, and the United States and Russia are on the verge of a new arms race. The Kremlin is boasting that it is developing new, nuclear-capable superweapons, and President Donald Trump is threatening to resume US nuclear tests.

“Russia’s testing and China’s testing, but they don’t talk about it,” Trump said in an interview with CBS News recorded on October 31. “No, we’re gonna test, because they test and others test.”

He doubled down on that assertion on November 5, hours after President Vladimir Putin hosted a Security Council meeting specifically on the subject. “Because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis,” Trump said.

The claim that Russia and China are testing is subject to debate. Regardless, the threat has drawn criticism from Moscow and cheers from US national security hawks, not to mention handwringing among arms control advocates.

After years of collapsed or eroded arms control agreements — the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the Open Skies, New START — advocates worry that the global pact banning nuclear tests may be next.

At the Russian Security Council meeting, Defense Minister Andrei Belousov called for preparations to resume nuclear testing at ranges on the Arctic archipelago of Novaya Zemlya.

Confused by all the treaties? Don’t know what a “yield” is? We’ve got you covered: Read on.

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