Trump’s comments on nuclear testing upend decades of US policy. Here’s what you should know

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — President Donald Trump’s comments Thursday suggesting the United States would resume nuclear weapons testing upend decades of American nuclear bomb policy, but come as Washington’s rivals expand and test their own nuclear-capable arsenals.

Read more: Trump appears to suggest that the United States will resume nuclear weapons testing for the first time in 30 years

Nuclear weapons policy, once thought to be a relic of the Cold War, has increasingly come to the fore after Russia made repeated atomic threats to both the United States and Europe during its war on Ukraine. Moscow also admitted this week to testing a nuclear-powered cruise missile called Burevestnik, which NATO has codenamed Skyfall, and a nuclear-armed underwater drone.

China is building more ground-based nuclear missile silos. Meanwhile, North Korea has just unveiled a new intercontinental ballistic missile that it plans to test, part of a nuclear-capable arsenal that would likely be able to reach the continental United States.

The threat has begun to seep into popular culture as well, with director Kathryn Bigelow’s latest film titled “House of Dynamite.”

But what does Trump’s announcement mean and how will it affect what is happening now with nuclear tensions? Here’s what you should know.

Trump’s statements came before his meeting with Chinese President Xi

Trump’s comments came in a post on his website, Truth Social, prior to his meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. In it, Trump noted that other countries were testing weapons and wrote: “I have directed the War Department to begin testing our nuclear weapons on an equal footing. This process will begin immediately.”

The position of president raised immediate questions. The US nuclear arsenal is maintained by the Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration, a semi-independent agency within it – not the Department of Defense. The Department of Energy has overseen nuclear weapons testing since its creation in 1977. Two other agencies before it — not the Department of Defense — conducted tests.

Trump also claimed that the United States “has more nuclear weapons than any other country.” Russia is believed to have 5,580 nuclear warheads, according to the Washington-based Arms Control Association, while the United States has 5,225 nuclear warheads. These numbers include so-called “retired” warheads awaiting dismantling.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute breaks down the total warheads, with the United States having 1,770 warheads deployed with 1,930 in reserve. Russia has 1,718 deployed warheads and 2,591 reserve warheads.

The two countries possess approximately 90% of the world’s atomic warheads.

The United States conducted its last nuclear test in 1992

From the time America detonated its “Trinity” nuclear bomb in 1945 to 1992, the United States detonated 1,030 atomic bombs in tests – the largest number of bombs by any country. These numbers do not include the two nuclear weapons that America used against Japan in Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II.

The first American tests were in the atmosphere, but were then moved underground to limit nuclear fallout. Scientists have come to refer to such tests as “injections.” The last such “shot,” dubbed Divider as part of Operation Jolene, occurred on September 23, 1992, at the National Security Sites in Nevada, a sprawling complex about 105 kilometers (65 miles) from Las Vegas.

He watches: The graphic novel shows life in Nevada’s “death cities” during atomic testing

America stopped its tests for several reasons. The first was the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War. The United States also signed the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1996. But since the treaty was signed, tests have been conducted by India, North Korea and Pakistan, the world’s newest nuclear powers. The United Kingdom and France also possess nuclear weapons, while Israel has long been suspected of possessing atomic bombs.

But in general, the United States also had decades of data from tests, allowing it to use computer modeling and other techniques to successfully determine whether a weapon would explode. Every president since Barack Obama has supported plans to modernize America’s nuclear arsenal, which will cost nearly $1 trillion to maintain and modernize over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The United States relies on the so-called “nuclear triad” — land-based silos, airborne bombs, and nuclear-tipped missiles on submarines at sea — to deter others from launching their weapons against America.

Rerunning the test raises additional questions

If the United States resumes nuclear weapons testing, it is not immediately clear what the goal will be. Nonproliferation experts have warned that any scientific goal is likely to be overshadowed by the backlash to the test – and may serve as a springboard for other major nuclear powers to begin their own large-scale tests.

“Restarting the US nuclear testing program could be one of the most significant policy actions taken by the Trump administration — a US test could trigger a chain of uncontrolled events, with other countries likely to respond by conducting their own nuclear tests, destabilizing global security, and accelerating a new arms race,” experts warned in a February article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

“The goal of a rapid nuclear test can only be political, not scientific…. It would give Russia, China, and other nuclear powers the freedom to resume their nuclear testing programs, essentially without any political and economic repercussions.”

Any future U.S. testing in Nevada will likely be done at test sites, but a lot of work will likely need to go into the sites to prepare them given that more than 30 years have passed since the last test. A series of slides, made for a presentation at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 2018, outlined the challenges, noting that in the 1960s, Mercury City, Nevada was — at the test sites — the second-largest city in Nevada.

On average, there were 20,000 people on site to organize and prepare for the tests. This ability has diminished in the decades that have followed.

“A single effects shot would require two to four years to plan and implement,” the presentation said. “These were huge projects.”