U.S. President Donald Trump’s vaguely worded promise last week to start testing the country’s nuclear weapons on an “equal basis” with Russia and China has sparked fears that the United States will fuel a renewed nuclear arms race.
According to Sahil Shah, a nuclear risk reduction expert, Trump’s statement could be interpreted as “a political flourish to show resolve; an order to increase testing of nuclear-capable delivery systems; an instruction to expand simulations and subcritical experiments; or, worst of all, authorization of explosive nuclear warhead detonations.”
U.S. President Donald Trump’s vaguely worded promise last week to start testing the country’s nuclear weapons on an “equal basis” with Russia and China has sparked fears that the United States will fuel a renewed nuclear arms race.
According to Sahil Shah, a nuclear risk reduction expert, Trump’s statement could be interpreted as “a political flourish to show resolve; an order to increase testing of nuclear-capable delivery systems; an instruction to expand simulations and subcritical experiments; or, worst of all, authorization of explosive nuclear warhead detonations.”
“The first three are serious policy choices that merit debate,” Shah writes. “The last would mark an epochal reversal of U.S. policy and international norms.”
As analysts debate what Trump’s latest moves could mean, we’ve rounded up some of our best coverage of how the current U.S. administration could reshape the global nuclear landscape.
A massive mushroom cloud of smoke and debris rises around a giant plume of flames. Huge waves ripple out in a circle from the point of impact.
A nuclear explosion is seen in Mururoa atoll in French Polynesia in 1971.Photo by AFP
Trump’s Vagueness Over Nuclear Testing Could Fuel an Arms Race
It’s unclear whether his statement refers to warhead detonations, Sahil Shah writes.
A deactivated Titan II nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile stands in a silo at the Titan Missile Museum in Green Valley, Arizona, on May 12, 2015.
A deactivated Titan II nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile stands in a silo at the Titan Missile Museum in Green Valley, Arizona, on May 12, 2015.Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
America’s Latest Problem: A Three-Way Nuclear Race
New Russian and Chinese weapons make Washington’s nuclear command structure vulnerable to attack, Eric S. Edelman writes.
Crows fly around the Atomic Bomb Dome in Japan.
Crows fly around the Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug. 5.Richard A. Brooks/AFP via Getty Images
Why the Nuclear Taboo Is Stronger Than Ever
Fears of proliferation and the crumbling of an earlier nuclear order could actually be accelerating international norm-building, Charli Carpenter writes.
Two people stand on a ledge overlooking the grid of a city with the debris of demolished buildings stretching to the horizon.
The devastated landscape of Hiroshima in 1948, three years after the U.S. bombing laid waste to the city.AFP via Getty Images
An Unreliable America Means More Countries Want the Bomb
Without credible U.S. security guarantees, nuclear proliferation is likely to increase rapidly across Europe and Asia, Debak Das and Rachel A. Epstein write.
Crowds of people gather for an anti-nuclear demonstration in New York’s Central Park on June 12, 1982.
Crowds of people gather for an anti-nuclear demonstration in New York’s Central Park on June 12, 1982.Roy Morsch/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images
How to Fix the Cracks in the Nuclear Dam
The crisis in the Middle East shows why the world must repair Trump’s damage to the nonproliferation landscape, Adam Thomson writes.
