Does Trump’s nuclear testing raise the stakes

US President Donald Trump announced that the United States will begin conducting nuclear weapons tests, in what may represent a radical shift in his country’s policy.

“Due to other countries’ testing programs, I have instructed the War Department to begin testing our nuclear weapons on an equal footing,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social as he was about to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday.

“This process will begin immediately.”

The world’s nuclear-armed states—those recognized as members of the so-called nuclear club and those whose status is more ambiguous—regularly test their nuclear weapons delivery systems, such as a missile that might carry a nuclear warhead.

Only North Korea has actually tested a nuclear weapon since the 1990s — and hasn’t done so since 2017.

The White House did not issue any clarifications regarding the commander-in-chief’s announcement. So it remains unclear whether Trump meant testing nuclear weapons delivery systems or the destructive weapons themselves. He said in comments after its publication that the locations of the nuclear tests will be determined at a later time.

Several of the six policy experts who spoke to the BBC said testing nuclear weapons could raise the stakes at an already dangerous moment when all signs showed the world was heading in the direction of a nuclear arms race – even though that race had not yet begun.

Not one of the six agreed that Trump’s comments would have much impact – and another did not think the US was provoking a race – but they all said the world faces a growing nuclear threat.

“The concern here is that since nuclear-armed states have not conducted these nuclear tests in decades — with the exception of North Korea — this could create a domino effect,” said Jamie Kwong, a fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

He added: “We are at a very worrying moment as the United States, Russia and China are likely to enter this moment that could become an arms race.”

Daria Dolzikova, a senior research fellow in nuclear proliferation and policy at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) – a defense and security think tank based in London – said she did not believe Trump’s comments would significantly change the situation.

But she added, “There are other dynamics at the global level that have increased the risks of nuclear exchange and increased proliferation of nuclear weapons to levels higher than they have been in decades.”

She said Trump’s message “is a drop in a much larger bucket, and there are some legitimate concerns about overfilling that bucket.”

Experts have pointed to the escalation of conflicts where one or more of the warring parties is a nuclear power – the war in Ukraine, for example, in This is what Russian President Vladimir Putin has sometimes threatened to do He can use nuclear weapons.

Then, full-fledged conflicts erupted – if not full-fledged conflicts – such as those that erupted between Pakistan and India this year, or between Israel – which has a policy of neither confirming nor denying its possession of nuclear weapons – attacking Iran – a country that the West accuses of trying to manufacture nuclear weapons (a charge that Tehran denies).

Tensions on the Korean Peninsula and China’s ambitions in Taiwan add to the overall picture.

The last existing nuclear treaty between the United States and Russia that limits the quantities of their deployed nuclear arsenals – ready-to-launch warheads – is set to expire in February next year.

In his announcement, Trump said the United States has more nuclear weapons than any other country — a statement that does not match figures regularly updated by another think tank specializing in the field, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

According to Sipri, Russia has 5,459 nuclear warheads, followed by the United States with 5,177, and China comes in third with 600.

Other think tanks reported similar numbers.

Russia recently announced that it had tested new nuclear weapons delivery systems, including a missile that the Kremlin said was capable of penetrating American defenses and another that could dive underwater to strike the American coast.

It may have been the latter allegation that led to Trump’s announcement, some experts suspect, even though Russia said its tests “were not nuclear.”

Meanwhile, the United States is watching China closely — with concern growing that it will reach near-peer status as well, posing a “double nuclear threat,” experts say.

Therefore, the resumption of US nuclear testing may prompt China and Russia to do the same.

A Kremlin spokesman said: “If someone deviates from the moratorium, Russia will act accordingly.”

In its response, China said it hoped the United States would fulfill its obligations under the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty — which both countries have signed but not ratified — and respect its commitment to suspend nuclear testing.

Darrell Kimball, executive director of the Washington-based Arms Control Association, said the United States resuming nuclear weapons testing would be “a mistake of historic international security proportions.”

He said the risk of nuclear conflict has been “steadily increasing” over several years, and unless the United States and Russia negotiate “some form of new restrictions on their arsenals, we are likely to see a dangerous and uncontrolled trilateral arms race between the United States, Russia and then China in the coming years.”

Hans Christensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, said the average person should be “very concerned” because over the past five years there has been an increase in nuclear warheads for the first time since the Cold War.

The last US nuclear weapons test – underground in Nevada – was in 1992.

It will take at least 36 months for the Nevada site to be ready for use again, Kimball said.

The United States currently uses computer simulations and other non-explosive means to test its nuclear weapons and therefore has no practical justification for detonating them, several experts said.

There are inherent risks even with underground testing, Kwong said, because you have to make sure there is no radioactive leakage above ground and that it does not affect groundwater.

While Robert Peters blamed Russia and China for escalating rhetoric, he said that while there may be no scientific or technical reason to test a warhead, “the main reason is to send a political message to your adversaries.”

He said: “It may be necessary for some president, whether Donald Trump or anyone else, to conduct nuclear weapons tests as a sign of credibility,” considering that preparing for the test “is not an unreasonable position.”

While many others the BBC spoke to disagreed, they all gave a fairly harsh assessment of the current situation.

“I believe that if the new nuclear arms race has not already begun, we are currently heading towards the starting line,” said Rhys Creeley, who writes on the subject at the University of Glasgow.

“I worry every day about the dangers of a nuclear arms race and the growing danger of nuclear war.”

The United States tested its first atomic bomb in July 1945 in the Alamogordo Desert, New Mexico.

It later became the only country in the world to use nuclear weapons in wars after dropping two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of the same year during World War II.