Nuclear Giants and Ethical Infants

Donald Trump has instructed the Pentagon to "start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis [to other countries]". Energy Secretary Chris Wright has since clarified that the US will not conduct explosive nuclear tests but will carry out "non-critical explosions"—effectively a restatement of a longstanding US position. Trump is not so sure.

The iconic nuclear mushroom cloud, formed when the debris sucked in by a gigantic explosion rises to a point where it can no longer penetrate the atmosphere and flattens out, has not been seen for 45 years. While early nuclear tests were carried out in the atmosphere, concerns about radioactive fallout, heightened by incidents such as the fatal irradiation of the Japanese fishing boat Daigo Fukuryū Maru, led the nuclear powers to seek alternatives.

From atmosphere to underground

The US had carried out underground tests to investigate the effects of nuclear weapons on structures such as bunkers and, by 1957, had developed testing techniques sufficiently to carry out the first fully contained underground nuclear explosion.

As underground tests are harder to detect and more valuable scientifically, the nuclear powers were soon ready to abandon atmospheric tests entirely and to commit themselves to a 1963 treaty banning them, along with tests in outer space and under water (the partial test ban treaty). The UK conducted its last atmospheric nuclear tests in 1958 and the US and USSR in 1962, while France continued to test in the atmosphere until 1974 and China until 1980. Restraints on nuclear testing increased further in 1976, when the US and USSR signed the Threshold Ban Treaty, limiting the yield of underground tests to 150 kilotons.

Advances in nuclear physics experimentation, techniques for testing critical components, and computer simulation have since allowed nuclear states to halt even underground testing. Secretary Wright’s reference to “non-critical explosions” and to “testing all the other parts of a nuclear weapon to make sure they deliver the appropriate geometry, and they set up the nuclear explosion” are allusions to the type of testing carried out today to give the nuclear powers sufficient confidence in the effectiveness and safety of their nuclear warheads. To move from this high-tech approach, at which the US excels, to brute force nuclear detonations would, in many ways, be a step backwards.

The USSR conducted its last full nuclear test in 1990, the US in 1992, the UK, France and China in 1996, and India and Pakistan in 1998. But nuclear testing has been halted on a voluntary basis—while some of the nuclear powers have ratified (Russia, the UK, France) or signed (the US, China) the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which bans all nuclear test explosions, it has not yet entered into force.

Trump’s claims

The international consensus against nuclear testing is thus strong. At the same time, it is fragile: Russia, for example, has repeatedly warned that it would abandon its own testing moratorium if the US began testing again. A US decision to unilaterally resume testing would thus be very significant, and ought to be based on the extensive analysis of clear facts. But with the exception of North Korea, which carried out six underground tests between 2006 and 2017, ‘other countries’ are not, as Trump apparently claimed, conducting full nuclear tests.

Trump was also wrong in his assertions about the relative size of the nuclear arsenals. Russia (not the US) leads, with close to 5 600 warheads, although this includes a much larger proportion of ‘tactical’ weapons than the US arsenal, which is estimated to total around 5 200 warheads. Trump’s claim that China would catch up in five years is also unlikely. While China has the fastest growing nuclear arsenal, analysts suggest, based on Pentagon data, that it will grow from its current level of around 600 warheads to, at most, 1 500 by 2035. Furthermore, unless Trump was calling for the testing of delivery systems, which seems unlikely given Secretary Wright’s clarification, he was wrong in addressing his demands to the Department of War. It is the National Nuclear Security Administration, part of the Department of Energy, that oversees “the research, development, testing, and acquisition programs that design, produce, maintain, and sustain the U.S. nuclear warheads stockpile”.

Trump’s motivations and intentions are far from clear. It is perhaps most likely that he was spooked by—and misunderstood—Russia’s October announcements of its tests of the nuclear-powered (and nuclear-capable) Burevestnik cruise missile and Poseidon torpedo. Russia, of course, was ready to use his response to score points. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists that “we hope that the information was conveyed correctly to President Trump. This cannot in any way be interpreted as a nuclear test.” But Trump appeared to double down in a later interview with CBS, claiming that Russia and China were testing in secret and, again, that the US would follow suit.

The Trump administration has yet, as is customary, to issue a Nuclear Posture Review. Reckless and confusing orders from the president at a time of high international tension amplify the ambiguity created by this absence and risk escalation and instability. The sole authority to permit the use of US nuclear weapons rests with a president apparently unwilling or unable to understand and accept the responsibility this requires.

Views expressed in ICDS publications are those of the author(s).