US President Donald Trump on Thursday ordered the US military to immediately resume nuclear weapons testing after a 33-year interruption, minutes before starting a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
How many nuclear weapons tests were conducted, what caused them to stop, and why would anyone want to resume them?
The nuclear age
The United States ushered in the nuclear age in July 1945 with the testing of a 20-kiloton atomic bomb in Alamogordo, New Mexico, and subsequently dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 to force Japan’s surrender in World War II.
The Soviet Union shocked the West by detonating its first nuclear bomb just four years later, in August 1949.
In the five decades between 1945 and the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), more than 2,000 nuclear tests were carried out: 1,032 by the United States and 715 by the Soviet Union, according to the United Nations.
Britain conducted 45 tests, France 210 and China 45.
Since the CTBT, 10 nuclear tests have been carried out. India carried out two in 1998, Pakistan also carried out two in 1998, and North Korea carried out tests in 2006, 2009, 2013, 2016 (twice) and 2017, the United Nations indicates.
The United States conducted its last nuclear tests in 1992, China and France in 1996, and the Soviet Union in 1990. Russia, which inherited most of the Soviet nuclear arsenal, never conducted any.
Russia held nuclear exercises last week and tested a cruise missile and a nuclear-powered torpedo, but did not test any nuclear warhead.
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Why did they end nuclear testing?
Concerns grew about the impact of testing — surface, underground and underwater — on human health and the environment.
The impact of Western tests in the Pacific and Soviet tests in Kazakhstan and the Arctic was significant for both the environment and the population. Activists say millions of people in the Pacific and Kazakhstan had their lands contaminated by nuclear testing and suffered health problems for decades.
By limiting the Cold War wave of nuclear testing, advocates say, tensions between Moscow and Washington could be reduced.
The CTBT prohibits nuclear explosions by anyone, anywhere. It was signed by Russia in 1996 and ratified in 2000. The United States signed the treaty in 1996, but did not ratify it.
In 2023, President Vladimir Putin formally revoked Russia’s ratification of the CTBT, aligning his country with the United States.
Why would they conduct other trials?
To obtain information or to send a signal.
The tests provide evidence about the potential of any new nuclear weapon and about the effectiveness of older weapons.
In 2020, the Washington Post reported that US President Donald Trump’s administration had discussed the possibility of conducting a nuclear test.
In addition to providing technical data, such a test would be seen in Russia and China as a deliberate demonstration of American strategic power.
Putin repeatedly warned that if the United States resumes nuclear testing, Russia will too. Putin claims the global nuclear arms race is already underway.
Also read: Trump orders the Pentagon to immediately resume US nuclear weapons testing
What do the great powers do with their nuclear weapons?
The exact number of nuclear warheads each country possesses is secret, but Russia has an approximate total of 5,459, while the United States has about 5,177, according to the Federation of American Scientists. These figures include warheads deployed, stored and retired.
The Arms Control Association, based in Washington, DC, states that the United States has an arsenal of 5,225 nuclear warheads and Russia 5,580.
The world’s nuclear warhead arsenals peaked in 1986, with more than 70,000 warheads, mostly in the Soviet Union and the United States, but have since been reduced to about 12,000, mostly still in Russia and the United States.
China is the third nuclear power with 600 warheads; France has 290, the United Kingdom with 225, India with 180, Pakistan with 170, Israel with 90 and North Korea with 50, says the Federation of American Scientists.
Russia, the United States and China are carrying out major modernizations of their nuclear arsenals.
With information from Reuters
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