US President Donald Trump has ordered Pentagon and top-ranked military leaders to revive the nuclear weapons testing after over 30 years of pause.
According to the Trump administration, the purpose of pushing for nuclear testing is to match the US capabilities with other nuclear-powered countries such as China and Russia.
While posting to Truth Social, Trump said, “because of other countries’ testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis. That process will begin immediately.”
When it comes to nukes, the US possesses more nuclear weapons than Russia, the second in number, and China, “third distant,” as claimed by the President.
According to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, Russia has outpaced the US in possessing nukes as Russia has over 5500 nuclear warheads and the US has 5,044 nuclear weapons.
As per the Center for Strategic and International Studies, China has more than doubled the size of its arsenal, possessing 600 nuclear weapons in 2025 from 300 weapons in 2020.
As per US military estimations, by 2030, these numbers of nuclear weapons could surpass over 1000.
Since 1992, the United States has not performed any nuclear testing, marking the 33 years of hiatus.
Except North Korea, all the major global powers ceased to conduct nuclear testing by late 1990s.
The announcement came on the heels of Russia’s successful testing of a nuclear-powered Burevestnik cruise missile with reportedly unlimited range.
The 9M730 Burevestnik, also called “storm petrel” is a ground-based and low-flying cruise missile that is not only nuclear-powered but also can carry a nuclear warhead.
In the recent test, the missile covered a distance of 14,000km and remained in the air for around 15 hours.
Nato called the cruise missile the SSC-X-9 Skyfall.
Upon hearing of the success of the cruise missile, President Donald Trump called it " inappropriate to be conducting such tests amid peace talks with Ukraine.”
Recently Russia has also tested a Poseidon nuclear-capable underwater drone which has the capability of destroying coastal regions by triggering vast radioactive ocean swells.
Given the growing power of Russia and paradigm shift in the nuclear deterrence, the recently announced US decision signals an answer to counter Russia’s surging dominance in nuclear domains.
In Truth Social post, by referring to other countries’ testing programs, the US is also trying to assert technological credibility and dominance.
Some arms control experts have raised the concerns that resumption of nuclear testing could jeopardise decades of non-proliferation progress.
The resumption of weapons testing would break most of the traditional nuclear deterrence and initiate a new arms race.
According to the Arms Control Association, “resuming the explosive tests would trigger a cascade of other states and blow apart the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).”
Daryl Kimball, director of the Arms Control Association, stated, “Trump is misinformed and out of touch. The U.S. has no technical, military, or political reason to resume nuclear explosive testing for the first time since 1992. Such a move could trigger nuclear testing by U.S. adversaries.”
As per Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, reinitiating the nuclear testing program by the Trump administration could be the most consequential policy action, “triggering the chain of events, destabilizing global security and accelerating a new arms race.”