The U.S. Doesn’t Need to Resume Nuclear Testing

The Castle Bravo test over Bikini Atoll in 1954.

In the week since President Trump announced that the U.S. would resume “nuclear testing,” analysts and reporters have been scrambling to determine what exactly the president means by that phrase. Does he mean actual explosions, individual components, or testing delivery vehicles? Despite assurances from Energy Secretary Chris Wright that testing would not include explosions, there is still uncertainty. Today, in response, Vladimir Putin has ordered proposals for the possible resumption of Russian nuclear testing, signaling a further dive towards a Cold War era approach towards nuclear posturing. Though Putin has certainly engaged in his share of nuclear saber rattling since his invasion of Ukraine, these warnings have proven to be a bluff.

It’s certainly possible that this may be a bluff on Trump’s part as well, as he is prone to issuing threats, but the consequences of actually resuming explosive nuclear testing could be significant while the benefits are unclear.

Traditional images of nuclear tests include massive mushrooms clouds in the Nevada desert or over remote Pacific islands, houses being blown completely over, and battleships disappearing behind radioactive mist. While those images dominate the collective consciousness, open-air testing ended in the 1960s and was replaced by underground tests. Those tests left the Nevada dessert permanently scarred as the United States raced to ensure its nuclear dominance in the Cold War.

By 1992, America conducted its last nuclear test, and despite rumors of developing various new nuclear weapons over the years, it has not found a compelling need to restart explosive testing. America’s 1,030 nuclear tests provided a vast treasure-trove of scientific data that eclipses every other country in the world. This data has been essential to building America’s unparalleled ability to electronically model explosive nuclear testing faster, with fewer resources, and without the need to set off real atomic weapons.

As the Soviet Union conducted a total of 715 tests, and China has conducted only 45, the U.S. currently maintains a vastly superior collection of data to any of its rivals and hasn’t felt a need to test in over three decades. As it stands, the U.S., Russia, and China are all signatories to the 1997 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and while the U.S. and China never ratified it, Russia withdrew its ratification in 2023. The Soviet Union’s last test occurred in 1990, Russia hasn’t officially tested one since, and China’s last test took place in 1996.

Currently, there is no publicly available confirmed evidence that Russia or China has conducted any recent explosive nuclear testing, though in 2019 one senior U.S. official accused Russia of conducting a low-yield test. In 2022, a State Department report assessed that Russia had likely violated the principle of “no-yield” nuclear testing, while being vague about what it believes actually occurred. Given the history of controversy about U.S. weapons of mass destruction assessments, this is insufficient to justify resumed American explosive testing. While the accusations may be plausible, they are not enough to up-end the U.S. testing moratorium and launch a new era of overt explosive testing.

There is also little to be gained from resuming explosive nuclear testing, and much to be lost. Resuming overt testing would encourage Russia and China to attempt to catch up on the data gap and provide them with advancements in nuclear knowhow and technology. That might result in further tests by India and subsequently Pakistan, which certainly holds no benefit for world stability. Based on a long history of extensive nuclear tests, the United States is the world’s most experienced country in setting off nuclear explosions, so it’s not as though more experience is needed to better understand how to design and reliably set off a nuke. China, on the other hand, having conducted comparatively few nuclear tests, could certainly stand to gain.

Additionally, conducting a new round of nuclear tests essentially means that the United States would be nuking itself, suffering significant environmental costs while learning nothing new. In 2022, environmental cleanup costs for American nuclear weapons activities were estimated to be between $652 and $887 billion and take more than 50 years. Not to mention the potential direct impact on human health, all while the federal government is actively cutting investment in cancer research. Inconceivable!

In a time when America can’t even solve basic budgetary arguments and has shut down its own government, the resumption of U.S. nuclear testing would incur costs that are unjustifiable.

No one doubts the effectiveness of America’s nuclear arsenal. So unless the U.S. wants to help usher in a world where nuclear testing is commonplace again, and encourage others to attempt to catch up to American knowledge, it’s better off retaining its current arsenal in an unexploded state.