Resuming Nuclear Weapons Testing

 The U.S. government stopped its atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons in 1962, shortly before signing the Partial Ban Treaty of 1962. And it halted its underground nuclear tests in 1992, signing the Comprehensive Test Treaty (CTBT) in 1996. Overall, it conducted 1,030 nuclear weapons test explosions, slightly more than half the global total.

A Washington 'Post' article reported that, in mid-May 2020, a meeting of senior U.S. officials from top national security agencies engaged in serious discussions about U.S. nuclear test resumption. According to one official, the idea was that test renewal would help pressure Russia and China into making concessions during future negotiations over nuclear weapons. 

Meanwhile, during a press briefing in Brussels, the administration's special envoy for arms control stated that the U.S. government "will maintain the ability to conduct nuclear tests if we see reason to do so." Although he said he was "not aware of any reason to test at this stage," he added that he would not "shut the door on it," either. "Why would we?"

Actually, there are numerous reasons why the resumption of U.S. nuclear weapons explosions is a terrible idea. If the government began atmospheric nuclear testing, it would violate the Partial Test Ban Treaty (which it ratified), as well as the CTBT (which it signed but, thanks to Republican Senate opposition, has not yet ratified). Even if U.S. nuclear tests were conducted underground and, thus, violated only the CTBT, the result would be a dramatic loss of credibility for the United States and a escalation of the nuclear arms racer. As Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, has remarked: "Other nuclear powers would undoubtedly seize the opportunity provided by a U.S. nuclear blast to engage in explosive tests of their own, which could help them perfect new and more dangerous types of warheads."

In addition, a considerable number of non-nuclear nations might decide that, given the U.S. government's failure to fulfill its treaty obligations, their adherence to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty no longer made sense. Therefore, they would begin nuclear testing to facilitate developing their own nuclear weapons arsenals.

Furthermore, U.S. nuclear weapons explosions, whether in the atmosphere or underground, would have serious health and environmental consequences. Even underground U.S. tests have released large quantities of radioactive fallout, and the U.S. government is still dealing with the devastation they caused to communities near the testing sites. Furthermore, no method has been found for cleaning up the plutonium and other radionuclides that the tests have left underground.

Remarkably, there is no military necessity for nuclear test resumption. Not only does the U.S. government possess nearly half the world's nuclear weapons, which are quite sufficient to eradicate life on earth, but the occasionally-cited justification for testing -- that it is necessary to make sure U.S. weapons actually work -- is deeply flawed. The U.S. government has spent tens of billions of dollars on the Stockpile Stewardship Program, a wide range of diagnostic non-explosive tests, to ensure that its nuclear weapons are reliable. And every year the directors of the U.S. nuclear labs report that they are. (Source: Excerpts from an article in "Common Dreams," entitled "Making America Feared Again: The Trump Administration Considers Resuming Nuclear Weapons Testing," by Lawrence Wittner, a professor at Albany University).