President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he had directed the Pentagon to begin testing nuclear weapons “on an equal basis” with Russia and China, triggering uncertainty over the decades-old US moratorium on such tests.
Trump’s social media post said the process would “begin immediately,” though it included very few details about what the tests would entail - including whether they would involve live nuclear weapons - or what tests from Russia and China had prompted his directive.
His comments follow nuclear arms showboating this week from Moscow, which in separate announcements said it had tested two nuclear-powered, nuclear-capable weapons, though Russian President Vladimir Putin has abstained from testing a nuclear explosion or carrying out a nuclear detonation.
The first Trump administration discussed conducting a nuclear test explosion in 2020, alleging that Russia and China had violated a “zero yield” standard with extremely low-yield or underground tests. Beijing and Moscow have denied the allegations.
There have been more than 2,000 nuclear test explosions around the world since 1945, according to tracking from the Arms Control Association, but most nations - except for North Korea - halted their tests in the 1990s.
The United States, Russia and China are signatories to the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), which prohibits “any nuclear weapon test explosion or any other nuclear explosion.” However, the treaty never went into effect because several key countries, including the US, did not ratify it. Russia in 2023 rescinded its ratification of the treaty, citing Washington’s failure to do so.
Here’s what to know about the history of nuclear weapons testing in Russia, China and the US.
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Russia
The last time Russia officially tested a nuclear weapon was in 1990, as the Soviet Union. However, there have been allegations of significant breaches, with one senior US official stating during the first Trump administration that Russia had “probably” conducted secret tests of low-yield nuclear weapons.
“The United States believes that Russia probably is not adhering to the nuclear testing moratorium in a manner consistent with the zero-yield standard,” Lt. Gen. Robert P. Ashley Jr. said in 2019, while serving as the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.
On Wednesday, before Trump’s social media post, Putin said Russian forces had successfully tested a nuclear-powered torpedo called Poseidon. Putin said the torpedo was unlike anything else in terms of “speed and operating depth” and that there was “no way to intercept it”.
The move to publicly showcase the torpedo, which uses nuclear power to travel through the water at high speeds with near unlimited range, came after Putin praised the successful test of a nuclear-powered and nuclear-capable cruise missile on Sunday - prompting a rebuke from Trump, who said Russia should be focused on working to end its war in Ukraine.
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China
While China’s last known test of a nuclear weapon was in 1996, the country has taken steps to significantly increase its nuclear weapons stockpiles over recent years, with independent analysts suggesting that it was among the “largest and most rapid modernisation campaigns” of the nine states known to have nuclear weapons.
The Defense Department estimated last year that China will surpass 1,000 warheads by 2030, while the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimates that it has about 600. Those numbers are still considerably behind both the US and Russia, which the institute estimates have some 3,700 and 4,300, respectively.
Despite this, China has repeatedly emphasised its support for the nuclear testing moratorium in the CTBT treaty. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said this week that it had “faithfully honoured its moratorium on nuclear testing” and that it would work with all parties to uphold the treaty.
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United States
The US carried out more than 1,000 nuclear explosive tests between 1945 and 1992, the majority of which were conducted underground.
In 1945, during World War II, the US conducted the first test of an atomic bomb in Alamogordo, New Mexico. It remains the only country to use atomic bombs as an act of war after dropping them on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that year, causing widespread death and devastation.
The last full-scale US nuclear weapons test took place in Nevada in 1992. Later that year, President George H.W. Bush announced a unilateral moratorium on nuclear weapons testing. President Bill Clinton signed the CTBT, which prohibits “any nuclear weapon test explosion or any other nuclear explosion,” in 1996
One expert told The Washington Post on Wednesday that the US would need at least 36 months of preparation before resuming any contained nuclear tests underground at its former testing site in Nevada.
- Washington Post
