The move comes amid the US president’s hardening stance toward the Kremlin, at a time when efforts to end the war in Ukraine have stalled.
ordered, this Thursday (30), the resumption of nuclear weapons tests by which had been suspended for more than 30 years, following announcements by the Russian president, on the development of new Russian atomic capabilities. The American president’s concise announcement appeared to be a show of strength, minutes before the meeting in Busan, South Korea, with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping.
The move also comes amid a hardening of Trump’s stance toward the Kremlin, at a time when efforts to end the war in Ukraine have stalled. “Because of other countries’ testing programs, I have instructed the War Department to begin testing our nuclear weapons on a level playing field,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. The Republican tycoon asserted that the United States possesses more nuclear weapons than any other country, praising his own efforts to carry out “a complete upgrade and renewal of existing weapons.”
“Russia is second and China is far behind, but it will be on par in five years,” Trump added. The allegation is refuted by statistics from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri), one of the main references on the subject, which states that Russia has 4,309 nuclear warheads deployed or stored, compared to 3,700 for the United States and 600 for China.
Trump did not specify the nature of the announced tests, that is, whether they would be testing nuclear warheads, something the United States has not done since 1992, or systems capable of carrying an atomic payload. In any case, Washington has been a signatory to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty since 1996, so any warhead testing would constitute a flagrant violation of the agreement.
“If they are doing tests, I imagine we should do them too”, he declared on board Air Force One. When asked about the dates and locations of the tests, he simply replied: “It will be announced. We already have the locations”.
China defends “non-proliferation”
The statements were a response to a series of recent announcements by Vladimir Putin, who on Sunday celebrated the success of the final test of the Burevestnik cruise missile which, according to him, has “unlimited range” and is capable of bypassing virtually all interception systems. On Wednesday, the Russian president announced the successful test of an “underwater drone” called Poseidon, compatible with atomic payloads. “No other device in the world compares to this in terms of speed and depth” of operation, said the Kremlin leader.
After Trump’s statements, Moscow clarified that they were testing weapons capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, and not nuclear bombs themselves. “Regarding the Poseidon and Burevestnik tests, we hope that President Trump was informed correctly. This cannot be considered a nuclear test,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov.
Shortly before, China urged the United States to “seriously” respect the nuclear test ban and take “concrete measures to preserve the global disarmament system and nuclear non-proliferation”. Last week, the American president indefinitely postponed a meeting he had announced with his Russian counterpart in Budapest. Trump indicated he did not want to hold negotiations before imposing new sanctions on Russian hydrocarbons.
In addition to recent events, nuclear rhetoric has returned to global diplomacy since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The threat of an ultimate weapon is one of Moscow’s recurring tools, which ordered, immediately after the start of the war, that “the Russian Army’s deterrence forces be placed on special combat alert.”
When asked about the risk of out of control, Donald Trump replied: “I don’t think so. I think it’s very well controlled.” Last week, however, NATO held an exercise in the Netherlands, in the exceptional presence of journalists, to test its device in case the weapon ever needs to be used.
The United States and Russia remain bound, in principle, by the New START disarmament treaty, which limits each party to 1,550 deployed strategic offensive warheads and provides for a verification mechanism, suspended two years ago. The treaty expires in February next year. Moscow proposed a one-year extension, but without mentioning a possible resumption of arsenal inspections.
*With information from AFP
