Donald Trump has ordered the Pentagon to carry out tests of its nuclear weapons “immediately.” The American president himself made the announcement, in a message on his social network, Truth, immediately before the beginning of his meeting in South Korea with Xi Jinping, his counterpart from China, another nuclear power.
“Given that other countries have testing programs, I have instructed the War Department (Department of Defense) to begin testing our nuclear weapons like them. This process will begin immediately,” Trump writes. The message does not make clear whether it refers to tests of nuclear warheads or only of the delivery systems and the missiles that would transport them, without nuclear cargo on board.
“The United States has more nuclear weapons than any other country,” declares the American president in his message, in which he points out that Russia is the second country and China, the third, “very distant, although it will equal it in the next five years.”
Trump’s announcement came moments before his landing in South Korea, where he is meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Asked by journalists about the order he announced, the American did not want to answer.
Trump’s message also comes after Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed this Wednesday that his country has successfully tested a nuclear-powered supertorpedo, the Poseidon, capable of unleashing enormous radioactive tsunamis that could annihilate large coastal areas. The launch, from a submarine, occurred while the relationship between Trump and Putin deteriorates after the American announced the cancellation of a bilateral summit in Budapest given the Russian’s resistance to sitting down to negotiate peace in Ukraine.
Russia has also carried out tests of a new Burevestnik cruise missile on the 21st.
The existence of the Poseidon, a projectile about 24 meters long with the capacity to carry a nuclear warhead and operate partly as an underwater drone, was announced by the Russian president himself in March 2018.
The United States carried out its last test of a nuclear weapon in 1992 and since then, together with Russia and China, has observed a moratorium on underground explosions.
A test of this type is intended, at least theoretically, to verify the proper functioning of a prototype or that older weapons that have been stored for some time still maintain their effectiveness. But it can also represent a way to flex its military muscle against rivals.
