The threat of US nuclear testing is bad enough

JUSTAS NUCLEAR war, in all its sheer insanity, has returned to Hollywood and publicattention, the leaders of the world’s two atomic superpowers seem tobe doing their best to make the jitters worse.

- ANDREAS KLUTH

First, Russian President Vladimir Putin, who’s been breaking nuclear taboos forat least three years, boasted abouta (new-ish) torpedo droneandanuclear-powered (and possibly nuclear-armed) cruise missile.Apparently in response, US President Donald Trump then posted on social media that the US would “immediately” start “testing our Nuclear Weapons onan equal basis”.

Leave aside what “onan equal basis” might mean and just take Trump’s post literally. He seems to want to start detonating nuclear warheads again—as one of his former national-security advisors recommended last year.

The US last tested a live warhead in 1992. Since the 1990s, only one country has exploded fission bombs (North Korea, sixtimes).The eight other nuclear powers have abided by the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, which 187 nations have signed. Because the US, Russia, China and many others have yet to ratify the treaty, it isn’t technically in force. But for three decades, a de facto moratorium on testing has held up. It represents one of the so-called nuclear taboos meant to preserve stability.