Trump's call to resume nuclear testing after decades revives a Cold War debate

Critics warn that a testing restart by the US would incite a global arms race

- David E. Sanger and William J. Broad

The tower for Icecap, a nuclear test at the Nevada National Security Site that was nearly ready to execute but never happened because of the testing moratorium in 1992. Experts say that if the US resumes testing, it would give permission to other nations to do the same.

(PHOTO: LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY//NYT)

Donald Trump's unexpected declaration on Oct 30 that he was ordering the US military to resume nuclear testing prompted visions of a return to the worst days of the Cold War, when the US, Russia and China were regularly detonating new weapons, first in the atmosphere and outer space, then underground.

It was an era of terrifying threats and counter-threats, of dark visions of Armageddon and theories of deterrence by mutually assured destruction. That age supposedly ended with the arrival of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty that nations agreed to in the mid-1990s. But not enough of the signatories ratified it for the treaty to formally come into force. Its objective was to starve the arms race by cutting off new tests and the cycle of retaliation they engendered.

Mr Trump has now revived the debate inside the national security community over whether to break the tradition of observing that treaty, which some of his former aides have argued impedes the country's ability to demonstrate "peace through strength". On Air Force One, returning from South Korea, he told reporters he had made the call because of all the other countries conducting nuclear tests.

"We've halted it years, many years, ago," he said, referring to the fact that the last US explosive test of a nuclear weapon was in 1992, during the George H.W. Bush administration.

"But with others doing testing, I think it is appropriate that we do also."