By Rich Lowry
Syndicated Columnist
Yes, test our nukes
Donald Trump has trampled on another taboo, and it’s a good thing.
The president said in a Truth Social post that the United States will begin “immediately” testing our “nuclear weapons” on “an equal basis” with Russia and China. It’s not clear what this means exactly. Trump could be referring to the delivery systems that carry nuclear weapons or the weapons themselves.
If it is the latter, as most news accounts assume, it will represent an advance for the U.S. nuclear deterrent and a victory of common sense over superstition.
The United States conducted more than a thousand explosive nuclear tests during the Cold War, but gave up the practice in 1992. Since then, it’s come to be considered a moral imperative that we don’t test, for no good reason.
Obviously, we aren’t going to conduct atmospheric tests again at Bikini Island in the Pacific or the Las Vegas Bombing and Gunnery Range. Beginning in the 1960s, though, we carried out explosive tests deep underground, mostly at the Nevada Test Site. Assuming that tests are safely controlled and contained, there is no good argument for not conducting them as warranted.
There is nothing immoral about testing, and testing a bomb doesn’t necessarily lead to using it, or we wouldn’t have conducted hundreds of tests — including nearly 30 a year during one stretch — and only dropped the atomic bomb twice at the very outset of the nuclear age.
We have an extensive, sophisticated program to continually kick the tires of our nukes through the Stockpile Stewardship Program. It uses computer simulations and the like to establish that everything is in working order. But there is no substitute for explosive tests to ensure that the computer models aren’t missing anything and to make it possible to adjust them with explosive data, especially as our arsenal has changed over the last 30 years.
We should have 100% certainty about the safety, security and reliability of our nuclear arsenal, upon which so much of our national security depends.
The claim that testing will raise international tensions doesn’t make much sense. What is Russia going to do if we conduct a nuclear test? Invade Ukraine? Certainly, Pakistan and North Korea haven’t been dissuaded from getting nukes. “Please, you should like us — and forswear your own nuclear weapons — because we don’t do tests” isn’t a compelling argument for any of our adversaries overseas. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have had to bomb Fordow and Natanz.
China and Russia may already be conducting their own nuclear tests. In recent years, reports from both the State and Defense departments have said that Russia has violated the so-called zero-yield standard that it is supposed to be honoring by conducting supercritical nuclear tests. (Since Russia routinely cheats on all its commitments, this is not a surprise.)
More to the point, both Russia and China have been developing new warheads and delivery vehicles. In other words, they acquired new weapons while we were testing, and have been acquiring new weapons while we haven’t been testing. The consistent thread is developing systems to project their power and threaten us. These are cold-eyed countries that will do whatever they consider in their interest, regardless of how much we might like to think our moral example is affecting them.
Now, there’s no doubt that getting our capacity to conduct an explosive test back up and running will take time, even if Trump and his team remain committed. The president might finish the new White House ballroom before any renewed testing, and Nevada, no doubt, won’t be thrilled by once again hosting underground nuclear explosions.
Yet, Trump is acknowledging an important reality. We have nuclear weapons and they are a central part of our defense and, by extension, that of many of our allies. To not test them — prudently and safely — is an asinine leftover from the immediate aftermath of the Cold War that doesn’t serve our interests or make the world safer.
Rich Lowry is editor of the National Review.
(c) 2025 by King Features Synd., Inc.