The recent statement by US President D. Trump about \u201cresuming nuclear weapons testing\u201d because other countries are supposedly doing the same, is a typical example of the new global instability, which also extends to the field of defense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The regulatory framework of the whole issue is well known, as the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, CTBT (Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty), has been in force since 1996, which excludes them for either military or civilian use. The treaty is defined as \u201cindefinite in duration\u201d, has been signed by almost all countries on the planet, and is the final step in a series of previous agreements, which banned tests in the air, space and sea (the PTBT of 1963), as well as \u201cpowerful\u201d underground tests, over 150 kilotons (the TTBT of 1974) and the similar one of 1976. There is an institutional quirk here, as the US signed the CTBT but it has not been ratified by Congress with the disagreement of the Republicans, so many years later, in 2023, Russia invoked this fact to withdraw from the Treaty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The interesting and the essential? Although the major nuclear powers, the US, Russia and China, have not ratified the Treaty, they have essentially observed it as an informal moratorium since around 2000, and the same applies to India and Pakistan (they have not signed it), as has Israel, while Britain and France have signed and ratified it and are observing it. The only nuclear power that does not observe it is North Korea, which has conducted tests in the 21st century, with the last one in 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So despite the institutional issues, there is a given international consensus among the nuclear powers (always with the North Korean exception) that they do not develop such tests. However, a serious reason for not conducting nuclear tests exists beyond the agreement at the level of international relations and geopolitical prestige. And that is that they do not\u2026 offer anything! As the technology for creating nuclear weapons has been known, patented, tested, and fully functional for decades, such a \u201cconstruct\u201d is a given that it will perform, without the need for an actual explosion! In fact, powerful countries continue to conduct tests, but as simulations on supercomputers (where many models were developed for these simulations, such as the famous Cray 2). While in special facilities that achieve fusion of minimal material using lasers, similar testing is carried out, such as the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at the American Lawrence Livermore State Laboratory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thus, both from a geopolitical and technological perspective (as well as environmental protection from radiation), the very idea of \u200b\u200b\u201cnew nuclear tests\u201d makes no sense, while the same probably applies to North Korea, which has 8 years to conduct a test, having collected all the necessary data from the previous ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So what is Trump’s announcement, which created -expected- reactions? With Russia declaring that “if the US does it, we will follow”?. Initially, we have a confusion of intentions as the test of “nuclear weapon carriers”, such as the recent Russian intermediate-range ballistic missile Oreshnik or the nuclear-powered, cruise-type, Burevestnik, is completely different from the explosive test of a nuclear warhead. Such tests, of missile carriers, whether of new technology or of existing ones to test and certify their functionality, are carried out by all nuclear powers, and there is a relevant warning between them, so that no one risks a “misunderstanding” that a launch is being made with an aggressive purpose. And here we have the exception of North Korea, which again usually leaves some\u2026 traces of its intention to test, or immediately declares that it is carrying out a missile-carrier launch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Therefore, the launch of the missiles that carry them cannot be considered a violation or a return to large-scale nuclear weapons testing. In the next stage, Trump’s policy, here too, probably follows his well-known style of grandiose, high-intensity statements, which are withdrawn in the next stage because “the enemy has compromised with us”, in other words, in a self-powered merry-go-round of tension production and its attenuation! Thus, the US President, after saying that the US “has the largest nuclear arsenal on the planet” (wrong, Russia has it), continued by saying that “other countries are testing” (wrong, they have been for years), in order to conclude that “I hate to do it but I have no other choice” (and here he is wrong, obviously he has the choice not to test, which as we said, no one has been doing for years and they have no practical meaning).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Conclusion? It is not unlikely that we will eventually see some \u201cround\u201d of (underground) nuclear tests, just as a self-fulfilling prophecy, so that then some \u201cpeace-making agreement to ban them\u201d will occur, that is, the previous situation that no one even had reason to touch. Or the second one will happen directly, after \u201ctough, victorious negotiations\u201d, in yet another step of tension aimed at the American electorate\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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