weapons and war « nuclear-news

‘Nothing revolutionary’ about Russia’s nuclear-powered missile: Experts

Putin has touted cruise missile Burevestnik and torpedo Poseidon as game-changing weapons as the war in Ukraine rages on.

Aljazeera, By Mansur Mirovalev, 5 Nov 2025

Kyiv, Ukraine – The collective West is scared of Moscow’s new, nuclear-powered cruise missile because it can reach anywhere on Earth, bypassing the most sophisticated air and missile defence systems, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has claimed.

“They’re afraid of what we’ll show to them next,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told the RIA Novosti news agency on Sunday.

Days earlier, she said Moscow was “forced” to develop and test the cruise missile, which is named the Burevestnik, meaning storm petrel – a type of seabird, in response to NATO’s hostility towards Russia.

“The development can be characterised as forced and takes place to maintain strategic balance,” she was quoted by the Itar-Tass news agency as saying. Russia “has to respond to NATO’s increasingly destabilising actions in the field of missile defence”.

With much pomp, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday handed state awards to Burevestnik’s developers.

Also awarded were the designers of Poseidon, an underwater nuclear-powered torpedo which Putin has also claimed has been successfully tested.

Russia says Poseidon can carry nuclear weapons that cause radioactive tsunamis, wiping out huge coastal areas. The “super torpedo” can move at the speed of 200km/h (120mph) and zigzag its way to avoid interception, it says.

“In terms of flight range, the Burevestnik … has surpassed all known missile systems in the world,” Putin said in his speech at the Kremlin. “Same as any other nuclear power, Russia is developing its nuclear potential, its strategic potential … What we are talking about now is the work announced a long time ago.”

But military and nuclear experts are sceptical about the efficiency and lethality of the new weapons.

It is not unusual for Russia to flaunt its arsenal as its onslaught in Ukraine continues. Analysts say rather than scaring its critics, Moscow’s announcements are merely a scare tactic to dissuade Western powers from supporting Kyiv.

“There’s nothing revolutionary about,” the Burevestnik, said Pavel Podvig, director of the Russian Nuclear Forces Project at the the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research.

“It can fly long and far, and there’s some novelty about it, but there’s nothing to back [Putin’s claim] that it can absolutely change everything,” Podvig told Al Jazeera. “One can’t say that it is invincible and can triumph over everything.”

The Burevestnik’s test is part of Moscow’s media stratagem of intimidating the West when the real situation on the front lines in Ukraine is desperate, according to a former Russian diplomat.

The missile is “not a technical breakthrough but a product of propaganda and desperation”, Boris Bondarev, who quit his Russian Foreign Ministry job to protest against the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, wrote in an opinion piece published by the Moscow Times.

Few details about ‘unique’ missile

The problem is that officials have so far unveiled very little about the Burevestnik, which NATO has dubbed the SSC-X-9 Skyfall – a missile that has a nuclear reactor allegedly capable of keeping it in the air indefinitely………………………………………………………………………… https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/11/5/nothing-revolutionary-about-russias-nuclear-powered-missile-experts

November 8, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Russia, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Trump’s Threat to Resume Nuclear Testing

In 1963 John Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev signed the ban on atmospheric nuclear weapons testing, which was extended to a moratorium in 1992 and secured as the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996. The Treaty has been signed by 187 states. On October 31st, United Nations member states voted on a resolution in support of the Treaty and the global nuclear test moratorium. The United States was the only “no” vote.

Donald Trump is now threatening to resume nuclear testing because “he believes others are doing it.” They aren’t. The threat came after Vladimir Putin announced that the Kremlin https://www.reuters.com/world/china/putin-says-russia-tested-poseidon-nuclear-capable-super-torpedo-2025-10-29/

Tied to this is the situation at Los Alamos National Laboratory, or LANL, the heart of the new trillion-dollar modernization program that will rebuild every nuclear warhead in the planned stockpile with new military capabilities and produce new-design nuclear weapons as well. LANL will fabricate plutonium pits, or triggers, for these nuclear warheads, along with the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.

A Nuclear Watch New Mexico press release stated: “The underlying point is that new-design plutonium pits for new-design nuclear weapons may create inexorable pressures for resumed nuclear weapons testing by the United States. This would be sure to set off a chain reaction of testing by other nuclear weapons powers [ ]. The final result is a dramatically accelerating nuclear arms race, arguably more dangerous than the first arms race given multiple nuclear actors, new hypersonic and cyber weapons, and the rise of artificial intelligence.” https://nukewatch.org/press-release-item/trump-orders-nuclear-weapons-testing-for-new-nuclear-arms-race-new-plutonium-pit-bomb-cores-at-los-alamos-lab-could-make-it-real/

November 8, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Israel Is Still Starving Gaza, And Other Notes

Caitlin Johnstone, Nov 06, 2025

In an article titled “Not enough tents, food reaching Gaza as winter comes, aid agencies say,” Reuters reports that “Far too little aid is reaching Gaza nearly four weeks after a ceasefire” due to Israeli restrictions preventing aid trucks from getting to their destinations, and that according to an OSHA report last week “a tenth of children screened in Gaza were still acutely malnourished.”

A report from the UK’s Channel 4 News shows warehouses full of food that aid groups say isn’t being allowed into Gaza nearly as rapidly as needed.

In an article titled “‘Under the Guise of Bureaucracy’ — Israel Blocks Humanitarian Groups From Delivering Essential Aid Despite Calm in Gaza,” Israeli outlet Haaretz reports that “Israel has implemented a new procedure requiring all humanitarian organizations operating in Gaza and the West Bank to reapply for official approval, with many denied, despite the relative calm in Gaza following the cease-fire.”

They’re using bureaucratic red tape and arbitrary restrictions to put as much inertia on the effort to rush aid into Gaza as possible. As Electronic Intifada’s Ali Abunimah put it, Israel has “successfully rebranded its genocide as a ‘ceasefire.’”

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Still can’t wrap my head around the fact that internationally renowned activist Greta Thunberg said she was tortured and sexually humiliated by Israeli soldiers when she was abducted for trying to bring aid to starving civilians, and the world just shrugged and moved on.

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It’s so silly when US empire apologists cite “the Monroe Doctrine” to defend US warmongering in Latin America, as though “the entire western hemisphere is our property” is a perfectly legitimate policy to have.

The Monroe Doctrine was just American imperialists telling Europe, “You see all these brown people over here south of our border? These are our brown people. You can do whatever you want to those brown people over there in Africa and Asia, but these brown people over here belong to us. Only we get to dominate and exploit them.”

That’s all it has ever been, and people cite it to justify warmongering toward Venezuela or wherever as though saying “yeah well that’s the Monroe Doctrine” is a complete argument in and of itself. It’s bat shit insane nonsense and it should be rejected in its entirety.

US regime change interventionism is reliably disastrous wherever it happens. It always causes immense suffering and instability, it’s always justified by lies, and it never accomplishes what its proponents claim it will accomplish. No amount of bleating the words “Monroe Doctrine” will ever change that.

The US empire backs genocidal Gulf state monarchies like the UAE and Saudi Arabia because if those states were democratically governed their people would prioritize their own interests over the agendas of the west. They wouldn’t permit US military bases on their territory, and they never would have tolerated Israel and its abuses in the region. Fossil fuel policy would be set without regard for western interests. The entire region could long ago have united into a superpower bloc which rivaled or outmuscled the western power structure using its critical resources and trade routes.

That’s why you see the US and its allies preaching about the values of Freedom and Democracy to the public while privately telling these tyrannical monarchies they can do whatever they want and receive the backing of the imperial machine. Not until their pet tyrant fails to sufficiently kowtow to the interests of the empire does the west suddenly get interested in advancing Freedom and Democracy in their nation.

This is one of the major dynamics at play in Sudan. The United Arab Emirates has been backing the genocidal atrocities of the RSF and the US empire is placing no pressure on them to stop, because that’s part of the deal. As long as the UAE plays along with the agendas of the empire, the empire will tolerate or actively facilitate its abuses……………………………………………………………….. https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/israel-is-still-starving-gaza-and?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=178143727&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

November 8, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Atrocities, Gaza, Israel | Leave a comment

US Army wants to deploy small nuclear power plants

The Janus Program aims to put commercial reactors into military service by 2028

by Craig Bettenhausen, Chemical and Engineering News, October 31, 2025

A plan by the US Army to deploy small modular nuclear reactors could help the military replace fossil fuels shipped along precarious supply lines with electricity and synthetic fuels generated on-site. Project Janus, which Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll and Secretary of Energy Chris Wright jointly announced on Oct. 14, aims to put a small modular reactor (SMR) in operation by the end of 2028.

The shutdown of the federal government is delaying the rollout, army officials say, but a draft request for proposals should be out in a matter of weeks.

Though the program aims to put the first military SMR at a base in the US, the bigger vision is mobile microreactors that can provide power in far-flung locations. “The biggest military use case is contested logistics,” says Staff Sheehan, CEO of a nuclear chemistry start-up that is in stealth mode. “How do you power small, tactical, forward-operating bases, or even larger bases of thousands of servicemembers, that historically required a diesel generator and hydrocarbon fuels?”……………………………………………………….

The 2028 installation target was set in May by President Donald J. Trump in an executive order, which calls for the first reactor to be in operation by September that year. The same order also directs the US energy and defense secretaries to use “all available legal authorities” to smooth the regulatory road for advanced nuclear reactors and nuclear-fuel-recycling facilities built at sites controlled by those agencies. It also designates a wide range of activities, including those serving artificial intelligence hardware, as defense-critical electrical infrastructure.

That designation is important because many military reactors don’t require approvals from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the independent federal agency that issues permits and regulations for civilian nuclear power. Many nuclear power advocates accuse the NRC of driving up the cost of nuclear power through overregulation, whereas critics hold the agency up as a critical public safeguard……………………. https://cen.acs.org/energy/nuclear-power/US-Army-deploy-small-nuclear/103/web/2025/10#:~:text=Project%20Janus,%20which%20Secretary%20of,by%20the%20end%20of%202028.

November 8, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | weapons and war | Leave a comment

The Gaza Laboratory: How War is Being Marketed and How the World is Fighting Back

6 November 2025 Andrew Klein, https://theaimn.net/the-gaza-laboratory-how-war-is-being-marketed-and-how-the-world-is-fighting-back/

A profound and disturbing transformation is underway in global conflict. The besieged Gaza Strip has become more than a humanitarian catastrophe; it has been turned into a live-fire laboratory for the future of warfare and social control. The tactics and weapons tested on its population are being packaged and sold to the world, threatening to export this model of destruction and entrench a new, terrifying international standard. Yet, as this dangerous market grows, a powerful coalition of nations, legal bodies, and civil society is rising to counter it.

The Laboratory: Battle-Testing a New Model of Control

The strategy is as brutal as it is business-minded. The intense urban combat and comprehensive siege conditions in Gaza provide a unique proving ground.

“Combat-Proven” Arms Sales: Major Israeli defense firms like Elbit Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) are explicitly marketing their drones, missile defense systems (like Iron Dome), and armoured vehicles as “battle-tested” and “battle-proven” based on their use in Gaza. This has led to record-breaking sales, as other nations seek weapons validated in real-world conditions.

Exporting the Tools of Subjugation: Beyond traditional weapons, the surveillance technologies and population control tactics refined over decades in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are now a global commodity. These systems, which enable pervasive monitoring and social management, are sold to authoritarian regimes worldwide, helping them subjugate their own populations more effectively.

The Erosion of International Law: This model operates by systematically undermining the laws designed to protect civilians. A United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry has found that Israel has committed grave war crimes and acts of genocide. This represents a direct assault on the post-WWII international legal order, setting a precedent that might makes right and that civilian lives are expendable.

The Backlash: A Global Coalition Pushes Back

This pernicious influence has not gone unchallenged. A multi-front resistance is gaining momentum, targeting the economic, legal, and diplomatic pillars of this system.

1. Economic and Arms Embargoes

Nations are beginning to sever the financial pipelines that fuel this war machine.

Spain has cancelled hundreds of millions of dollars in arms contracts with Israeli companies.
France shut down the exhibits of major Israeli arms firms at the prestigious Paris Airshow.
The Norwegian pension fund, KLP, divested from the US company Caterpillar, citing its equipment’s role in the demolition of Palestinian homes.

2. Legal Accountability and Justice

The world’s highest courts are now involved, seeking to enforce accountability where diplomacy has failed.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is hearing a landmark case on the charge of genocide.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor has sought arrest warrants for top leaders for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Lawsuits in national courts, such as in France, are targeting companies for complicity in war crimes, setting a legal precedent for corporate accountability.

3. Diplomatic Isolation and Recognition

The political landscape is shifting, isolating the perpetrators, and legitimising the victims.

Over 150 UN member states have now recognised the State of Palestine, reflecting a global consensus against occupation and apartheid.
Joint statements from European powers have “strongly rejected” further military operations, signaling a fracture in what was once unwavering diplomatic support.

The Path Forward: How to Break the Cycle

Ending this cycle requires sustained, strategic action from the international community. We must:

Demand Corporate Accountability: Pressure companies involved in supplying arms and technology through public campaigns, divestment, and litigation. As UN experts have stated, these companies risk complicity in serious violations of international law.

Support the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement: This peaceful, grassroots movement aims to exert economic and political pressure to end the occupation and uphold human rights.

Protect and Amplify the Truth: In an age of propaganda, supporting independent journalism and human rights organisations like Amnesty International and B’Tselem is crucial. They provide the evidence that fuels legal action and public awareness.

Advocate for Government Action: Citizens must demand their governments impose arms embargoes, support international justice mechanisms, and formally recognise Palestinian statehood.

The “Gaza Laboratory” represents a choice between two futures: one where warfare is a profitable, unaccountable business, and another where international law and human dignity are upheld. The global backlash is a testament to the power of collective conscience. It is the growing shield against the dark model being forged in the fires of Gaza, and it is our best hope for a more just and peaceful world.

November 7, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | weapons and war | Leave a comment

The moment of truth: The West confronts Russian military advances.

on October 20th, Russia informed the United States that it had no intention of yielding on territorial concessions, the reduction of the Ukrainian armed forces, or guarantees that Ukraine would never join NATO.

Thierry Meyssan, Voltairenet.org, Tue, 04 Nov 2025

For two years, we in the West have been living in the myth that we will bring Russia to its knees and bring Ukraine into the European Union and the Atlantic Alliance. We will try Vladimir Putin and make Russia pay. Today, this myth is colliding with reality: Moscow now possesses devastating weapons, unparalleled in the West. They make any hope of victory for our coalitions impossible. We will have to acknowledge our mistake. This is not about apologizing for our errors, but about freeing ourselves from them.

On October 26, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chief of Staff, Valery Gerasimov, announced the completion of a project to miniaturize a nuclear reactor and install it on a missile. They reported conducting a test launch of the 9M730 Burevestnik missile, which traveled 14,000 kilometers. The unique feature of this nuclear-powered weapon (which has an unlimited range) is its ability to be guided in such a way as to bypass interceptor sites.This, according to Russian authorities, makes it an unstoppable missile.

On October 29, President Putin tested a Status-6 Poseidon torpedo, a nuclear-powered weapon. Throughout the Soviet Union, Eurasian military researchers believed that underwater nuclear explosions could trigger massive tsunamis. To achieve this, they needed to be able to launch torpedoes much farther than was possible at the time, in order to avoid the cataclysms they intended to unleash. This has now been accomplished. Mega-tsunamis could devastate cities like Washington, D.C., or New York City, or even naval groups like those of the U.S. aircraft carriers. However, the Poseidon torpedo is significantly longer than others: 21 meters. It cannot be launched from operational submarines and required its own dedicated vessel for launch. Its ability to operate underwater almost indefinitely more than compensates for this limitation. In any case, this torpedo ensures that Russia can launch a second strike in the event of a US attack. Until now, the first to launch a nuclear strike was guaranteed to cripple its enemy’s main means of retaliation.

No weapon is ever truly definitive. Each exists within a continuum of technological advancements; each is superseded by another; and each eventually encounters effective defenses or predators. But for the moment, there seems to be no answer to these weapons, any more than there is to Russian supersonic missiles.

In about twenty years, Russia has acquired a whole host of new weapons that surpass all Western technologies.……………………………………………………..

Russia possessed the capability to disconnect NATO orders from its own weapons. This wasn’t a form of jamming; the weapons simply stopped responding to commands………………………………………

The Westerners were also testing numerous weapons, such as the tactical atomic bomb that later devastated the port of Beirut.

In 2018, once the Syrian war had ended, President Vladimir Putin presented his weapons program to parliament [ 1 ] . This program comprised six advanced weapons:the Sarmatian (which leaves the atmosphere, orbits the Earth, and re-enters the atmosphere at will) and Kinzhal (dagger) missiles; the nuclear-powered 9M730 Burevestnik and Status-6 Poseidon launchers; the Avantgarde missiles, which combine the characteristics of the Sarmatian and Kinzhal missiles with added maneuverability; and finally, anti-missile lasers.Only the latter are not yet complete.

What were only prototypes in the 2010s became operational and were mass-produced during the war in Ukraine.

The Western response was almost inaudible. Only US President Donald Trump spoke out. He regretted that his Russian counterpart had seen fit to reveal his exploits because, in doing so, he was reigniting the arms race. Furthermore, he announced that the United States was resuming its nuclear tests. Donald Trump could hardly do otherwise: deploring Russia’s renewed arms race is a way of explaining that the Pentagon’s military research is lagging far behind and of asserting Washington’s peaceful stance. Announcing that he will resume nuclear tests is a way of shifting the focus, since none of the new Russian weapons represent an advance in nuclear terms, but only in terms of atomic bomb launchers. To say that he will do this to maintain parity with Russia and China is a blatant lie: Russia has not conducted nuclear tests since 1990 and China since 1996. Moreover, it will take at least two years to rebuild or rehabilitate Cold War-era facilities, and therefore to begin these tests. Until then, the United States is nothing more than a “paper tiger.”

We are now reaching the end of hostilities in Ukraine. The Russian army is on the verge of a decisive victory in the Donbas. It will not only capture Pokrovsk, but will also inflict a third defeat on the White Führer, Andriy Biletsky, whose 10,000 men are surrounded. …………………

..on October 20th, Russia informed the United States that it had no intention of yielding on territorial concessions, the reduction of the Ukrainian armed forces, or guarantees that Ukraine would never join NATO.

Whether the West likes it or not, it no longer has a choice. It simply cannot afford to continue supplying weapons to Russia in Ukraine on its own. The EU’s plan to eventually confiscate Russian assets frozen in Belgium and spend them immediately could spell the end of the Union. In any case, neither Belgium, nor Slovakia, nor Hungary will participate in this theft, which even the Soviets, the staunch opponents of private property, never perpetrated.

The EU’s grandiose ambitions are about to collide with reality: it can only continue this war by betraying the very ideals it claims to uphold………….

All of this is coming to an end, otherwise the EU will be directly drawn into the war against the Slavs that the UK and Germany instigated in 1933: the Second World War. And the EU’s armies, stripped of their arsenals, have no hope of resisting for more than two days. This is not about bowing down to a new master, Russia, but simply about acknowledging our mistakes before it’s too late. https://www.sott.net/article/502778-The-moment-of-truth-The-West-confronts-Russian-military-advances

November 7, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Russia, Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Rusting nuclear facilities hamper Trump’s plans for new tests

President insists new trials will begin, but officials say US not capable of doing so.

Benedict Smith, US Reporter

The United States is not ready to restart nuclear weapons testing and
risks losing ground to China and Russia if it pushes ahead with Donald
Trump’s plans, experts believe.

The president announced this week that
the US would conduct tests of nuclear weapons for the first time in more
than three decades, breaking one of the few remaining taboos among the
superpowers.

Experts fear that in doing so, Mr Trump has fired the starting
gun on a race Washington is ill-prepared to win, and that it could find
itself matched or overtaken by Moscow and Beijing.

Visitors to America’s
vast testing site in the Nevada desert said it is filled with equipment
that is slowly rusting away, while former officials say it simply has not
had the investment to match the president’s ambitions. Now there are
fears that Mr Trump has opened a “Pandora’s Box” that has remained
shut almost since the end of the Cold War. And he might not be prepared for what comes next.

Telegraph 3rd Nov 2025, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/politics/2025/11/03/trump-could-not-launch-nuclear-weapon-if-he-wanted/

November 7, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Resuming U.S. Nuclear Tests Is Reckless and Dangerous, One Expert Says

“The only countries that will really learn more if [U.S. nuclear] testing resumes are Russia and, to a much greater extent, China,” says Jeffrey Lewis, an expert on the geopolitics of nuclear weaponry

By Dan Vergano edited by Lee Billings, October 29, 2025, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/trumps-baffling-call-for-resuming-u-s-nuclear-tests/

Editor’s Note (11/3/2025): Energy secretary Chris Wright stated on Sunday that any new nuclear testing pursued following Trump’s remarks would be of the “noncritical” variety, entailing already standard routine tests of weapons components and other parts of the U.S. arsenal. Scientific American will continue reporting any new developments on nuclear testing.

Ahead of a meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping on Thursday, President Donald Trump said the U.S. will resume nuclear testing, ending a 33-year moratorium.

“Because of other countries [sic] testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis,” Trump announced on his social media platform Truth Social.

The U.S. last tested a nuclear weapon in an underground experiment in the Nevada Test Site in 1992, a marker of the end of the cold war. That last test concluded a decades-long testing program that included more than 1,000 detonations conducted by the civilian Department of Energy, which oversees the U.S. nuclear stockpile.

The Project 2025 report, now acknowledged by Trump as an indicator of his administration’s policies, had called for resuming U.S. nuclear testing to ensure the performance of the nuclear stockpile. Trump’s announcement follows recent Russian tests of a nuclear-powered cruise missile and a nuclear-capable underwater drone, but there have not been any known nuclear detonations recently made by either Russia or China. Both of those nations are signatories to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), which the U.S. has signed yet never ratified. (China also hasn’t ratified the treaty, and Russia revoked its ratification in 2023, however.) China last tested a bomb in 1996, and the Soviet Union last tested one in 1990. Both countries have expressed concern about Trump’s announcement, and Russia has threatened to start its own tests.

To ask what is at stake in Trump’s call to resume U.S. nuclear tests, Scientific American spoke with Jeffrey Lewis, an expert on the geopolitics of nuclear weaponry at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.

[An edited transcript of the interview follows.]

We haven’t done a nuclear test since 1992. So what is the argument for doing this? Are there any technical benefits to resuming testing?

The question is: What sort of testing are we talking about? The U.S can presently test nuclear weapons in every way, shape or form—except for doing explosive tests that create yield. The U.S. now does so-called subcritical tests about 1,000 feet under the Nevada desert. And so it’s very unclear what the president means.

Are we talking about a full-yield test out in the desert? Or are we talking about small lab experiments that produce much less yield? It’s very unclear. And all of those [tests] have different yields [that have] different purposes.

But if I were to back up to issue one sweeping statement, it would be: No, [there aren’t any benefits to resuming testing] because the U.S. already conducted more than 1,000 nuclear tests. It has a vast trove of data that underlies the most sophisticated computer models imaginable. The U.S. knows more about its nuclear weapons today than it did in the period when it was testing them. The only countries that will really learn more if testing resumes are Russia and, to a much greater extent, China.

Project 2025 called for resuming underground nuclear tests, though. Would Trump’s announcement seem to point in that direction—basically, to the U.S. once again blowing up such weapons underground?

During the last [Trump] administration, [officials] spoke of being ready to resume nuclear testing. And they discovered that it would be a couple of years before they could do it. Then they started talking about doing uninstrumented tests—which are literally pointless.

You get no data from an uninstrumented test. It’s just a demonstration. All you do is demonstrate that we have functional nukes. It’s really unclear why you would do that.

What would this do to the nonproliferation movement, with the whole idea of a testing moratorium going out the window?

It’s possible the test ban collapses. But it is also possible that the nonproliferation treaty [the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which entered into force in 1970] collapses because that requires the U.S., Russia and other nuclear-weapon states to make good-faith efforts to work toward the elimination of nuclear weapons.

But non-nuclear-weapon states have made it clear that this test ban is literally the bare minimum. And most of those countries aren’t very happy that the U.S hasn’t ratified the [CTBT]. But the fact that there has at least been an end to nuclear testing has been really important to sustaining a sense around the world that nonproliferation is a common good rather than just an effort at a nuclear monopoly by a few countries.

Normally I am not one of those people who believes in that kind of symbolic stuff. But so much of [the Trump administration’s] foreign policy seems to be about being transgressive. Whatever effect a resumption in testing would have on our domestic politics, it also affects how people abroad see us. It becomes difficult to persuade people to do the things we want them to do when we seem reckless and selfish.

There’s also this matter of modernizing the U.S nuclear program, a long-running effort that’s over budget and delayed. How would new nuclear testing play into that?

If there were a technical reason to resume testing, you could imagine that would reduce the need for modernization—because successful testing would suggest that the existing systems are in excellent shape.

That said, I don’t think this is a sincere effort to get additional data to be more informed about the state of the U.S. arsenal. I think this is intended as a transgressive act that’s supposed to bully the Russians and the Chinese and aggravate the president’s domestic enemies.

So why do it?

Well, the real fundamental question here is: What the hell does [Trump] mean in that Truth Social post? Because Russia hasn’t conducted a nuclear test; it’s tested nuclear-capable or nuclear-powered assets.

And the Russians and Chinese aren’t accused of doing clandestine things at their test sites—or, at least, they haven’t been accused of that on an unclassified basis. And the Department of Defense doesn’t have any role in this, really, because nuclear testing is handled by the Department of Energy. So you just kind of stare at Trump’s statement, and you’re like, “What?”

I just don’t know what any of this means. I thought I was an expert, and I can’t parse the words he’s using.

It’s also confusing because, in some ways, Trump has seemed worried about nuclear war. He makes statements along the lines of saying that we all have too many weapons and should work together to disarm, and then he comes out with something like this.

I think what’s happened is that he’s been told that the Russians or the Chinese are doing bad things and that we’re at a disadvantage because we can’t do the same bad things. And he’s feels we ought to be able to do the same things. I doubt it’s any deeper than that.

But let me say a positive thing: [Trump] has political power here, in that he could force Senate Republicans to ratify the … CTBT if he thinks this is so important. He could absolutely get a verification protocol to the CTBT just like the Reagan administration did with the Threshold Test Ban Treaty [the Treaty on the Limitation of Underground Nuclear Weapon Tests, which entered into force in 1990], which would address some of these concerns about what the Russians and the Chinese are doing—if Republicans would accept it and ratify the treaty.

And then, you know what, he really would get a Nobel Peace Prize. If Trump got a verification protocol to the CTBT and then brought that treaty into effect, I would write in support of him getting a Nobel Peace Prize.

All right, let’s hope that, somehow, that idea gets whispered in his ear. Thanks for your thoughts.

November 5, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Hegseth Declines To Say Whether the US Is Planning To Bomb Venezuela.

The Miami Herald reported on Friday that strikes could begin at any moment

by Dave DeCamp | November 2, 2025, https://news.antiwar.com/2025/11/02/hegseth-declines-to-say-whether-the-us-is-planning-to-bomb-venezuela/

US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth on Saturday declined to comment on whether the US was planning to bomb Venezuela amid a major US military buildup in the Caribbean and frequent strikes on alleged drug boats in the waters of Latin America.

“Appreciate the question, but, of course, we would not share any amount of operational details about what may or may not happen,” Hegseth said in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, when asked if the US was preparing to strike inside Venezuela.

The Miami Herald reported on Friday that the US has made a decision to attack military targets inside Venezuela as part of a campaign against the government of President Nicolas Maduro, whom the US seeks to oust. The report said that the US strikes could begin within a matter of “hours or days.”

When asked by reporters on Friday if he was planning strikes inside Venezuela, Trump said “no,” but he was asked again on Sunday and declined to answer. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who also serves as Trump’s national security advisor and has been leading the push toward regime change in Venezuela, also denied the Miami Herald report.

“Your ‘sources’ claiming to have ‘knowledge of the situation’ tricked you into writing a fake story,” Rubio wrote on X in response to the report.

For weeks, multiple media outlets have been reporting that the US is considering launching strikes in Venezuela, and the US has built up a force in the region that’s well beyond what is needed to bomb small, defenseless boats. US officials have also made clear that the real goal of the campaign is regime change in Venezuela, something Rubio has wanted for many years.

A US aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald Ford, is also being deployed to the Caribbean, and the US has begun to run weekly bomber flights near the coast of Venezuela. Much of the military action and the leaks to the media are part of a psychological campaign aimed at getting Maduro to voluntarily step down or someone in his inner circle to turn on him, but it’s unlikely that will happen.

November 5, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

US amassing 16,000 troops off Venezuelan coast – Washington Post

1 Nov, 2025, https://www.rt.com/news/627242-us-amass-troops-venezuelan-coast/

The American forces in the area reportedly include eight Navy ships, a special operations vessel, and a nuclear-powered submarine.

The US is deploying a massive military contingent to an area near Venezuela, including 10,000 soldiers and 6,000 sailors, the Washington Post has reported. The move may indicate plans to expand regional operations.

The US has repeatedly accused Venezuela of aiding “narcoterrorists” and has imposed sweeping sanctions on the country. The American military has also attacked about a dozen vessels since September, claiming they were used by drug smugglers.

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has denied the allegations, accusing Washington of “fabricating a new war” amid the continuing military buildup.

According to the Washington Post, eight US Navy warships, a special operations vessel, and a nuclear-powered attack submarine are already in the Caribbean. The aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford, expected to arrive next week, will reportedly bring with it three more military vessels, with a total of over 4,000 military personnel onboard.

Additionally, F-35 fighter jets are stationed at a US base in Puerto Rico, the Post reported, citing satellite images.

The arrival of the carrier group suggests Washington’s plans could extend beyond a counter-narcotics operation, Ryan Berg, the director of the Americas Program and the Center for Strategic & International Studies, told the outlet. He added that US President Donald Trump has about a month to make “a major decision” before the group would need to be redeployed.

Multiple media outlets have recently reported that the White House was weighing potential military actions in Venezuela. Senator Rick Scott told CBS last Sunday that Maduro’s “days are numbered.” The WaPo claimed on Thursday that Washington had already identified some targets, including military facilities allegedly used for drug-smuggling.

When asked about the reports on Friday, Trump said, “No. It’s not true.” Last month, Trump confirmed authorizing the CIA to carry out lethal covert operations in the region.

November 5, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | SOUTH AMERICA, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

How could the US restart nuclear weapons testing?

President Trump wants to revive a military programme mothballed at the end of the Cold War so America can stand ‘on an equal basis’ with global rivals

Trump implied
that rival nuclear powers were carrying out tests and that it was crucial
for the United States to start “testing our nuclear weapons on an equal
basis”. Neither Russia nor China, America’s “big power rivals”, have
conducted nuclear tests since a moratorium was agreed.

The last American test was in 1992, Russia stopped in 1990 and China in 1996, the same year the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty was signed. The only countries that have carried out nuclear tests since then have been North Korea, most recently in 2017, and India and Pakistan, which both conducted underground testing
in May 1998.

Times 30th Oct 2025, https://www.thetimes.com/us/news-today/article/us-nuclear-weapons-testing-trump-s08xq9hgm

November 5, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Ministry of Defence still unclear on cost of RAF nuclear jet plan, MPs say

“Making short-term cost decisions is famously inadvisable if you’re a homeowner with a leaky roof, let alone if one is running a complex fighter jet programme – and yet such decisions have been rife in the management of the F-35.”

Sir Keir Starmer announced at the Nato summit in June that the UK would purchase 12 F-35A jets

Christopher McKeon, Friday 31 October 2025

Ministers still do not know when RAF jets will be able to carry nuclear weapons or how much the project will cost, the Commons spending watchdog has found.

In a report published on Friday, the influential Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said the Ministry of Defence (MoD) had still not set out how much it would cost to operate new F-35A jets.

Sir Keir Starmer announced at the Nato summit in June that the UK would purchase 12 of the jets, which could join the alliance’s airborne nuclear mission.

The committee said the project was still “at an early stage”, with the MoD “starting to understand” the requirements of being certified for the Nato nuclear mission.

The MoD told the committee that the F-35As were “20 per cent to 25 per cent cheaper” than the F-35Bs currently operated by the RAF and Royal Navy “and slightly cheaper to support”.

But with the additional training and personnel required to join the nuclear mission, the committee said it was a “reasonable assumption that this may end up proving more expensive”.

The MPs added that the MoD had yet to set out how long it would take to make the necessary arrangements for equipping the jets with nuclear weapons.

The F-35 is the most advanced fighter jet the UK has ever possessed, and the MoD expects the overall programme to cost £57 billion over its 56-year lifespan.

That figure is already triple the original estimate, but the committee said it did not include the costs of personnel, infrastructure and fuel, with the National Audit Office (NAO) suggesting an overall cost of £71 billion.

In July, the NAO issued a wide-ranging criticism of the F-35 programme, saying its return on investment had been “disappointing” and its capability remained below the MoD’s expectations.

The watchdog also criticised severe personnel shortages and “short-term affordability decisions” that hindered the delivery of the aircraft and its full capabilities.

On Friday, the PAC reiterated many of these findings, accusing the MoD of “a pattern of short-term decision-making” that had led to increased costs.

The committee cited delays to investment in a facility to test the jet’s stealth capability, which saved £82 million in 2024-25 but added an extra £16 million to the overall cost; and delayed investment in infrastructure at 809 Naval Air Squadron until 2029, which both reduced capability and added almost £100 million in extra costs.

MPs also found the MoD had miscalculated the number of engineers needed per plane, as it had failed to take into account staff taking leave or performing other tasks.

And they questioned the department’s intention to declare the F-35 to be at full operating capability by the end of the year, despite still not having a missile to attack ground targets from a safe distance.

Committee chairman Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown said: “Making short-term cost decisions is famously inadvisable if you’re a homeowner with a leaky roof, let alone if one is running a complex fighter jet programme – and yet such decisions have been rife in the management of the F-35.”

He added that the MoD had been “worryingly slow” to learn “basic lessons” from the project, and described its appraisal of the F-35’s overall cost as “unrealistic”.

Sir Geoffrey said: “The F-35 is the best fighter jet this nation has ever possessed. If it is to be wielded in the manner in which it deserves, the MoD must root out the short-termism, complacency and miscalculation in the programme identified in our report………………………….https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/raf-fighter-jets-f35a-nato-b2855616.html

November 5, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Teasing the Armageddon Fanciers: Trump’s Announcement on Nuclear Testing

1 November 2025 Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.net/teasing-the-armageddon-fanciers-trumps-announcement-on-nuclear-testing/

Nuclear weapons have made the world safe for hypocrisy and unsafe in every other respect. Astride the nonsense that is nuclear apartheid – the forced separation of the states that are permitted to have nuclear weapons and those that do not – sits that rumpled, crumpled creature called the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). For decades, the nuclear club has dangled an unfulfilled promise to eventually disarm their arsenals by encouraging non-nuclear weapons states to pursue peaceful uses of the atom. Preference, instead, has been given to enlarging inventories and developing ever more ingenious and idiotic ways of turning humans, and animal life, into ash and offal.

Little wonder that some countries have sought admission to the club via the backdoor, avoiding the priestly strictures and promises of the NPT. The Democratic Republic of North Korea is merely the unabashed example there while Israel remains even less reputable for its coyness in possessing weapons it regards as both indispensable and officially “absent”. Other countries, such as Iran, have been lectured, and bombed into compliance. Again, more hypocrisy.

On such rocky terrain, the US President’s instruction to his newly named Department of War to resume nuclear testing is almost prosaic, if characteristically inaccurate. On social media, Donald Trump declared that, “Because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis. That process will begin immediately.” Strictly speaking, North Korea remains the black sheep of an otherwise unprincipled flock to consistently test nuclear weapons since the late 1990s, while 187 states have added signatures to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

Other streaky details included the assertion that the US had a nuclear weapons inventory larger than that of any other state, something “accomplished” through “a complete update and renovation of existing weapons” during Trump’s first term.

The announcement did cause a titter among the nuclear chatting classes. “For both technical and political reasons,” remarked Heather Williams, Director of the Project on Nuclear Issuesand a Senior Fellow in the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, “the United States is unlikely to return to nuclear explosive testing any time soon.” She did concede that Trump’s post pointed “to increasing nuclear competition between the United States, Russia, and China.” Whatever the bluster, and however many bipartisan calls to do so, the current administration had been “slow to seriously invest in this nuclear competition.”

This line of reasoning is telling. The issue for Williams is not to decry the resumption of a type of testing – the explosive, high-yield variety – less than to chide the President for not taking a serious interest in joining the great game of nuclear modernisation with other powers. “Nuclear testing is not the best step forward in that competition, but it should raise alarm within the administration about the state of the United States’ nuclear enterprise and the urgency of investing in nuclear modernization.” And there you have it.

Rebeccah L. Heinrichs of the Hudson Institute does some speculative gardening around the announcement with the same sentiment. Trump might have meant, she writes in the Wall Street Journal, “conducting flight tests of delivery systems.” Maybe he was referring to explosive yield-producing tests. And those naughty Russians and Chinese were simply not behaving in terms of keeping their nuclear arsenals splendidly inert. With the familiar nuclear hawkishness that occupies the world of stubborn lunacy, Heinrichs is unequivocal about what the administration should do: “Whatever Mr. Trump means by ‘testing,’ the US should work urgently to improve and adapt its nuclear deterrent. To do this, Mr. Trump should let the last arms-control treaty between the US and Russia – the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New Start – expire in February.” This, it seems, counts for good sense.

Other commentators tended to fall into the literal school of Trump interpretation. There is no room for allegory, symbolism or fleeting suggestion there. Tilman Ruff, affiliated with the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, among other groups, offers his concerns. “If Trump is referring to the resumption of explosive nuclear testing, this would be an extremely unfortunate, regrettable step by the United States,” he fears, writing in that blandest of fora, The Conversation. “It would almost inevitably be followed by tit-for-tat reciprocal announcements by other nuclear-armed states, particularly Russia and China, and cement an accelerating arms race that puts us all in great jeopardy.”

Ruff points out the obvious dangers of such a resumption: the risks of global radioactive fallout; the risk, even if the tests were conducted underground, of “the possible release and venting of radioactive materials, as well as the potential leakage into groundwater.” Gloomy stuff indeed.

Others did the inevitable and, in Trump’s case, inconsequential thing of trying to correct America’s highest magistrate by appealing to hard boiled facts. “Nothing [in the announcement] is correct,” grumbled Tom Nichols from The Atlantic. “Trump did not create a larger stockpile by ‘updating’ in his first term. No nation except North Korea has tested nuclear weapons since the 1990s.”

At The New York Times, W. J. Hennigan took some relish in pointing out that the province of nuclear testing lay, not with the Pentagon, but the Energy Department. But then came the jitters. “The president’s ambiguity is worrisome not only because America’s public can’t know what he means, but because America’s adversaries don’t.”

The problem goes deeper than that, and Hennigan admits that the breaking of the moratorium on nuclear testing is always something peaking around the corner. The US, for instance, is constructing the means of conducting “subcritical nuclear tests, or underground experiments that test nuclear components of a war head but stop short of creating a nuclear chain reaction, and therefore, a full weapons test.”

Even if the Trump announcement was to be taken seriously – and there is much to suggest that it be confined to a moment of loose thinking in cerebral twilight – dangers of any resumption of full testing will only marginally endanger the planet more than matters stand. The nuclear club, with its Armageddon fanciers and Doomsday flirters, remains snobbishly determined to keep the world in permanent danger. An arms race is already taking place, however euphemised it might be.

November 4, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | weapons and war | Leave a comment

Trump’s testing plans for US nuclear weapons won’t include explosions, energy secretary says

Confusion does, too!

By AAMER MADHANI, November 3, 2025, https://apnews.com/article/trump-nuclear-weapons-testing-explosions-wright-energy-a920fc10aff85243cb6895fad55b2839

New tests of the U.S. nuclear weapons system ordered up by President Donald Trump will not include nuclear explosions, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Sunday.

It was the first clarity from the Trump administration since the president took to social media last week to say he had “instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis.”

“I think the tests we’re talking about right now are system tests,” Wright said in an interview on Fox News’ “Sunday Briefing.” “These are not nuclear explosions. These are what we call noncritical explosions.”

Wright, whose agency is responsible for testing, added that the planned testing involves “all the other parts of a nuclear weapon to make sure they deliver the appropriate geometry and they set up the nuclear explosion.”

The confusion over Trump’s intention started minutes before he held a critical meeting in South Korea with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Trump took to his Truth Social platform and appeared to suggest he was preparing to discard a decades-old U.S. prohibition on testing the nation’s nuclear weapons.

Later that day, as he made his way back to Washington, Trump was coy on whether he really meant to say he was ordering the resumption of explosive testing of nuclear weapons — something only North Korea has undertaken this century — or calling for the testing of U.S. systems that could deliver a nuclear weapon, which is far more routine.

He remained opaque on Friday when asked by reporters about whether he intended to resume underground nuclear detonation tests.

“You’ll find out very soon,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday, as he headed to Florida for a weekend stay.

The U.S. military regularly tests its missiles that are capable of delivering a nuclear warhead, but it has not detonated the weapons since 1992. The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which the U.S. signed but did not ratify, has been observed since its adoption by all countries possessing nuclear weapons, North Korea being the only exception.

Trump announced his plans for nuclear tests after Russia announced it had tested a new atomic-powered and nuclear-capable underwater drone and a new nuclear-powered cruise missile.

Russia responded to Trump’s nuclear testing comments by underscoring that it did not test its nuclear weapons and has abided by a global ban on nuclear testing.

The Kremlin warned though, that if the U.S. resumes testing its weapons, Russia will as well — an intensification that would restart Cold War-era tensions.

November 3, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Donald Trump’s Nuclear Announcement Sparks Alarm: ‘He Is Misinformed’

“It’s incoherent, it’s illogical and when it comes to nuclear weapons, we simply cannot afford the kind of zig-zagging policies that we’re seeing from Trump on so many other topics.”

Oct 30, 2025,
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trumps-nuclear-announcement-sparks-alarm-10967374

The resumption of nuclear weapons testing by the United States will undermine national security, arms control advocates told Newsweek.

Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, denounced President Trump’s directive for the Department of War to immediately restart nuclear weapons testing for the first time in more than 30 years as reckless and unclear.

“Somebody needs to talk to an adult at the White House and find out what the heck he’s talking about,” Kimball told Newsweek early Thursday. “I can’t discern his grumblings beyond what you can. If he’s talking about resuming weapons test explosions for the first time since 1992, he is misinformed about what that’s for and whether it’s necessary.”

Kimball said Trump’s announcement on Truth Social on Wednesday was likely to spark strong opposition in Nevada, where the last nuclear detonations in the U.S. occurred underground, as well as potential ramifications abroad.

“It’s not militarily, technically or politically necessary,” Kimball continued. “It would lead to a chain reaction of nuclear tests by other countries, including Russia, probably North Korea, maybe China, and it would undermine U.S. security because the United States has conducted more nuclear tests — 1,030 — than any other country.”

Trump’s proposal will also face “tremendous opposition” from Congress, Kimball said, including legislators in Nevada like U.S. Rep. Dina Titus, who indicated late Wednesday she intends to introduce legislation to “put a stop” to Trump’s proposed shift.

The resumption of nuclear testing at the former site in Nevada would take up to 36 months and cost up to “hundreds of millions,” Kimball said.

“Many hundreds of millions of dollars,” he said. “If you can imagine, you’ve got to drill a vertical shaft, you have to bring in cranes, equipment, drillers, personnel. You have to make sure that containment is right and you have to get federal reviews, etcetera, etcetera. Congress would have an opportunity at some point to block this.”

North Korea is the lone country to have conducted a nuclear test explosion this century and the United States signed the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1996, Kimball said.

“Most of all, we need to be asking why,” Kimball added. “What is the purpose? How does this advance our interests? This would take us back to the worst days of the Cold War where the U.S. and the Soviet Union were conducting tit-for-tat atmospheric nuclear test explosions to simply show the other side that we’ve got big bombs too.”

Kimball said Trump’s announcement represented an “incoherence and inconsistency” regarding nuclear weapons, citing prior recent calls to denuclearize.

“And now he’s talking about responding with our own nuclear tests,” he explained. “It’s incoherent, it’s illogical and when it comes to nuclear weapons, we simply cannot afford the kind of zig-zagging policies that we’re seeing from Trump on so many other topics.”

A message seeking additional details from the White House on Trump’s directive was not immediately returned on Thursday.

Alicia Sanders-Zakre, policy and research coordinator for the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), characterized Trump’s announcement as “incoherent, untrue and alarming,” alleging his misrepresented the size of arsenals in the U.S., Russia and China.

Trump has also mistakenly claimed that China and Russia are currently testing nuclear weapons and directed the incorrect agency — the Department of War — to resume testing rather than the Department of Energy, which oversees the nation’s nuclear warheads, Sanders-Zakre said.

“The fact that Trump referenced Russian and Chinese activities and the Department of War could be interpreted as signaling that he was referring to testing nuclear-capable missiles, which all three countries do regularly test,” she told Newsweek.

The most recent nuclear test in the United States took place at the Nevada National Security Site, where nearly 1,000 detonations have occurred. Other U.S.-led detonations have happened in New Mexico, the Marshall Islands and Kiribati in the central Pacific, where joint testing occurred with the United Kingdom, Sanders-Zakre said.

In 2005, the National Cancer Institute estimated that 22,000 cancers resulting in 11,000 U.S. deaths would be caused in the aftermath of the Nevada nuclear tests, Sanders-Zakre added.

“Nuclear detonations in the Pacific obliterated entire atolls, and left others uninhabitable to this day,” she wrote in an email. “It was due in large part to the nationwide and global opposition to nuclear test detonations – and their clear devastating impacts for people and the environment – that nuclear test detonations were prohibited by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996.”

Any move by the United States to restart nuclear testing will evoke “widespread national and global condemnation,” Sanders-Zakre said.

The United States is slated to spend $95 billion on its nuclear arsenal per year over the next decade and ICAN estimated global nuclear spending last year at $100 billion, she said.

“Any additional funds wasted on weapons of mass destruction is diverting resources that could address real security needs,” Sanders-Zakre wrote in an email.

A senior Russian lawmaker, meanwhile, also warned Thursday that any move by the United States to resume nuclear testing could trigger global instability.

Dr. Emma Belcher, a nuclear proliferation expert at Ploughshares, a nonprofit that aims to reduce nuclear threats, described Trump’s directive as “reckless, needless and dangerous” for national and world security.

“While the details of this policy shift are unclear, including whether Trump is referring to missile testing or explosive nuclear tests, it threatens to upend relations between nuclear-armed states and push the world deeper into a new arms race,” Belcher told Newsweek in a statement. “If the U.S. breaks its 30-year moratorium on nuclear tests, China and Russia will likely return to wide-scale explosive testing. On the international level, this will heighten the risks of great power competition and increase the likelihood that strategic tensions lead to nuclear catastrophe.”

November 3, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

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