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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 | 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 | 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 | 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 | 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 | 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 | 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 | 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 | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Trump Is Moving Relentlessly Toward Illegal War in Venezuela

The lawful procedure would have been to arrest people if there was probable cause they were involved in drug trafficking and bring them to justice in accordance with due process.

Venezuela isn’t even mentioned in the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s National Drug Threat Assessment 2024.

The Trump administration’s murderous strikes on small boats at sea constitute unlawful extrajudicial killings.

By Marjorie Cohn , Truthout, October 30, 2025

s the Trump administration continues to murder people in small boats on the high seas and mounts the largest U.S. military buildup in decades in the Caribbean, it is moving inexorably toward an all-out, illegal attack and forcible regime change in Venezuela.

Despite Team Trump’s feeble attempts to legally justify its ocean strikes, which have now killed 57 people since early September, those extrajudicial killings are also unlawful.

Donald Trump’s murderous campaign came into focus on February 20, when the State Department designated eight drug trafficking organizations, including Tren de Aragua, as foreign terrorist organizations. Although the administration has attempted — so far unsuccessfully — to use that designation to justify sending immigrants to a notorious prison in El Salvador, Trump is now invoking it in an effort to validate his illegal strikes at sea.

Moreover, on March 15, Trump issued “A Proclamation,” alleging that Tren de Aragua has been engaged, in association with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, in “irregular warfare” in the United States, with no explanation of what is meant by irregular warfare. But on February 26, most U.S. intelligence agencies had made a finding that Tren de Aragua was neither controlled by the Venezuelan government, nor was it committing crimes in the United States on its orders.

On September 2, Trump announced that the U.S. had conducted a “kinetic strike” against an alleged drug smuggling vessel in the Caribbean, even though Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. military could have interdicted the vessel rather than killing all of those on board. Trump wanted to “send a message,” hardly an excuse for premeditated murder.

The lawful procedure would have been to arrest people if there was probable cause they were involved in drug trafficking and bring them to justice in accordance with due process. Both U.S. and international law provide for the arrest of alleged drug traffickers or individuals suspected of acts of terrorism, both on the high seas and in U.S. territorial waters.

In a post on social media accompanied by a video clip of the strike, Trump declared that the attack was “against positively identified Tren de Aragua Narcoterrorists” and referred to the February 20 foreign terrorist organization designation. This did not provide a lawful basis for murdering alleged drug dealers.

Although Trump’s stated rationale is preventing drugs from Venezuela entering the United States, Venezuela isn’t even mentioned in the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s National Drug Threat Assessment 2024.

No State of Armed Conflict, No Unlawful Combatants, No Self-Defense

It was reported in early October that Trump had notified several congressional committees that the U.S. is engaged in a formal “armed conflict” with drug cartels that his administration has branded terrorist organizations, and that suspected drug smugglers are “unlawful combatants” in order to justify the strikes as self-defense………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

There is no current state of armed conflict, there is no evidence that the people on the boats were combatants, and it is illegal to deliberately attack civilians. “This is not stretching the envelope,” Geoffrey Corn, a retired judge advocate general lawyer who was formerly the Army’s senior adviser for law-of-war issues, told The New York Times. “This is shredding it. This is tearing it apart.”

The strikes on boats also violate the right to life enshrined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which the U.S. has ratified, making it part of U.S. law under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. The covenant says that “no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life.” It outlaws extrajudicial killing outside the context of armed conflict or by law enforcement when necessary to protect against an imminent threat to life.

An Attack on Venezuela Would Be an Unlawful Act of Aggression

In addition to its increasing numbers of murders of alleged drug smugglers at sea, the Trump administration is positioning tremendous military firepower for what appears to be an imminent attack on Venezuela.

Hegseth ordered the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft-carrier strike group with five destroyers to deploy to the region to “bolster U.S. capacity to detect, monitor, and disrupt illicit actors and activities that compromise the safety and prosperity of the United States,” according to a Pentagon spokesperson.

“The only thing you could use the carrier for is attacking targets ashore, because they are not going to be as effective at targeting small boats at sea,”……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Forcible Regime Change Violates Venezuela’s Right to Self-Determination

During his first term, Trump repeatedly voiced his desire to invade Venezuela and change its regime. He was preoccupied with the idea of an invasion, the AP reported.

In 2019, the Trump administration orchestrated an unsuccessful strategy led by Rubio to carry out a coup d’état, seize power from Maduro, and install Juan Guaidó as “interim president” of Venezuela…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

National courts around the world should investigate and charge U.S. officials, including Trump, Rubio, and Hegseth, with murder under well-established principles of universal jurisdiction.

And we must mobilize a powerful antiwar movement to demand that the U.S. government stop the illegal boat murders and stay out of Venezuela. https://truthout.org/articles/trump-is-gunning-to-illegally-attack-venezuela-and-change-its-regime/?utm_source=Truthout&utm_campaign=33e1b56faa-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2025_10_30_09_26&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bbb541a1db-33e1b56faa-650192793

November 1, 2025 Posted by | SOUTH AMERICA, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

If the US resumes nuclear weapons testing, this would be extremely dangerous for humanity

Tilman Ruff, Honorary Principal Fellow, School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne, October 30, 2025, https://theconversation.com/if-the-us-resumes-nuclear-weapons-testing-this-would-be-extremely-dangerous-for-humanity-268661?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20October%2031%202025%20-%203566936381&utm_content=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20October%2031%202025%20-%203566936381+CID_7ad11048cc6a12b2fcdd641252fbcae9&utm_source=campaign_monitor&utm_term=If%20the%20US%20resumes%20nuclear%20weapons%20testing%20this%20would%20be%20extremely%20dangerous%20for%20humanity

US President Donald Trump has instructed the Pentagon to resume nuclear weapons testing immediately, “on an equal basis” with other countries’ testing programs.

If Trump is referring to the resumption of explosive nuclear testing, this would be an extremely unfortunate, regrettable step by the United States.

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.

It would also create profound risks of radioactive fallout globally. Even if such nuclear tests are conducted underground, this poses a risk in terms of the possible release and venting of radioactive materials, as well as the potential leakage into groundwater.

The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty has been signed by 187 states – it’s one of the most widely supported disarmament treaties in the world.

The US signed the treaty decades ago, but has yet to ratify it. Nonetheless, it is actually legally bound not to violate the spirit and purpose of the treaty while it’s a signatory.

What testing is used for, and why it stopped

In earlier years, the purpose of testing was to understand the effects of nuclear weapons – for example, the blast damage at different distances, which provides confidence around destroying a given military target.

Understanding the consequences of nuclear weapons helps militaries plan their use, and to some extent, protect their own military equipment and people from the possible use of nuclear weapons by adversaries.

But since the end of the second world war, states have mostly used testing as part of the development of new weapons designs. There have been a very large number of tests, more than 2,000, mostly seeking to understand how these new weapons work.

The huge environmental and health problems caused by nuclear testing prompted nations to agree a moratorium on atmospheric testing for a couple of years in the early 1960s. In 1963, the Partial Test Ban Treaty banned nuclear tests in all environments except underground.

Since then, nuclear-armed states have stopped explosively testing at different times. The US stopped in 1992, while France stopped in 1996. China and Russia also aren’t known to have conducted any tests since the 1990s. North Korea is the only state to have openly tested a nuclear weapon this century, most recently in 2017.

These stoppages came in the 1990s for a reason: by that time, it became possible to test new nuclear weapon designs reliably through technical and computer developments, without having to actually explode them.

So, essentially, the nuclear states, particularly the more advanced ones, stopped when they no longer needed to explosively test new weapon designs to keep modernising their stocks, as they’re still doing.

Worrying levels of nuclear proliferation

There is some good news on the nuclear weapons front. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons has now been signed by half the world’s nations. This is a historic treaty that, for the first time, bans nuclear weapons and provides the only internationally agreed framework for their eventual elimination.

With the exception of this significant development, however, everything else has been going badly.

All nine nuclear-armed states (the US, China, Russia, France, the United Kingdom, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel) are investing unprecedented sums in developing more accurate, stealthier, longer-range, faster, more concealable nuclear weapons.

This potentially lowers the threshold for their use. And it certainly gives no indication these powers are serious about fulfilling their legally binding obligations to disarm under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Moreover, multiple nuclear-armed states have been involved in recent conflicts in which nuclear threats have been made, most notably Russia and Israel.

Worryingly, we have also seen the numbers of nuclear weapons “available for use” actually start to climb again.

This includes those in military stockpiles, those that have been deployed (linked to delivery systems such as missiles), and those on high alert, which are the ones most prone to accidental use because they can be launched within minutes of a decision to do so. All of these categories are on the increase.

Russia, in particular, has weapons we haven’t seen before, such as a nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed cruise missile that President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday his country has successfully tested. China, too, is embarking on a rapid build-up of nuclear weapons.

And the US has just completed assembling a new nuclear gravity bomb.

A new START treaty also not moving forward

Nearly all of the hard-won treaties that constrained nuclear weapons since the end of the Cold War have been abrogated.

There’s now just one remaining treaty constraining 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons, which are in the hands of the US and Russia. This is the New START Treaty, which is set to expire in February next year.

Putin offered to extend that treaty informally for another year, and Trump has said this is a good idea. But its official end is just four months away, and no actual negotiations on a successor treaty have begun.

The US has also said China needs to be involved in the successor treaty, which would make it enormously more complicated. China has not expressed a willingness to be part of the process.

Whether anything will be negotiated to maintain these restraints beyond February is unclear. None of the nuclear-armed states are negotiating any other new treaties, either.

All of this means the Doomsday Clock – one of the most authoritative and best-known assessments of the existential threats facing the world – has moved forward this year further than it has ever done before.

It’s really an extraordinarily dangerous time in history.

November 1, 2025 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

‘Groundhog Day’: Israel Breaks Ceasefire to Attack Gaza, Killing 104 People, Including 46 Children.

 Democracy Now, October 30, 2025 

Israel launched major airstrikes on Gaza, killing at least 104 people, including 46 children, in the deadliest attacks since the U.S.-brokered ceasefire was announced. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered “powerful strikes” on Gaza Tuesday after Israeli officials accused Hamas of killing an Israeli soldier in Rafah — which Hamas has denied. Netanyahu is trying “everything possible to resume the genocide in Gaza,” says Muhammad Shehada, a writer and analyst from Gaza. “The only condition is that he needs to maintain the facade of the ceasefire.”

Transcript

AMY GOODMAN: Israel launched major airstrikes on Gaza beginning Tuesday night, killing at least 104 people, including at least 35 children — about a third of the dead — in the most lethal attacks since a U.S.-brokered ceasefire began on October 10th.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered what he called “powerful strikes,” unquote, on Gaza after Israeli officials accused Hamas of killing an Israeli soldier in Rafah. Hamas denied involvement in the soldier’s death.

President Trump defended Israel’s attacks while also saying nothing is going to jeopardize the ceasefire……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. https://www.democracynow.org/2025/10/29/gaza_israel_strikes_muhammad_shehada

November 1, 2025 Posted by | Atrocities, Israel | Leave a comment

It’s Just Wall-To-Wall News Stories About The US And Its Allies Abusing The World.

Caitlin Johnstone, Oct 29, 2025, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/its-just-wall-to-wall-news-stories?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=177462655&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

It’s just news story after news story about the US and its allies terrorizing the world today.

The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been filming themselves committing horrific massacres in Sudan over the last couple of days, reportedly murdering some two thousand civilians. You can see the bloodstains on the ground in satellite images. As we discussed the other day, the RSF and its atrocities are backed by the UAE, a close partner of the United States.

Meanwhile Israel has committed another wave of massacres of its own throughout the Gaza Strip, reportedly killing 104 people in a single day, including 46 children. This is as many Palestinians as would typically be killed on any given day in Gaza prior to the so-called “ceasefire”.

CBS News’ 60 Minutes has released a cartoonishly blatant war propaganda piece on “Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela’s dictator” about how poor and unhappy the people of Venezuela are under their current government. The piece featured an interview with Republican Senator Rick Scott, who said that “If I was Maduro I’d head to Russia or China right now; his days are numbered.”

The US can make threats, impose sanctions and amass war machinery, but you don’t truly know they’re serious about attacking a country until they start churning out Pentagon propaganda in the mainstream press.

In the same interview, Scott also said that if Maduro is successfully ousted, “it’ll be the end of Cuba.”

“America is gonna take care of the southern hemisphere and make sure there’s freedom and democracy,” he added.

The senator’s statements suggest that the US is preparing a push in Latin America similar to what it has been executing with Israel in the middle east, eliminating any powers which refuse to bend the knee. South of the US border the top two disobedient governments are the socialist states of Venezuela and Cuba. In the middle east the US and Israel have spent the last two years bombing Iran and Yemen, securing a regime change in Syria, and doing everything they can to eliminate Hamas and Hezbollah in order to rule the region uncontested.

And of course we’ve still got the horrifying US proxy war in Ukraine, where men continue to be dragged off against their will to fight in a nightmarish conflict that most Ukrainians now oppose, but which Zelensky is saying he intends to keep fighting for years against the will of the public. This whole miserable ordeal could have been avoided with a little diplomacy and a few low-cost concessions, but the western power alliance avoided off-ramp after off-ramp in order to ensure that Russia would get sucked into another costly military quagmire.

All over the world the US and its allies are murdering and abusing people in order to dominate the planet and ensure the survival of the capitalist system with which its power is intertwined. It is a giant murder machine feeding on human blood and the life force of our biosphere while providing nothing but obstacles to a healthy world.

The US-centralized empire is a disease that affects our entire species. We had better find a cure, and fast.

November 1, 2025 Posted by | Atrocities, civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Donald Trump says South Korea can build nuclear-powered submarines in US

 Donald Trump has said he has given South Korea permission to build
nuclear-powered submarines in Philadelphia, in an announcement that could rattle China as the US president prepares to meet Xi Jinping. “South
Korea will be building its Nuclear Powered Submarine in the Philadelphia
Shipyards, right here in the good ol’ U.S.A.,” Trump wrote on the Truth
Social platform on Thursday during his visit to the US ally and ahead of a
summit with President Xi. Trump said the US-South Korea military alliance
was “stronger than ever” so he had “given them approval to build a
Nuclear Powered Submarine”.

 FT 30th Oct 2025,
https://www.ft.com/content/a6ee6741-5a66-41b1-80b6-5e01e4a823a5

November 1, 2025 Posted by | South Korea, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Trump a shameful Double Ace in obliterating small, unarmed boats on the high seas


Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL,30 Oct 25

WWI saw the elevation of intrepid fighter pilots to heroic heights as they fought for the skies in flimsy, wood and canvas death traps over the Front. Average life span about 3 weeks. To celebrate their status cheating death while bringing death to the enemy, they were exalted as an Ace if they downed 5 enemy planes. Achieving 10 kills made them a Double Ace.

A century plus later Donald J. Trump has forever besmirched the honored designation of Ace with his 10th kill of small unarmed boats on the high seas in the Caribbean and Pacific, sending several dozen unknown innocents to Davey Jones locker. Eddie Rickenbacker received the Congressional Medal of Honor as America’s Ace of Aces with 26 kills in WWI. Richard Bong received the Congressional Medal of Honor as America’s Ace of Aces with 40 kills in WWII.

Gleefully celebrating each of his first 10 kills on the high seas, Double Ace Donald J. Trump will only receive the everlasting condemnation of history for his ongoing, senseless destruction of human life from the safety of the now Trump desecrated Peoples House.

November 1, 2025 Posted by | weapons and war | Leave a comment

UN Human Rights Office Warns Israeli Settler Violence in West Bank Is “Surging”

The Trump administration insisted last week that it would not allow Israel to annex the occupied West Bank.

By Sharon Zhang , Truthout, October 27, 2025, https://truthout.org/articles/un-human-rights-office-warns-israeli-settler-violence-in-west-bank-is-surging/

he UN Human Rights office for Palestine has warned that Israel is rapidly accelerating its campaign to annex the occupied West Bank, with settlers adding outposts at a pace 10 times higher than the previous average rate just in the past year.

Recent settler attacks on the olive harvest have underscored the danger faced by Palestinian communities, the office noted, with this season alone seeing 150 settler attacks so far.

This includes an attack caught on camera by a journalist last week, when a 53-year-old woman was beaten by settlers and sent to the hospital during the olive harvest; as well as an attack on a 58-year-old olive farmer in Nahalin, west of Bethlehem, on Thursday, the office said.

These attacks represent just a fraction of the settler violence faced by Palestinians as Israel escalates its annexation campaign amid its genocide in Gaza, the office said. UN officials, citing Israeli group Peace Now, said that there have been 757 settler attacks in the West Bank just in the first half of 2025, marking a 13 percent increase over the previous year.

Meanwhile, Israeli settlers have created 84 new illegal outposts in the West Bank, marking a “rapid escalation” of the previous pace of eight new settlements per year on average, the office said.

The violence is “making life impossible for Palestinians in many communities across the occupied West Bank and leaving them with no genuine choice but to leave their homes.”

“These actions advance Israel’s stated policy to consolidate annexation in clear violation of international law,” the office said.

The UN statement comes just days after the Trump administration repeated its supposed opposition to annexation.

“It won’t happen,” said President Donald Trump last week when asked about annexation. “Israel would lose all of its support from the United States if that happened.”

But as the UN statement and that of other experts has underscored, Israel is already in the process of annexing the West Bank, both in policy and in practice. Top Israeli ministers have spent recent months formalizing plans for annexation, vowing to annex the West Bank in all but name or, in some cases, outright calling for the illegal policy.

October 31, 2025 Posted by | Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

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