When President Donald Trump declared on Truth Social that he had instructed the “Department of War” to resume nuclear testing, it caught Washington — and much of the world — off guard. The comment, posted just before his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the APEC Summit, generated confusion across the U.S. government and alarm among allies who feared the United States might shatter the restraint that has held among the five permanent members (P-5) of the United Nations Security Council for almost 30 years.
Yet for all the drama surrounding the announcement, the U.S. government apparently has no plans to conduct an explosive nuclear test. Having spent much of my career working on these issues — first as Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control and later as Principal Deputy Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) — I can say with confidence that there is no technical or strategic reason to resume explosive testing today.
Indeed, Trump’s post appeared to have been a political signal, not a policy directive. It was even hard to know what exactly the president meant. He wrote, “I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis. That process will begin immediately.” But it’s unclear whether he was referring to explosive warhead testing, which the United States and Russia have forsworn, or testing of missiles or other delivery systems, which both sides do as a matter of routine. (The U.S. Air Force conducted one of its standard “Glory Trip” Minuteman III tests just a few weeks ago.)
But the United States hasn’t conducted an explosive nuclear test since September 1992. American nuclear scientists have maintained the safety, security, and reliability of the arsenal through the Stockpile Stewardship Program, an extraordinary scientific enterprise combining high-performance computing, subcritical experiments, and advanced materials research.
Modeling as a Replacement for Explosive Testing
When I helped run NNSA and interacted regularly with the directors and senior leadership of Los Alamos, Livermore, and Sandia National Laboratories, I saw firsthand the scale of this effort. What impressed me most was that these scientists could now model the behavior of a nuclear warhead with a level of precision unimaginable during the Cold War. As a result, every president since Bill Clinton has been able to certify to Congress – without a single explosive test — that the stockpile remains safe, secure, and effective.
The United States is so confident in this method that it is currently developing the W93, its first new warhead since the 1980s, without conducting any tests. That milestone would have been inconceivable 30 years ago and is a testament to the success of American science and engineering.
So, when President Trump suggested that new “testing” was imminent, the technical community was perplexed. Even Vice Admiral Richard Correll, the nominee to head U.S. Strategic Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he was “absolutely confident” in the reliability of the nation’s nuclear arsenal. Energy Secretary Christopher Wright, whose department oversees the NNSA, publicly stated that the United States has no current plans to return to explosive nuclear testing.
In short: the science is sound, the stockpile is strong, and the call to test has no technical foundation.
The Strategic Landscape
To understand why the statement nevertheless resonated, it’s necessary to look at the broader strategic landscape. Russia and China are both engaged in sweeping nuclear-modernization programs. Moscow is completing a 20-year overhaul of its strategic triad and testing “exotic” systems such as the Poseidon nuclear-powered underwater drone and the Burevestnik nuclear-powered cruise missile. But those are delivery vehicles, not warheads. That said, the New START Treaty does not impose any limits on Russia’s large arsenal of non-strategic (or “tactical”) nuclear weapons. As a result, Moscow has been able to modernize and modestly expand these theater-level capabilities. According to the most recent annual threat assessment from the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence, “Russia’s vast arsenal of non-strategic nuclear weapons helps it offset Western conventional superiority and provides formidable escalation management options in theater war scenarios.”
At the same time, Beijing is expanding its nuclear arsenal at a breathtaking pace — up from roughly 200 warheads when I testified before Congress in 2018 to about 600 today, and possibly 1,500 by 2035.
So for the first time in history, the United States faces the challenge of deterring two peer nuclear powers simultaneously. That reality is forcing U.S. planners to rethink assumptions that guided deterrence policy for seven decades. In that context, Trump’s words may have been intended less as policy than as posture, a signal to Moscow and Beijing that Washington would not sit idly by while they expand their capabilities.
During my time at the State Department, I often saw how nuclear issues become proxies for broader strategic signaling. In diplomacy, a statement about testing can be meant to convey resolve rather than readiness. That is likely what happened here: Trump using the idea of testing to project strength before high-stakes meetings with foreign leaders.
It’s also worth noting that Trump’s former national security advisor, Robert O’Brien, argued in Foreign Affairs last year that the United States should resume explosive testing. And as reported by the Washington Post in 2020, senior officials in the first Trump administration seriously considered a return to explosive testing before ultimately deciding against it.
If, however, this administration ever moved beyond rhetoric in relation to explosive testing of nuclear bombs, the consequences would be profound. Such an event almost certainly would prompt Russia and China to follow suit, destroy the global norm among the P-5 since the late-1990s, and fracture allied unity on non-proliferation. It also would jeopardize the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization’s global monitoring system, which ironically provided the United States and the international community with invaluable data on North Korea’s past nuclear tests.
From a practical standpoint, resuming explosive tests also would not be simple. Preparing an underground test at the Nevada National Security Site would likely take years. Infrastructure would need to be refurbished, diagnostic equipment installed, and specialized teams reconstituted.
The process would divert resources from the modernization programs that actually matter, such as the upgrading of the B-21 Raider, the Columbia-class submarine, and the Sentinel ICBM. In other words, explosive nuclear testing at this time would not accelerate deterrence; it would distract from it.
A Certain Political Logic
There is, however, a political logic to Trump’s comment. Throughout his career, he has relied on bold, even shocking gestures to establish leverage. During his first term, he sought to negotiate with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, pressed to expand arms talks with Russia, and flirted with bringing China into a broader strategic-arms framework. He often invoked his late uncle, the renowned MIT scientist John G. Trump, as inspiration for his interest in nuclear matters. Trump’s fascination with the optics of nuclear power is genuine. He understands that these weapons symbolize national strength and personal authority.
His statement about testing fits that pattern — a way of projecting dominance and positioning himself as the indispensable “dealmaker” in an age of renewed great-power competition.
As someone who has worked inside the national-security bureaucracy, I understand the allure — and the danger — of such symbolism. It can rally attention, but it can also raise expectations that are strategically unwise or technically impossible to meet. Nuclear policy demands steadiness, not spectacle.
Rather than revisit Cold War habits, the administration should focus on finishing the job of modernizing the deterrent and updating the global arms control framework to address the challenges of the 21st century.
That means sustained investment in the next generation of nuclear delivery systems and the nuclear labs and production infrastructure, coupled with renewed diplomacy to prevent miscalculations among nuclear powers. It also means maintaining bipartisan political support on Capitol Hill.
The modernization effort is a 30-year journey that will outlast any single administration; continuity is its most important asset. Equally vital is rebuilding the connective tissue between deterrence and diplomacy. When I worked on arms-control negotiations, we understood that credible deterrence and credible dialogue are two sides of the same coin. Testing for no valid technical reason would not strengthen that coin — it would melt it down.
Trump’s remark has reignited debate about America’s nuclear posture, but the real test is one of leadership. The United States must demonstrate that it can sustain its deterrent without undermining decades of restraint and scientific success.
That means trusting the system that has worked: the scientists at our laboratories, the engineers who sustain our stockpile, and the diplomats who keep channels open in times of tension. Resuming nuclear testing might make headlines, but it would not make America safer. In this new nuclear age, strength is measured not by the size of an explosion but by the steadiness of institutions and their ability to adapt without losing their moral and strategic compass.
