President Trump has ordered the Pentagon to restart nuclear testing. The Russians were stunned by the announcement (probably what President Trump intended). However, with or without the Trump announcement, the US probably needs to resume some testing. The question is how to do it responsibly.
This is what President Trump told Norah O’Donnell (CBS News, 60 Minutes) in an interview on November 2nd:
Norah O’Donnell: “So why do we need to test our nuclear weapons?”
Trump: “Well, because you have to see how they work. You know, you do have to — and the reason I’m saying testing is because Russia announced that they were going to be doing a test. If you notice, North Korea’s testing constantly. Other countries are testing. We’re the only country that doesn’t test, and I want to be — I don’t want to be the only country that doesn’t test.”
There is no publicly available evidence that Russia or China or North Korea is testing nuclear weapons, if we understand that “testing” means the actual nuclear warheads and not something else.
China is rapidly expanding its nuclear arsenal, and Russia has announced new weapons that will, in future, be armed with nuclear weapons. Russia recently carried out a test of its new nuclear-powered cruise missile, but while the missile was powered by a small nuclear reactor, it did not have a nuclear warhead.
The US also tested a Minuteman III ICBM with a dummy warhead on November 5th. The US informed Russia of its intention to launch a Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile before it was test-fired on Wednesday according to Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov.
The Russians were caught by surprise by Trump’s announcement on the resumption of nuclear testing. Both Russia and the US are signatories to the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty that prohibits nuclear weapons tests in the atmosphere, in outer space and underwater but allows underground nuclear testing. In 1974 the US and Russia agreed to the Threshold Test Ban Treaty (TTBT), which prohibited underground nuclear weapon tests with a yield greater than 150 kilotons.
In 1996 the US and Russia, among others, signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) that would have blocked all nuclear weapons testing. The US signed the agreement but the US Senate refused to ratify the Treaty in 1999. The Russians signed and ratified the agreement, but in 2023 the Russian government withdrew its ratification, leaving the Russian position uncertain and in limbo, since Russia did not withdraw its signature or cancel its participation in the treaty.
On November 5th, in a meeting of Russia’s Security Council, Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed Russia’s Foreign Ministry, Defense Ministry, intelligence agencies and civilian agencies to submit proposals on the possibility of preparing for nuclear weapons tests.
High-resolution satellite images have shown increased activity and construction at Russia’s Novaya Zemlya nuclear test site. The head of the facility stated in September 2024 that the site is ready to resume full-scale testing at any moment if an order is given.
China is a signatory to the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, but China never ratified it. Global monitoring systems that track nuclear activity have not detected any full nuclear detonations by China since 1996. Reports based on satellite imagery from 2023-2025 have noted increased activity and new construction (such as additional tunnels and support buildings) at China’s Lop Nor test site in Xinjiang. Experts suggest this infrastructure is consistent with preparations for subcritical experiments, which do not produce an explosive yield and are not prohibited by the CTBT.
Subcritical weapons tests are experiments that use chemical explosives to compress fissile materials like plutonium – but without creating a self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction, so no nuclear explosion occurs. China, the US and Russia (and possibly others including France, UK, Pakistan, India, Israel, North Korea and other non-declared nuclear powers) are known to have carried out subcritical nuclear weapons testing or are suspected of it.
US programs
The US is developing a number of new nuclear warheads and is modernizing older ones. It is also concerned about the reliability and safety of existing nuclear warheads. Among the issues are
aging electronics,
conventional explosives inside nuclear warheads that are vulnerable in case of an accident, and
needed upgrades including boost gas in primaries, to ensure warhead reliability. This is done by adding more thermonuclear fuel mixture (typically deuterium and tritium gas) to the primary (fission) stage of a boosted fission or thermonuclear (hydrogen) weapon.
New warheads in development include the W87-1 for Sentinel missiles. The Sentinel is a multibillion dollar ICBM program to replace the Minuteman III.
The US Navy is carrying out a life extension program for its W88 nuclear warheads, designed in the 1970s and used on US Trident D-5 submarine launched ballistic missiles. The last W88s were produced in 1992. The Navy also is planning a new warhead for the D-5 missiles, the W93.
Other programs for the B-61 gravity bomb (”dial a blast”) and a new cruise missile to replace the Tomahawk also are underway or in planning.
The pit problem
While existing weapons can be tested only if they have yields of less than 150 kt – which excludes almost the entire US arsenal – the US could decide to do partial testing. For new weapons, however, the US would also have to restart the manufacturing of plutonium pits for the warheads prior to any real testing process.
A plutonium pit is the central, fissile core of a modern nuclear weapon’s primary stage. It is the component that, when compressed, undergoes a fission chain reaction to generate the initial massive energy release. None were produced after 1989, but the Department of Energy has announced that the National Nuclear Safety Administration will renew nuclear pits production.
The DOE says that “given the uncertainties regarding plutonium aging and the evolving geopolitical landscape, the United States cannot postpone reestablishing this critical capability.”
Nuclear pits deteriorate slowly. Recent estimates suggest that the service life of a nuclear pit could be 100 years, suggesting that there is no urgent need to replace them in older weapons. But to produce new weapons, like the warhead for the Sentinel ICBM, nuclear pit production will be required. The DOE plan is to manufacture 30 units per year at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, followed by a new production plant at the Savannah River Site at 50 units per year.
The US probably cannot wait too much longer for testing to support its new nuclear warheads and its life extension programs.
There are plenty of ways to simulate tests (combining both subcritical physical testing and supercomputer test runs), but whether limited testing is adequate in assuring a reliable nuclear arsenal is debatable.
Even so, taking into account US treaty obligations and a recognition that an underground program of any magnitude will cause others, especially Russia and China, to do the same, it is highly likely the new testing program will be a partial and limited one.
We can, therefore, interpret Trump’s order to the Pentagon as almost certainly supporting partial and limited testing and approval of new warhead production. Whether others, especially the Russians and Chinese see it that way, we do not know.
Former US Deputy Under Secretary of Defense Stephen Bryen is a senior Asia Times correspondent. This article was first published in his Substack newsletter War and Strategy.
