The announcement by Donald Trump that the US plans to restart nuclear testing is a wake-up call that the threat of nuclear war is real and accelerating.
If the US re-starts testing its nuclear weapons, this will accelerate a new nuclear arms race, as other nuclear weapons states do the same. With heightened tensions over Ukraine, it will further escalate this terrible conflict. It will also increase tensions with China.
It is not clear whether Trump is referring to nuclear-explosive testing – carried out underground or in the atmosphere – or flight testing of nuclear-capable missiles. However, Trump allies like his former National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien argued back in July 2024 that the US should resume nuclear testing.
US driving nuclear proliferation and arms race
A return to nuclear testing is the latest move in which the US is driving nuclear proliferation. Its Missile Defence System, now referred to by Trump as the ‘Golden Dome’ is a vast global network of bases developed over decades. Far from being a defensive system as portrayed in ‘House of Dynamite’, US Missile Defence enables first-strike attacks to be carried out by the US without fear of retaliation. Russia has consistently warned of the destabilizing effects of the system.
Similarly, a series of bi- and tri-lateral treaties led by the US, is driving nuclear proliferation and increasing tensions in the Asia Pacific. For instance the AUKUS Agreement between the US, Britain and Australia, enables Australia – a non-nuclear weapons state – to possess nuclear-powered submarines. Trump has also just approved an agreement with South Korea, allowing Seoul to build nuclear-powered submarines too. This is dangerous escalation in the US’s ongoing confrontation with China, since Obama’s ‘pivot to Asia’ in 2010. In response, China is increasing and modernising its nuclear arsenal.
The need for global nuclear disarmament has never been more urgent
While Trump oversees this major nuclear expansion, global arms control infrastructure is crumbling. Treaties like the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) have been disbanded while the extended START Treaty is due to expire in February 2026. The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) prohibiting all nuclear testing has been signed by the US, Russia and China but not ratified, with Russia rescinding its ratification in 2023.
CND calls for more global pressure to create diplomatic space for new treaties to be established, to push for nuclear weapons states to abide by nuclear disarmament obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and for the ratification of the CTBT by all the nuclear weapons states.
CND General Secretary Sophie Bolt said:
“Starting a nuclear arms race will take the world to the brink of annihilation. Recommencing atmospheric or underground testing would release huge levels of radioactive fall-out into the atmosphere and land, threatening us all. It would cause cancers, leukemias and birth defects amongst inhabitants living around test sites, like the ‘Downwinders’, who have been exposed to radiation since the US starting testing nuclear weapons in the 1950s at its Nevada Test Site.
The consequences of a nuclear war would be absolutely catastrophic, destroying huge sections of the planet, devastating the ecosystem and creating global famine for the survivors.
We are already in the midst of nuclear expansion as nuclear weapons states modernise and increase their nuclear weapons. Accelerating a nuclear arms race will push even more people into poverty and accelerate the climate crisis. Trump’s nuclear arms race must be stopped. It is absolutely critical that we rachet up the political pressure to make these world leaders – including the British government – step back from this nuclear escalation. Now more than ever, we need global nuclear disarmament.”