Trump’s Call to Restart Nuclear Tests Rekindles Cold War Tensions
US President Donald Trump’s announcement to resume American nuclear weapons testing after more than 30 years of silence has ignited widespread concern among allies, rivals, and global security experts. His vague directive, posted on Truth Social, instructed the newly renamed Department of War to begin testing “on an equal basis” with Russia and China, raising fears that the decades-old global norm against nuclear explosions may be at risk.
Officials and analysts warn that Trump’s unclear language appears to blur routine missile tests with full scale explosive nuclear tests, which major powers have avoided since the 1990s. This confusion alone, they say, is enough to spark dangerous misinterpretations and potentially provoke a new era of arms escalation.
International leaders and arms-control specialists quickly condemned the move, stressing that any return to explosive testing would destabilise global security. The head of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organisation, Robert Floyd, cautioned that even one nuclear blast could undo years of non-proliferation efforts. UN Secretary General António Guterres reminded the world of the catastrophic environmental and human damage left by more than 2,000 tests carried out in the past 80 years.
America’s allies particularly in Europe expressed deep disappointment, urging Washington not to break the informal global moratorium that has held since 1998. Despite the United States signing the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), the refusal of the US Senate to ratify it has left the treaty in political limbo. Still, the global pause on testing has remained one of the strongest informal arms control norms in modern history.
Security experts highlight that the US gained a strategic advantage decades ago: having conducted over 1,000 tests, it possesses unmatched scientific data that lets its laboratories assess warheads without explosions. Restarting tests now, they argue, brings no real military benefit but carries enormous political and global security risks.
Trump’s remarks have also provoked sharp reactions from adversaries. Russia reminded Washington that it will not be the first to resume testing but would respond if others do. China urged the US to honour its commitments to testing suspension. Iran harshly criticised the move, calling it reckless and accusing the US of nuclear intimidation, especially after recent American strikes on its nuclear facilities.
The controversy has revived memories of Cold War brinkmanship, when the United States and the Soviet Union conducted more than 1,500 tests, pushing the world close to nuclear catastrophe. It was only after the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 that both superpowers began to embrace arms.control measures, eventually leading to moratoriums and the CTBT in the 1990s.
Today, experts fear that Trump’s renewed testing rhetoric risks undoing these hard-won lessons. Analysts warn that even a hint of returning to nuclear blasts in an era marked by complex multipolar rivalries could reignite a dangerous arms race without the strong arms-control frameworks that once restrained it.
European officials describe Trump’s move as “strategically short-sighted” and “historically tone-deaf”, arguing that it undermines fragile global disarmament efforts at a time when stability is already under pressure. They urge the US to reaffirm its commitment to the nuclear test ban and prevent a slide back into the aggressive nuclear competition of the past.
In a world already on edge, Trump’s nuclear testing threat has reopened Cold War fears and raised urgent questions about whether global security norms will hold or collapse under political pressure.
