Key Points and Summary – President Trump has “created a stir” by suggesting the U.S. may resume nuclear weapons testing for the first time since its 1992 moratorium, a “provocative” move. -This is seen as a reaction to Russian “doomsday” weapons tests (like the Poseidon torpedo) and “perceived” low-yield tests by Russia and China, which […]

Is the United States about to start testing nuclear weapons again? Recent comments by United States President Trump suggested that he is strongly considering testing nuclear warheads in response to real and perceived tests by other nuclear powers.

These comments left many confused about the future of US policy and the state of intelligence on adversary nuclear programs.

So what’s going on? As is often the case, President Trump seems to prize unpredictability.

We don’t know what’s going to happen, but it wouldn’t hurt to review where we’ve been.

  • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
    22·
    5 hours ago

    Russia is desperate so started making noise about testing some missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons. They like making noise about nukes in general because their conventional forces are failing at taking over Ukraine. Promoting fear of nuclear war is a card they play often, it’s easier to list the months Russia hasn’t made nuke threats in the last three years than the months they haven’t.

    Trump is an idiot and didn’t understand the distinction between testing nuclear capable missiles and testing actual nuclear weapons. He doesn’t understand the Putin is weak now and the noise he’s making is a sign of that weakness and instead thinks it’s a sign of strength. Trump likes to copy Putin and is too stupid not to understand the distinction between a missile test and a nuclear weapons test, so started talking about doing nuclear weapons tests.

    His administration is full of idiots that are only there because they are loyal to him and so they didn’t explain it to him. When a reporter explained the distinction between nuclear capable missile and actual nuclear weapons, since Trump is incapable of admitting he’s wrong about anything he insisted that Russia and China are testing nuclear weapons. But he’s the only one in the world that knows about it apparently.

    Now it’s a weird situation where Trump’s sycophants probably know it’s stupid to do, but they aren’t going to question dear leader’s orders. But that doesn’t mean it will happen since they may be too incompetent to be able to do such a test. I’m not sure if they know it’s actually the Department of Energy that does nuclear testing not the Department of Defense War that do them. The facilities to do them have been repurposed so there would need to be some work done to make it possible even if they figure out which department does them.

    There’s a significant likelihood that Trump gets distracted be something else before the administration can figure out how to do it. But if it continues to be a controversy then he’ll stick with it, since distracting from the Epstein files and various other corruption is the top priority.