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Trump’s call to resume nuclear testing after decades revives a Cold War debate
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Mr Donald Trump provided no rationale for resuming the testing, other than his incorrect statement that others were doing the same.
PHOTO: AFP
David E. Sanger and William J. Broad
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WASHINGTON – US President Donald Trump’s unexpected declaration on Oct 30 that he was ordering the US military to resume nuclear testing prompted visions of a return to the worst days of the Cold War, when the US, Russia and China were regularly detonating new weapons, first in the atmosphere and outer space, then underground.
It was an era of terrifying threats and counter-threats, of dark visions of Armageddon and theories of deterrence by mutually assured destruction. That age supposedly ended with the arrival of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty that nations agreed to in the mid-1990s. But not enough of the signatories ratified it for the treaty to formally come into force. Its objective was to starve the arms race by cutting off new tests and the cycle of retaliation they engendered.
