Opinion Trump’s directive to resume nuclear weapons testing reflects his poor understanding of the arms race

This directive comes days after Russia tested (October 21) a nuclear-propelled-nuclear-capable low-flying cruise missile, the 9M730 Burevestnik (NATO name: SSC-X-9 Skyfall), which reportedly travelled 14,000 km and remained up in the air for about 15 hours. Earlier, on September 25, 2024, China carried out a full trajectory test of its latest intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), the solid-fuelled Dong Feng-31AG, which had impacted 11,700 kilometres eastwards in the Pacific Ocean. Incidentally, the US had also test-fired its Minuteman-III ICBM in May 2025.

While the world witnessed over 2,000 nuclear tests (1,032 by the US alone) between 1945 and 1996, explosive testing of nuclear warheads (nukes) invites international opprobrium. The US last tested a nuke in 1992, after which it adopted a voluntary moratorium on explosive testing; China last conducted a test in July 1996 (Lop Nur, Xinjiang); and Russia in 1990 (Novaya Zemlya). While the US, Russia and China are signatories to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), they have not ratified it.

Since the CTBT came up in September 1996, only three countries have tested nukes — India and Pakistan in 1998, and North Korea from 2006 to 2017. However, the two countries named by Trump — China and Russia — have not threatened to resume such testing. While Russian President Vladimir Putin had in November 2023 signed a bill officially withdrawing Russia from the CTBT, Moscow clarified that it would not resume nuclear testing unless the US does.

As per the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the US has a stockpile of approximately 3,700 warheads, with about 1,770 deployed and 1,930 held in reserve; Russia has approximately 5,459 warheads, with 1,718 deployed (on submarines, land-based missiles, bombers), 2,591 in reserve and 1,150 marked for dismantlement; and China possesses just over 600 warheads, with none premised to be “operational” onboard missiles or at bomber bases, but stored separately from the launchers.

Separately, the Pentagon’s 2024 Report to Congress had assessed that China would field about 1,000 warheads by 2030, but didn’t include the Department of Defence’s 2023 projection of “1,500 nukes by 2035”. The 2023 assessment by the International Panel on Fissile Materials places China’s highly enriched uranium stockpile at about 14 tons and of plutonium at 2.9 tons. This is sufficient to potentially support an increase to approximately 1,000 warheads by 2030. But as per the Pentagon, producing additional warheads by 2035 would require producing new plutonium this decade, adding that China “has not produced large quantities of plutonium for its weapons program since the early 1990s”.

Thus, Trump is clearly wrong on two counts: It’s Russia that possesses the most nukes and not the US; and China will not be “even” [with the US] even after 10-15 years. Washington’s concern is that although China’s nuclear arsenal remains smaller in number, it now possesses significant and credible strategic deterrence and response capabilities. This is because of three reasons.

Firstly, China was never a signatory to the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty between the US and the Soviet Union (the US withdrew in August 2019). This treaty had banned the development and deployment of all land-based, nuclear-capable missiles (ballistic and cruise) with ranges between 500 and 5,500 km. Unfettered, China was thus able to develop and deploy a huge inventory of land-based missiles within this strike range.

Secondly, on land, the US has only silo-based ICBMs — 450 LGM-30G Minuteman-III missiles (400 active; 50 kept “warm” if required; initially deployed in 1970 but modernised several times). In contrast, many of China’s 462 ICBM launchers and almost all of its recent missiles are road- or rail-mobile. This mobility increases the survivability of its nuclear arsenal and augments its submarine-based second-strike capability. Additionally, China is constructing 30 new silos for its liquid-fuel DF-5 ICBMs and developing 320 new silos for solid-fuelled ICBMs.

Thirdly, at sea, the US Navy operates a fleet of 14 Ohio-class SSBNs (eight assigned to the Pacific region and six to the Atlantic), each with 20 Trident-II-D5 submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs). China has been refitting its six Type-094/094A SSBNs (each with 12 missile tubes) with the longer-range JL-3 SLBM, as well as developing a new SSBN (Type-096).

In sum, while China’s nuclear expansion is among the largest and most rapid in modernisation among the nine nuclear-armed states, overall, the US’s warheads and delivery systems inventory is larger than China’s and a bit superior vis-à-vis Russia. It is, therefore, hoped that Trump’s directive was a product of his usual confusion about foreign and military affairs (recall that he had said the US was “trying to get [Bagram airbase] back” as it’s “an hour away from where China makes its nuclear weapons”). Explosive testing of nukes would mark a dangerous escalation as it would immediately encourage other countries to resume testing. China would benefit the most from such testing.

The writer, a retired Army officer, was the principal director in the National Security Council Secretariat