Donald Trump has surprised everyone by making public his decision, and consequent “immediate” execution order  to the Department of Defense, to “begin testing nuclear weapons”, according to him to be “on an equal footing” with other countries, forced, according to him, by “the test programs” (¿?) of those same countries that of course he does not mention who they are.

Despite the obvious –and calculated?– vagueness of the terms used, the lack of evidence that would support such a radical measure, the inappropriateness of the moment chosen to make it public –on October 29 in South Korea shortly before meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping– and the fact that we are already accustomed to uttering statements back and forth Every day more anarchic, it does not mean that what the US president said must be carefully analyzed given its potential scope if it is carried out.

Data and geostrategic context

Between 1945 and 1992, the U.S. military conducted more than 1,000 nuclear weapons tests. Since 1992, the United States has not conducted nuclear tests in compliance with a voluntary moratorium on the practice. During his 2024 election campaign, Trump frequently referred to nuclear weapons as  “the N-word  ,”  acknowledging their devastating power.

In principle, and unless very special measures were taken, which were not easy, it would take about 36 months – we do not know if Trump knows this fact – to be in a position to resume nuclear tests underground – the only possible ones – at the old test range in Nevada.

There is no record, nor is there any allegation by any institution, organization or entity of any kind that demonstrates even slightly that, with the exception of North Korea, Russia or China have secretly carried out any nuclear tests since 1990. Rumours have recurrently arisen from certain quarters, but not at all confirmed, that China may have carried out some low-intensity nuclear weapons tests in recent years.

Vladimir Putin has repeatedly stated that he will not conduct nuclear tests unless the United States does so first. In addition, he has on the table an offer to extend in February 2026 the New START – to which Trump has not yet replied –, the nuclear arms control treaty between the United States and Russia, which aims to limit the number of deployed strategic nuclear weapons that each country can possess, originally signed in 2010 and extended in 2021.  which limits each party to 1,550 nuclear warheads and 700 delivery systems, allows for mutual verification of nuclear forces through inspections and data exchange; in February 2023, Russia suspended its participation in it citing “hostile actions” by the West, although it stated that it was not withdrawing completely and that it would maintain the main limitations as long as the United States adopted reciprocal measures.

Russia has recently made public the successful development of the “Poseidon” nuclear torpedo  with the capacity, apparently, of causing tidal waves of up to 500 meters high hundreds of miles away from the coast, and the nuclear-powered “Burevestnik” cruise missile  of which it claims to have unlimited range. The first would carry a nuclear payload, the second would not, only a small nuclear reactor for propulsion.

Currently, Berlin is pushing for France and the United Kingdom to share their nuclear weapons with Germany; Warsaw requests that France share them with Poland; and the United Kingdom is trying to get the US to transfer nuclear launch warheads from US F-35As to deploy them in Estonia. None of the three scenarios mentioned, especially the last one, are feasible without prior authorization from Washington.

The conclusions

Trump knows, or at least is not totally unaware of, unless his advisers are either blind or blatantly deceive him, that the position of the US is not as strong as it seems, nor certainly as he would like, since everything points to its influence and unquestionable unipolar dominance waning; Another thing is whether this decline will be definitive, irreversible, total or partial, and even less the time it will take to materialize.

The data that support what we say are, roughly speaking and among many others and to cite only the most current:

1. * The failed ceasefire in the Middle East that Israel violates from the first moment and that in any case solves nothing.
   
2. The impossibility of bending Russia to agree to negotiate peace in Ukraine without prior guarantees that they will be serious and will lead to lasting guarantees of its security.
   
3. The rebellion, although always within an order, of the main European countries determined to fuel a war of attrition in Ukraine that justifies their respective permanence in power before their citizens.
   
4. Zelensky’s rebellion determined to maintain himself at the expense of the continuation of that same war.
   
5. The unstoppable rise in practically all aspects of China, as well as the strengthening, even with limits, of its alliance with Russia and India.
   
6. The also rise of India as an unquestionable new Asian power.
   
7. The American difficulties in controlling a large part of Central and South America contrary to what it was used to in the past; evident case Venezuela.
   
8. The internal situation of the United States, whose crisis is worsening, albeit slowly.

Trump, very possibly thought, and believed at face value when he arrived back at the White House, that his Awake and his MAGA were a matter of sewing and singing that it was going to be easy for him to impose and, as a businessman that he is, more than a politician, he has been turning to aggressive diplomatic initiatives lacking the tact and skill that the circumstances of a world today so complex and in profound social and geostrategic changes require. 

Especially when things and the very capacity for influence of the United States are no longer what they were, hence that anarchy, that threatening to later fail to comply or even withdraw what was said, leaving in evidence –a resounding case what it has been doing around the world with the tariffs– and, finally, its more than erratic way of acting and behaving that is undermining its credibility even among the most loyal,  what to say among those who are not.

In what has been said lies the key to properly understanding and assessing this new departure from the tone of ordering, as if it were a matter of nothing, the intended return of nuclear tests, which not only has no one understood, but, in addition to being received with total skepticism, has provoked rejection even among its allies and in general in the international community.

Because one thing is the existing provoked, desired, maintained or supervening disputes and conflicts, and another to play with the well-known capacity for nuclear destruction, which if unleashed would take humanity back to the age of the caves; hence its only and demonstrated benefit, which is that of deterrence, especially if we take into account that they can be evil and evil, but none of them foolish, the latter species being the dangerous one, because unlike the former, in order to harm the other, it does not hesitate to do it to itself.

Thus, the order that Trump says he has given to his Department of Defense to immediately begin nuclear tests should not be taken into consideration, but, like many others of his, only in a way that tool to attract attention, to inflame his own people and open a new avenue of negotiations with Russia and China to see if he can get something out of what he has not been able to do for others, but nothing more; The fact that at least 36 months are needed to prepare such evidence supports what we say.

The only dangerous thing about what Trump has launched, in such an irresponsible way, is that someone, outside of China and Russia whose moderation is being epic in the face of the provocations of an uncontrolled Trump, is that someone can take them seriously and accept the challenge; although it is true that there are not many candidates outside North Korea for this, which we do not believe will do either, Iran should be ruled out due to material impossibility and because it has enough, in its current very delicate situation, to fight for the survival of its own regime.