Trump asks Pentagon to resume testing US nuclear weapons | Hacker News Reader

Trump asks Pentagon to resume testing US nuclear weapons

reuters.com

23 pointsJKCalhoun18 comments

Watch Kathryn Bigelow's new movie, "A House of Dynamite".

https://www.netflix.com/title/81744537

The debate is whether he watched that on AF1 or has confused nuclear propulsion cruise missiles with nuclear weapon detonations

Some more discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45755752

Isn't he the same person who wanted a Nobel peace prize few days ago?

Ironically enough the National Nuclear Safety Administration staff were furloughed this month. You might recall that hundreds of them were mistakenly fired by the expert minds at DOGE back in February.

Cheap laughs aside, we already test nuclear triggers at the National Ignition Facility. I'm pretty sure what Trump is demanding here is a return to atmospheric testing because he wants the thrill of seeing a giant explosion detonated on his orders. I doubt he'll be satisfied with an education tour of the NIF or even underground testing. He grew up seeing atmospheric tests and he's famous for being invested int he power of visual imagery as a means of communication.

Trump will probably order one to be lit off in the desert outside Vegas every Fourth of July, and charge admission based on how close to ground zero the viewer wants to get.

The crazy thing is, I'm not sure that's such a bad idea. People are going to forget what these things do. Before long, we'll start to see people denying they ever existed, or that they work at all. That needs to not happen.

Trump stated "equal basis" — no one is conducting atmospheric tests anymore.

China hasn't conducted a nuclear test since 1996 and Russia hasn't conducted one since 1990. Equal basis with whom? North Korea?

I already explained why his desire is irrational, the NIF takes care of this.

You were wrong. The NIF doesn't simulate the entire chain of events of a successful detonation. Some experts have pushed for a resumption of American underground tests that exceed treaty yield limitations as a surety check on the new Reliable Replacement Warheads, so it's not like they are without utility.

More importantly, if China and Russia are cheating (which it appears that they are by masking their own tests that exceed treaty yield limitations) this gives the US a bargaining chip — back off and the US will, don't and we won't. That's what this is all about.

The NIF doesn't need to simulate that, unless you think the mathematics of nuclear criticality and radioactive decay are changing.

if China and Russia are cheating (which it appears that they are by masking their own tests that exceed treaty yield limitations)

I remember this idea being floated a few years ago, but the evidence was tissue thin. Perhaps the Russian activity was based on intel sources (which would understandably not be disclosed), the allegations of Chinese activity were based on construction activity that might be compatible with low yield nuclear testing. Also, I don't think the US has any standing to grumble about the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty limitations, not having ratified the treaty itself - literally a case of 'do as I say, not as I do.'

I distrust Russia in general and consider China suspect where security is concerned, but the incumbent administration in the US isn't trustworthy either.

What are the yield limitations in the treaty? My understanding is that all live-fire bomb tests regardless of yield were prohibited.

The CTBT calls for a zero nuclear yield threshold; all tests must remain subcritical. It seems likely that China (DoS 2020 report) and Russia (DoS 2022 report) have exceeded this.

Imminent meeting with Xi; seems like a good bargaining chip.

Seems clear he's calling out cheating on zero yield test thresholds with the "equal basis" language (Russia was reportedly guilty of this in 2019 IIRC). It will be interesting to see where this goes.

Trump tried to wage the same tariff war with China twice. But everyone with any knowledge of history/strategy knows you can't fight the exact same way with your adversaries twice. China adapted and now we (the US) are f'd because this administration is too dumb/uneducated/unstrategic to understand this.

Threats of nuclear war are not, in fact, 'good bargaining chip's. They were pathetic weakness when Russia did it with Ukraine, and now, sadly, when the USA does it.

Threat of nuclear war? Where?

That's clearly the signal this talk of resuming tests is meant to convey.

That's ridiculous. It's not threatening a launch, it's threatening a new arms race. The idea is to push China into stopping its abrogating behavior.

If Trump wanted to start testing unilaterally, he could just do that. There's no need for the Xi tie-in. Clearly this is meant as a foreign policy lever.

> Clearly this is meant as a foreign policy lever.

Yes. That's what I'm saying. He's adopting a threatening stance. The threat of nuclear war is literally the only message that resuming nuclear testing sends.

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