US President Donald Trump’s call to resume nuclear weapons tests sparked concerns of a new global arms race, but experts cautioned such exercises are unlikely to come to fruition.
Russia on Thursday warned it would “act accordingly” if Washington broke a more than 30-year moratorium on testing. Such a move would also fuel distrust between the US and China and heighten their nuclear arms rivalry, analysts said. But there is no scientific need to resume tests, which could take years to plan, experts told New Scientist: Powerful US supercomputers can already conduct extremely accurate simulations.
Some scholars suggested Trump may be referring to testing weapons delivery systems, not the warheads themselves.