As the US exits a key, confidence-building international treaty, a top Pentagon official has stated the US is capable of preparing a nuclear weapons test in just “months,” if necessary.
“If the president directed, because of a technical issue or a geopolitical issue, the system to go test, I think it would happen relatively rapidly,” Drew Walter, the Defense Department’s acting deputy assistant defense secretary for nuclear matters, said Tuesday at a Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies event.
He added that “a very quick test with limited diagnostics” could occur “within months.”
The US hasn’t tested a nuclear weapon since September 23, 1992, just before negotiations for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) began in 1993. The United Nations adopted the treaty in 1996, and while the US has signed the treaty, the US Senate has never ratified it, a status shared with Egypt, Israel, Iran and China. India, Pakistan and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), additional nuclear powers named in the treaty, have not signed it.
Walter noted the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which maintains the US nuclear arsenal, “has a requirement to retain the ability to resume testing on particular timelines. Reviewing those timelines for the readiness posture regularly is always prudent.”
He added that NNSA officials “maintain the capability to do all of that underground work,” which Defense One explained means they have a location suitable for an underground nuclear test. Tests went underground in the mid-1960s following a ban on atmospheric tests, which dramatically reduced the amount of radioactive particles in the atmosphere.
Walter’s comments come amid reports by the Washington Post that the Trump administration has “an ongoing conversation” about reviving nuclear tests.
Citing “a senior administration official and two former officials familiar with the deliberations,” the Post reported on May 22 that the talks between senior officials of several top national security agencies occurred on May 15. They reportedly discussed the move in light of a US State Department report published in April accusing Russia and China of secretly carrying out low-yield nuclear weapons tests.
“The United States assesses that Russia has conducted nuclear weapons-related experiments that have created nuclear yield,” the State Department said, adding that activity at China’s Lop Nur test site in the Gobi Desert gives rise to “concerns regarding its adherence to the ‘zero yield’ standard” for nuclear weapons testing.