Note to Trump: Nuclear Weapons are Obsolete...And a Live with Michael McFaul
Join for a discussion on Nov. 4 at 12pm ET
It’s been four days since Donald Trump announced a change in U.S. policy to begin testing nuclear weapons “on an equal basis” with other countries, and there is still no clarity about what he meant. It’s possible that, ahead of a meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, the comment was a bid for leverage. However, the current moratorium on nuclear testing benefits the U.S.: the U.S. government conducted 1,030 tests from 1945 until 1992 and retains all of the information from these tests, while U.S. adversaries have less experience with nuclear weapons and testing would allow them to catch up on research and development.
Despite the fact that the U.S. has nothing to gain and much to lose by testing a nuclear weapon, there is another reason why testing is unnecessary: nuclear weapons have become obsolete to use in modern war.
Consider the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. Russia has the most nuclear weapons of any country in the world, and its invasion of Ukraine failed in its original goal to conquer the capital, Kyiv and overthrow the democratically-elected government there. Three-and-a-half years later, Russia remains mired in the conflict, sustaining over one million casualties. Yet, it has not used a nuclear weapon against Ukraine, and Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in 1994 in exchange for security guarantees from Russia, which Moscow broke in 2014. When Hamas launched a surprise attack against Israel on October 7, 2023, killing over 1,200 Israeli civilians, Israel did not use one of its purported nuclear weapons against Hamas.
In these conflicts, it’s hard to imagine military uses for nuclear weapons. In Ukraine, troops are decentralized and nuclear fallout would blow back on Russia. Most of Hamas’ fighters hide in tunnels deep underground, and the Gaza Strip is right next to Israel’s own territory. However, having the nuclear weapons may have helped Russia at certain points in the war: when the Biden and Trump Administrations have considered giving Ukraine more advanced weaponry, Putin and top officials increased their threats to use nuclear weapons. At the same time, it’s not clear whether these threats influenced their decision -- the U.S. has slow-walked aid with and without Russian threats.
That said, some of nuclear weapons’ obsolescence is because of the taboo against testing, which in recent years, only North Korea has broken. Were the U.S. to conduct a test, it would be a green light for other countries to resume their programs, perhaps developing uses for them in modern war.
I’m pleased to announce an upcoming Substack Live on November 4 at 12pm EST with Stanford Professor and former U.S. Ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul. He is the author of a new book, entitled Autocrats vs. Democrats: China, Russia, America, and the New Global Disorder. In the book, McFaul details the challenges of the rising Chinese and Russian autocracies and the rise of isolationism in the Western world that culminated in the election of Donald Trump. McFaul has his own Substack here.
To join the Live, just download the Substack app, enable notifications, and look for the join link on the app at 12pmET/6pm CEST. It sometimes takes a few minutes to appear and then a few minutes to go live. See you then!
