Say no to nuclear testing in Nevada

Republican President George H.W. Bush announced a unilateral moratorium on full-scale nuclear testing in 1992. Other countries soon followed, and since this century began, none except the pariah North Korea has tested nuclear weapons. The ban has meant that states with nuclear weapons have had to depend on other ways to ensure that their bombs are safe and effective.

In the United States, this work has unfolded on a firm scientific basis, depending on careful experimentation and, importantly, on modeling and simulations that have driven progress on high-speed computing in this country for the past 30 years. At the same time, the moratorium has meant that no country can surge ahead with new weapon designs — not established nuclear states such as China and Russia, nor developing nuclear states such as Pakistan and India. The nuclear brakes are on.

Now, Donald Trump’s allies are threatening to undo these achievements with a return to explosive nuclear testing. Their notorious Project 2025 calls for the United States to “Reject ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and indicate a willingness to conduct nuclear tests in response to adversary nuclear developments if necessary.”

This is a bad idea, for three reasons.

First, it undoes U.S. superiority. When Bush put the 1992 moratorium in place, the United States had done more nuclear tests — 1,054 — than anyone else. These tests supply the treasure trove of data on which our nuclear test simulations are run. We have more data than anyone else, a strong advantage that a rush of testing in other states would unravel. Instead of returning to testing, we ought to lock in this advantage by ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and bringing it into force.

Second, it pushes the accelerator on nuclear weapons development in other places. As soon as the United States moves to test, so will China, Russia, Pakistan and India — and certainly North Korea. Other countries may soon follow suit, leading to a cascade of nuclear proliferation.

Middle Eastern countries such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt have been tempted, as have even U.S. allies such as the Republic of Korea and Poland. Recently, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the European Union that absent security guarantees from the NATO alliance, Ukraine would have to consider acquiring nuclear weapons. Instead of the nine countries that now hold nuclear weapons, we could end up with 25 or more nuclear countries menacing global peace and stability.

Third, an end to the moratorium would affect the American people directly. In the 1950s and ’60s, many suffered mightily from the effects of atmospheric testing, which unfolded at the Nevada test site. Being downwind of nuclear tests brought high cancer rates and significant contamination of property, including ranchland, to communities in Nevada and Utah. The health effects remain today.

Of course, nuclear testing in the atmosphere ended 60 years ago. It is now done underground, so the downwind effects are not the same. Nevertheless, Las Vegas has expanded to the borders of the former nuclear test site in the past decades, and its economic strength has grown. Nuclear explosions under the very suburbs of the city are bound to impact land values, both commercial and residential, and skew its reputation as the global capital of entertainment. The mental and physical impacts on the inheritors of the downwinder saga likewise cannot be discounted.

The Trump team’s urge to restart nuclear testing is a bad idea, for Las Vegas, for Nevada, and for the United States of America. We need instead to redouble our efforts to maintain a safe, secure and effective arsenal through science, which the nuclear laboratory directors have certified to be the case ever since science-based stockpile stewardship began three decades ago. We need to prosecute the advantage we have with our testing data, which ensures that we stay out in front of our nuclear adversaries. This is the best way to succeed at sustaining our nuclear weapons, not by disturbing the economic health and well-being of Nevada.

Rose Gottemoeller served as U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control and international security from 2012 to 2016.