President Trump Is Correct About Adversary Nuclear Testing

Mark B. Schneider, President Trump Is Correct About Adversary Nuclear Testing, No. 645, December 3, 2025

Dr. Mark B. Schneider
Dr. Mark Schneider is a Senior Analyst with the National Institute for Public Policy. Dr. Schneider previously served in DoD as Principal Director for Forces Policy, Principal Director for Strategic Defense, Space and Verification Policy, Director for Strategic Arms Control Policy and Representative of the Secretary of Defense to the Nuclear Arms Control Implementation Commission. He also served in the senior Foreign Service as a Member of the State Department Policy Planning Staff.

In October 2025, President Donald Trump stated that, “Because of other countries’ testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis. That process will begin immediately.”[1] Vice President J.D. Vance said, “We have a big arsenal. Obviously, the Russians have a large nuclear arsenal. The Chinese have a large nuclear arsenal. Sometimes you need to test it to make sure it’s functioning and working properly.”[2] Soon after, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said that nuclear weapons are “…the baseline of our deterrence, and so having understanding and resuming testing is a pretty responsible, very responsible, way to do that.”[3]

Predictably, some of the bureaucracy tried to walk back the President’s decision. For example, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright stated that, “I think the tests we’re talking about right now are system tests. These are not nuclear explosions. These are what we call non-critical explosions.”[4]  Secretary Wright is a highly competent engineer/businessman but not a policy expert and obviously was using material prepared by the Department of Energy (DOE) bureaucracy. This clearly was intentional on the part of the bureaucracy.  However, Wright’s statement is inconsistent with what the President said and with the additional associated comments by Vance and Hegseth.  Vance’s statement includes the words “resuming testing,” which is what the United States has not done for decades.  It is clear the President was talking about yield-producing nuclear tests.  This statement was followed by a recitation of Biden Administration talking points opposing nuclear testing. This obviously was intentional.

The press coverage on this subject has been so biased that, following the President’s announcement, the Director of Central Intelligence John Ratcliffe had to state that Russia and China have conducted yield-producing explosive nuclear tests. According to Senator Tom Cotton, Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, “After consultations with Director Ratcliffe and his team, they have confirmed to me that the CIA assesses that both Russia and China have conducted super-critical nuclear weapons tests in excess of the U.S. zero-yield standard. These tests are not historic and are part of their nuclear modernization programs.”[6]

This author could not find a single press report that mentioned the easily accessible Department of State’s findings that Russia, and possibly China, have engaged in explosive nuclear testing. Instead, they featured the usual coterie of left of center “experts” (nuclear minimum deterrence advocates and arms control enthusiasts) who wrongly assert that there has been no such Russian testing as they continue to oppose any U.S. response to Russian arms control violations.

To be fair to the press, the State Department arms control bureaucracy, while making these legally mandated reports public, gives them no publicity. However, this is not an excuse for lack of research and biased reporting.

In May 2019, Lieutenant General Robert P. Ashley, Jr., then-Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, in an important speech at the Hudson Institute, stated:

Russia’s development of new warhead designs and overall stockpile management efforts have been enhanced by its approach to nuclear testing. The United States believes that Russia probably is not adhering to its nuclear testing moratorium in a manner consistent with the “zero-yield” standard.

Our understanding of nuclear weapon development leads us to believe Russia’s testing activities would help it to improve its nuclear weapons capabilities. The United States, by contrast, has forgone such benefits by upholding a “zero-yield” standard.[7]

In 2020, the Department of State, in its annual report on arms control noncompliance, concluded:

The United States assesses that Russia has conducted nuclear weapons-related experiments that have created nuclear yield. The United States does not know how many, if any, supercritical or self-sustaining nuclear experiments Russia conducted in 2019. Russia may be testing in a manner that releases nuclear energy from an explosive canister, which raises compliance concerns with Russia’s TTBT [Threshold Test Ban Treaty] notification obligation.[8]

The Biden Administration reached the same conclusion. Its 2022 State Department report on arms control noncompliance stated:

Despite Russia renewing its nuclear testing moratorium in 1996, some of its activities since 1996 have demonstrated a failure to adhere to the zero-yield standard, which would prohibit supercritical nuclear tests.

Additional information is provided in higher classification Annex….

Concerns remain about the nature of Russia’s testing practices and its adherence to its moratorium, reaffirmed in 1996, when judged against the “zero-yield” standard. The United States assesses Russia’s nuclear weapons-related tests or experiments have helped improve aspects of its nuclear weapons designs and capabilities and overall stockpile regardless of whether tests or experiments are consistent with the “zero-yield” standard.[9]

Through the end of the Biden Administration the State Department’s arms control noncompliance reports (quietly) voiced concern about Russian nuclear testing. The 2024 report stated, “Due to the lack of transparency with regard to their respective nuclear testing activities and previously identified adherence issues, the United States remains concerned about the PRC’s and Russia’s adherence to their respective moratoria.”[10]

Both the first Trump and Biden Administrations’ State Department arms control noncompliance reports raised concerns about Chinese nuclear testing.[11] The 2020 report stated, “China has frequently blocked the flow of data from its IMS [International Monitoring Systems] stations” for periods up to a year.[12]

Covert Russian and Chinese nuclear testing is potentially very significant. The late Dr. C. Paul Robinson, then-Director of the Sandia National Laboratory, cautioned in his Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) ratification testimony that, “If the United States scrupulously restricts itself to zero yield while other nations may conduct experiments up to the threshold of international detectability, we will be at an intolerable disadvantage.”[13] Reportedly, “…testing under a 500 ton yield limit would allow studies of boost gas ignition and initial burn, which is a critical step in achieving full primary design yield.”[14] Failure to achieve this can result in nuclear weapons being duds. According to Siegfried Hecker, former Director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, “[M]ost [new nuclear weapons] designs could be adequately tested at yields between one and ten kilotons.”[15] Combining decoupling (testing in a cavity from which the air has been pumped out) and testing in salt mines away from the known test site in high seismic areas, and a combination of both, could conceal from Western sensors nuclear tests in the 1-10 kiloton range.[16]

As the State Department arms control compliance reports indicate, all of the available evidence is not in open sources. It is very difficult to collect information about covert nuclear testing. Despite this, there is extensive open source evidence that Russia and China have been covertly conducting low-yield nuclear tests and that this did not start in 2019. The State Department’s meekly expressed concern in this regard appears to be about 20 years too late.

During the 1990s, Russia’s Atomic Energy Minister, the late Dr. Viktor Mikhaylov, was quite open about Russia conducting very low-yield nuclear tests (hydronuclear tests). On April 23, 1999, he stated that Russia would conduct “so-called test-site hydronuclear experiments, where there is practically no release of nuclear energy,” and on April 29, 1999 he stated that, “…developed traditional nuclear powers can use hydronuclear experiments to perform tasks of improving reliability of their nuclear arsenal and effectively steward its operation.”[17] (Emphases added.) A 2000 book by Russian nuclear weapons designers, including V.A. Logachev, revealed that, “Since 1994, numerous additional hydrodynamic and hydronuclear experiments have been successfully carried out at NZTS [Russia’s Novaya Zemlya Test Site].”[18] (Emphasis added.)

Reportedly, “In November 2003, during an event at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Georgy Rykovanov, then-Director of the Russian nuclear weapons laboratory at Chelyabinsk, explained to his hosts that hydronuclear experiments were being conducted in Russia, but at a yield sufficiently low to make them undetectable.”[19] This should have been an eye-opening statement, but seems to have generated scant attention.

A declassified Clinton-era Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) document states that Dr. Mikhaylov was trying to legitimize hydronuclear tests under the CTBT.[20] In 1999, when Russia made public its new military strategy, which openly allowed for the first use of nuclear weapons, there was a Russian press report that President Boris Yeltsin authorized conducting “hydronuclear field experiments.”[21] In July 2001, Dr. Mikhaylov reiterated that “. . . the developed, traditional nuclear powers, using hydronuclear experiments, can perform the task of improving reliability of the nuclear arsenal and effectively track its operation while reducing the risk of [a] possible accident.”[22]

There are press reports which indicate that Russia has been conducting nuclear tests since the 1990s.[23] Then-Deputy Assistant to the Secretary of Defense, Nuclear Treaty Programs Dr. Ralph Alewine stated that, “We do have information that a seismic event with explosive characteristics occurred in the vicinity of the Russian nuclear test range at Novaya Zemlya on August 16 [1997].”[24] In a March 2001 New York Times article, William J. Broad and Patrick E. Tyler reported, “Some [in the intelligence community] have concluded that Russia is lying and is instead detonating small nuclear blasts….”[25] In May 2002, The New York Times again reported that some CIA intelligence analysts were saying, “Russia may already have detonated tiny nuclear devices.”[26]

Such low-yield testing appears not to be extraordinary for Moscow.  In January 2011, Russian Major General (Ret.) Vladimir Belous, then a research associate at the World Economics and International Relations Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, wrote that, “Back before the signing of the CTBT in 1994-1995, a series of hydronuclear tests with a total yield of 10 kilograms of TNT were performed at the Novaya Zemlya test site.”[27]  In November 2010, writing in Russian state media, Alexéi Fenenko of the Russian National Academy of Scientists said, “Over the past 15 years, significant progress has been made in subcritical and hydronuclear testing.”[28]

There are declassified but highly redacted CIA reports from the late 1990s that discussed Russian hydronuclear testing. One of them observed that, “Authorities including First Deputy Minister for Atomic Energy Mikhaylov have said Russia is looking at a range of techniques—including hydronuclear experiments—that they say would allow them to continue warhead design and maintenance research within the limits of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.”[29] Another declassified CIA report said that Mikhaylov had published an article “justifying” hydronuclear tests for the purpose of weapons safety and the development of new types of nuclear weapons, noting that hydronuclear experiments “are far more useful for Russian weapons development” than subcritical tests.[30] A third declassified CIA report noted that, in response to a Western press report of a covert Russian nuclear test, the Russian “Ministry of Atomic Energy claimed no knowledge of a nuclear test, but declared that adherence to the moratorium was the prerogative of the Russian President.”[31] Notably, there was no clear Russian denial.

While the bottom line judgments were redacted from the CIA reports that were made public, it is clear that these reports were not written on non-existent issues. Statements by Mikhaylov about hydronuclear testing were brought up by Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL) during the CTBT ratification hearings.[32] The CTBT, which sought to ban all nuclear tests, was defeated by a majority vote in the U.S. Senate.[33]

Russian violation of treaty limits on testing appears to be the norm.  “Boris Litvinov, the chief weapons designer for 31 years” at Russia’s Chelyabinsk-70 nuclear weapons laboratory, reportedly told Siegfred Hecker, “We didn’t bury it [the hydronuclear device] the way you guys did. We did [tests] out on the surface. We dug a little trench. We put our experiments in there. And we just blew it up. Then we took bulldozers and bulldozed that over, and we took care of it. We thought, who is ever going to go out there?’”[34] This was a clear violation of the 1963 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty which prohibited all atmospheric nuclear tests, even those of very low-yield.

The 2002 study by the National Academy of Sciences on the CTBT verification concluded:

At the lower end of the very-low-yield category, Russia could develop and test new very-low-yield tactical weapons in the range of 10 to 100 tons. With respect to seismic detection, the 10-ton weapon could confidently be adequately tested under decoupling conditions even at Novaya Zemlya [Russia’s nuclear test site], and might even be tested in a steel or composite containment so that it would give no ground shock at all. Indeed, with its experience in testing and weapons design, Russia could develop a 10-ton nuclear weapon using only hydronuclear tests in the kilogram-yield range, and be reasonably confident of its performance.[35]

In January 2016, the late Dr. John Foster Jr., the greatest U.S. nuclear weapons designer and former Director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, stated that hydronuclear tests “of less than one ton” yield can provide high confidence in the “performance [of nuclear weapons] at low yield.”[36] This is very important because the internal Russian definition of a nuclear test is apparently a yield of one metric ton of TNT or more.[37]

There are reports of Russia developing new types of nuclear weapons.[38] Of particular significance are a number of Russian press reports indicating that Russia had developed a new warhead with a weight of 100-kg and a yield of about 100-kt.[39] This warhead was apparently a new design intended for the Bulava-30 SLBM and the Yars ICBM. According to Russian expatriate Pavel Podvig, an expert on Russian strategic forces, the warhead for the new Bulava-30 SLBM is better than the best Soviet-era designs, which he says were in “the 110-130-kg range (this includes reentry vehicle body and electronics) and [had] yields of 50 and 75 kt. respectively.”[40] However, Podvig’s claim that this increase in yield-to-weight ratios is easy to do without testing is simply not true. Substantial improvements in warhead yield-to-weight ratios require nuclear testing. Otherwise, the risk of failures, including duds, is too great.[41]

In addition to covert nuclear testing by Russia and China, since the end of U.S. nuclear testing in 1992, there were overt Chinese nuclear tests until 1996 and overt nuclear testing by India, Pakistan and North Korea, including the development of thermonuclear weapons. Pakistani nuclear weapons scientist A.Q. Khan proliferated detailed design information about a Chinese nuclear bomb.

Then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates warned in October 2008 that, “To be blunt, there is absolutely no way we can maintain a credible deterrent and reduce the number of weapons in our stockpile without either resorting to testing our stockpile or pursuing a modernization program.”[42] (Emphasis in the original.) We have done neither. By 2003-2005, reportedly there was a consensus in the national laboratories that it would “…be increasingly difficult and risky to attempt to replicate existing warheads without nuclear testing and that creating a reliable replacement warhead should be explored.”[43]

In 2024, Pranay Vaddi, then-Special Assistant to President Biden and Senior Director for Arms Control, Disarmament, and Nonproliferation at the National Security Council, observed that, “Russia, the PRC and North Korea are all expanding and diversifying their nuclear arsenals at a breakneck pace—showing little or no interest in arms control.”[44]

As the late Vice Admiral Robert Monroe, former Director of the Defense Nuclear Agency, noted, “…two respected Los Alamos nuclear experts, raise serious questions about the reliability and performance of U.S. nuclear weapons!”[45] These individuals, John C. Hopkins and David H. Sharp, concluded that “…the scientific foundation for assessments of the nuclear performance of US weapons is eroding as a result of the moratorium on nuclear testing.”[46]

President Trump’s order of resumed U.S. nuclear testing is a needed and timely decision. Within a decade or two without further nuclear testing, while our adversaries test, there may otherwise be a U.S. national security disaster which could result in the loss of a leg of the Triad through fielding of a nuclear dud. There will be increasing uncertainty concerning the effectiveness of a declining U.S. nuclear deterrent while Russia and China will have much less uncertainty regarding their own nuclear capabilities.[47] This is a recipe for deterrence failure.  Continued unilateral adherence to a nuclear testing moratorium is bad policy; it is expensive and dangerous, and undermines a U.S. national security policy based on “ peace through strength.”

This article appeared originally at National Institute for Public Policy (NIPP).

Notes:

[1] Donald J. Trump, Trump’s Truth, October 2, 2025, https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115460423936412555.

[2] Roman Kohanets, “US Wants to Ensure Its Nuclear Arsenal ‘Works Properly,’ Says Vice President Vance,” United24media.com, October 31, 2025, https://united24media.com/latest-news/us-wants-to-ensure-its-nuclear-arsenal-works-properly-says-vice-president-vance-12989.

[3] Bill Gertz, “Hegseth: Nuclear tests bolster credible strategic deterrence, lower risk of nuclear conflict,” The Washington Times, October 31, 2025, https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2025/oct/31/pete-hegseth-nuclear-tests-bolster-credible-strategic-deterrence/.

[4] Morgan Phillips, “Energy secretary reveals how US nuclear tests will work,” Fox News, November 3, 2025, https://www.foxnews.com/politics/energy-secretary-reveals-how-us-nuclear-tests-work.

[5] William J. Perry and James R. Schlesinger, America’s Strategic Posture – The Final Report of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Institute of Peace, 2009), p. 83, http://media.usip.org/reports/strat_posture_report.pdf.

[6] Victor Nava, “CIA director, Senate intel chairman say Trump ‘is right’ about secret Russian and Chinese nuclear tests,” The New York Post, November 3, 2025, https://nypost.com/2025/11/03/us-news/cia-director-senate-intel-chairman-say-trump-is-right-about-russian-and-chinese-nuclear-tests/.

[7] Lt. Gen. Robert P. Ashley, Jr., Director Defense Intelligence Agency, “Russian and Chinese Nuclear Modernization Trends, Remarks at the Hudson Institute 29 May 2019,” https://www.dia.mil/News/Speeches-and-Testimonies/Article-View/Article/1859890/russian-and-chinese-nuclear-modernization-trends/.

[8] U.S. Department of State, Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments (Washington, D.C.: Department of State, June 2020), p. 46, https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/2020-Adherence-to-and-Compliance-with-Arms-Control-Nonproliferationand-Disarmament-Agreements-and-Commitments-Compliance-Report-1.pd.

[9] U.S. Department of State, Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments (Washington, D.C.: Department of State, April 2022), pp. 29-30, https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/2022-Adherence-to-and-Compliance-with-Arms-Control-Nonproliferation-and-Disarmament-Agreements-and-Commitments-1.pdf.

[10] U.S. Department of State, Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments (Washington, D.C.: Department of State, April 2024), p. 18, https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/2024-Arms-Control-Treaty-Compliance-Report.pdf.

[11] Ibid., pp. 28-29; and, U.S. Department of State, Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments, 2020, op. cit., pp. 49-50.

[12] U.S. Department of State, Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments, 2020, op. cit., p. 50.

[13] “Statement of C. Paul Robinson, Director Sandia National Laboratories United States Senate Committee on Armed Services October 7, 1999,” p. 9, http://armed-services.senate.gov/statemnt/1999/991007pr.pdf.

[14] Sidney Drell, “Nuclear Testing Summary and Conclusions,” JASON Nuclear Testing Study, JSR-95-320, August 3, 1995, https://rlg.fas.org/jsr-95-320.htm.

[15] Baker Spring and Michaela Dodge, “Keeping Nuclear Testing on the Table: A National Security Imperative” (Washington D.C.: Heritage Foundation, February 27, 2013), https://www.heritage.org/arms-control/report/keeping-nuclear-testing-the-table-national-security-imperative.

[16] Mark B. Schneider, The Case for Resumed Nuclear Testing (Fairfax, VA: National Institute for Public Policy, 2025), pp. 30-31, https://nipp.org/papers/the-case-for-resumed-nuclear-testing/.

[17] Quoted in Mark  B. Schneider, “The Future of the U.S. Nuclear Deterrent,” Comparative Strategy, July 1, 2008, p. 349, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01495930802358539.

[18] Quoted in Vitaly I. Khalturin, Tatyana G. Rautian, Paul G. Richards, and William S. Leith, “A Review of Nuclear Testing by the Soviet Union at Novaya Zemlya, 1955–1990,” Science and Global Security, Vol. 13 (2005), p. 28, http://www.princeton.edu/∼globsec/publications/pdf/131-2khalturin%20NZ%201-42%20.pdf.

[19] Ibid., p. 16.

[20] Director of Central Intelligence, “Russia: Mikhaylov Pressing for Hydronuclear Experiments,” “Security Council Adopts Nuclear Weapons Plans,” and “Concern About Ability to Test,” Senior Executive Intelligence Brief, May 4, 1999, https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB200/19990504.pdf.

[21] Quoted in Mark B. Schneider, The Nuclear Forces and Doctrine of the Russian Federation (Fairfax, VA: National Institute Press, 2006), p. 18, http://www.nipp.org/wpcontent/uploads/2014/12/Russian-nuclear-doctrine-NSF-for-print.pdf.

[22] Quoted in Schneider, “The Future of the U.S. Nuclear Deterrent,” op. cit., p. 349.

[23] Mark B. Schneider, “Russian Violations of Its Arms Control Obligations,” Comparative Strategy, September 22, 2012, pp. 345-346, http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01495933.2012.711115?prevSearch=%255BAbs ract%253A%2Brussia*%2Bmilitary%255D&searchHistoryKey=.

[24] Bill Gertz, “Russia suspected of nuclear testing,” The Washington Times, August 28, 1997, http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/1154.htm.

[25] William J. Broad and Patrick E. Tyler, “Russian Compliance with Nuclear Test Ban Stirs U.S. Skepticism,” The New York Times, March 4, 2001, http://nucnews.net/nucnews/2001nn/0103nn/010304nn.htm; and, Alexéi Fenenko, “Russia and the future of the CTBT,” Ria Novosti, November 3, 2010, http://en.rian.ru/valdai op/20101103/161192733.html.

[26] Thom Shanker, “Administration Says Russia Is Preparing Nuclear Tests,” The New York Times, May 22, 2002, http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE0D81639F931A25756C0A9649C8B63.

[27] “Russia: Prospects Unclear for Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty,” Russian and Miscellaneous Documents (provided by World News Connection – no longer online), January 2, 2010.

[28] Alexéi Fenenko, “Russia and the future of the CTBT,” Russia Beyond the Headlines, November 3, 2010, https://www.rbth.com/articles/2010/11/03/russia_and_the_future_of_the_ctbt04851.

[29] “Russia: Mikhaylov Pressing for Hydronuclear Experiments,” Senior Intelligence Brief, May 4, 1999, www.gwu.edu/nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB200/19990504.pdf.

[30] Office of Russian and European Analysis, Central Intelligence Agency, “Russia: Developing New Nuclear Warheads at Novaya Zemlya,” July 2, 1999, p. 7, www.gwu.edu/nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB200 /index .htm.

[31] Office of Slavic and Eurasian Analysis, Central Intelligence Agency, “Russians Deny Nuclear Test Took Place,” The Eurasia Intelligence Weekly, March 15, 1996, http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/ NSAEBB/ NSAEBB200/19960315.pdf.

[32] Jonathan Medalia, “Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty: Issues and Arguments” (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, March 12, 2008), http://congressionalresearch.com/RL34394/ document.php.

[33] Mark B. Schneider, “Yes, the Russians Are Testing Nuclear Weapons and It Is Very Important” (Washington, D.C.: Center for Security Policy, August 14, 2019), https://centerforsecuritypolicy.org/yes-the-russians-are-testingnuclear-weapons-and-it-is-very-important/.

[34] Khalturin, Rautian, Richards, and Leith, “A Review of Nuclear Testing by the Soviet Union at Novaya Zemlya, 1955–1990,” op. cit., p. 7.

[35] Kathleen Bailey and Thomas Scheber, The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty: An Assessment of the Benefits, Costs, and Risks (Fairfax, VA: National Institute for Public Policy, 2011), p. 31, http://www.nipp.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/CTBT-3.11.11-electronic-version.pdf.

[36] Dr. John S. Foster Jr., “Future Possible Paths for the Nuclear Weapons Complex,” January 22, 2016, mimeo, p. 9.

[37] Khalturin, Rautian, Richards, and Leith, “A Review of Nuclear Testing by the Soviet Union at Novaya Zemlya, 1955-1990,” op. cit., p. 28.

[38] Schneider, “The Future of the U.S. Nuclear Deterrent,” op. cit., pp. 347-348.

[39] National Institute for Public Policy, Section II: Minimum Deterrence: Fragile Hope of a Constant and Benign Threat Environment, September 14, 2014, https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/FOID/Reading%20Room/Litigation_Release/Litigation%20Release%20-%20Section%20II%20Minimum%20Deterrence%20Fragile%20Hope.pdf.

[40] “New warheads for Russian missiles,” Voice of Russia, December 22, 2010, http://englishruvrru/2010/12/20/37280 236 html.

[41] Senator Dewey P. Bartlett, “The Consequences of a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty” (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1978), https://originalufdc.uflib.ufl.edu/AA00022237/00001; and, George H. Miller, Paul S. Brown, Carol T. Alonso, Report to Congress on Stockpile Reliability, Weapons Remanufacture, and Role of Nuclear Testing (Livermore, CA: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, October 1987), https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/6032983.

[42] Robert M. Gates, Speech at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, October 28, 2007, http://www.defenselink.mil/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=1305.

[43] Thomas Scheber, Reliable Replacement Warheads: Perspectives and Issues (Fairfax, VA: National Institute Press, 2007), p. 2; and, Thomas D’Agostino, “Presented at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars – ‘The Reliable Replacement Warhead Program,’” June 15, 2007, http://nnsa.energy.gov/news/905.htm.

[44] Pranay Vaddi, “Adapting the U.S. Approach to Arms Control and Nonproliferation to a New Era,” Arms Control Association, June 7, 2024, https://www.armscontrol.org/2024AnnualMeeting/Pranay-Vaddiremarks.

[45] Vice Admiral Robert R. Monroe, “In Alarming New Study, Nuclear Lab Scientists Question U.S. Weapons’ Performance,” Investor’s Business Daily, August 7, 2018, https://www.investors.com/politics/ commentary/u-s-nuclear-weapons-performance/.

[46] John C. Hopkins and David H. Sharp, “The Scientific Foundation for Assessing the Nuclear Performance of Weapons in the US Stockpile Is Eroding.” Issues in Science and Technology, Vol. 35, No. 2 (Winter 2018), p. 23, https://issues.org/byline/david-h-sharp/.

[47] Schneider, The Case for Resumed Nuclear Testing, op. cit., p. xxii, 16-17, 30-36.

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