Tickling the Sleeping Dragon's Tail: Should We Resume Nuclear Testing?
Abstract
This report addresses the questions of whether the United States should resume nuclear testing and, if not, whether it should better prepare to do so in the future. Our goal is to provide a comprehensive and balanced consideration of all significant arguments that inform these questions. To place these arguments in the proper context, we briefly recount US nuclear testing history, describing alternative objectives for nuclear tests and providing a taxonomical retrospective of significant surprises encountered in the nuclear environment, in vulnerabilities of military systems, and in weapon performance and safety. We review as well the critical role played by Science-Based Stockpile Stewardship in lieu of testing and the concerns of its critics. We also describe the current state of nuclear test readiness and assess whether the United States can presently meet its readiness obligations. After considering all significant technical and policy arguments and counterarguments, both for and against test resumption, we conclude that under present circumstances, the United States should not resume nuclear testing because of the lack of a compelling national security need combined with potentially significant negative geopolitical consequences for nuclear proliferation and reignition of a nuclear arms race. However, we identify a series of future technical and political developments whose occurrence would require revisiting our decision calculus. We end the report with recommendations to improve test readiness and, as a final thought, place the issue of whether or not to resume nuclear testing in the context of conflicting far- and near-term US national security goals.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 10, 2021
- Accession Number
- AD1132778
Entities
People
- George Ullrich
- James Scouras
- Michael Frankel
Organizations
- Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory