Trump has opened Pandora's box: The world on the brink of nuclear Armageddon

A few hours after U.S. President Donald Trump announced that the United States would begin nuclear testing, the Kremlin made an almost identical decision. History, it seems, is dangerously repeating itself: the atmosphere is reminiscent of the Cold War era, when the superpowers threatened to make the world vanish in the fire of nuclear Armageddon. In his trademark style, Trump reminded the public that America possesses an arsenal capable of &ldquo;destroying the Earth 150 times.&rdquo;In Moscow, this turn of events was almost welcomed. At a meeting of the Security Council of the Russian Federation on November 5, President Vladimir Putin instructed the relevant authorities to &ldquo;prepare proposals for a possible start of preparations for nuclear weapons testing.&rdquo; Although an official order for detonations has not yet been issued, Defense Minister Andrei Belousov openly stated that &ldquo;preparations for full-scale testing should begin immediately.&rdquo; The former key Soviet testing site, Novaya Zemlya, is once again being mentioned as a potential location.This Arctic archipelago, more than a thousand kilometers from Arkhangelsk and Murmansk, has never been completely abandoned. The last test was conducted in 1990, just before the collapse of the USSR &mdash; the final full-scale Soviet-Russian nuclear experiment. After that, Moscow declared a unilateral moratorium that remains in effect to this day. Although Putin has emphasized that Russia &ldquo;abides by&rdquo; the provisions of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) of 1996, the fact remains that Russia never ratified it &mdash; just like the United States and other nuclear powers.After the loss of the main Soviet testing site at Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan (where 456 of the total 715 Soviet nuclear explosions took place), Novaya Zemlya remained the only option. However, the extreme Arctic conditions make it one of the most difficult terrains for such experiments &mdash; operations are possible only from late spring to early autumn, with all supplies transported by ship and plane.According to the American outlet The War Zone, Russia would need about six months &mdash; certainly less than a year &mdash; to carry out a symbolic nuclear test, one with political but not scientific significance. A full, scientifically relevant detonation would require years of preparation and a complex network of measuring and analytical equipment. Still, for a political show of force, six months would suffice. In that case, Novaya Zemlya would once again come alive as the epicenter of a new nuclear arms race.A similar situation can be observed among other nuclear powers. China has for years quietly expanded infrastructure at its old Lop Nur testing site, located in the desert of the country&rsquo;s northwest. According to a 2023 New York Times report, satellite imagery shows intense construction activity &mdash; although Beijing denies plans to resume testing, the evidence suggests otherwise.In the United States, the situation is chaotic and contradictory. After Trump announced on social media that he was &ldquo;ordering the immediate resumption of nuclear testing,&rdquo; he repeated the statement on CBS&rsquo;s 60 Minutes. Soon after, Energy Secretary Chris Wright sought to calm the public, claiming these were &ldquo;non-nuclear explosions.&rdquo; He specifically reassured Nevada residents &mdash; who have opposed any testing activity for decades due to fears of contamination and underground detonations.If all these announcements come true, the world could soon enter a new phase of nuclear tension &mdash; one in which the three largest powers, the United States, Russia, and China, will once again test the limits of global security.

Trump has opened Pandora's box: The world on the brink of nuclear Armageddon

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