While there is no evidence to suggest that Russia, the US or China is preparing for an imminent nuclear test, the images, obtained and provided by a prominent analyst in military nonproliferation studies, illustrate recent expansions at three nuclear test sites compared with just a few years ago. <\/p>\n
One is operated by China in the far western region of Xinjiang, one by Russia in an Arctic Ocean archipelago, and another in the US in the Nevada desert. <\/p>\n
The satellite images from the past three to five years show <\/strong>new tunnels under mountains, new roads and storage facilities, as well as increased vehicle traffic coming <\/strong>in and out of the sites, said Jeffrey Lewis, an adjunct professor at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. <\/p>\n \u201cThere are really a lot of hints that we\u2019re seeing that suggest Russia, China and the United States might resume nuclear testing,\u201d he said, something none of those countries have done since underground nuclear testing was banned by the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. China and the US signed the treaty, but they haven\u2019t ratified it. <\/p>\n Retired US Air Force Col. Cedric Leighton, a former intelligence analyst, reviewed the images of the three powers\u2019 nuclear sites and came to a <\/strong>similar conclusion. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s very clear that all three countries, Russia, China and the United States have invested a great deal of time, effort and money in not only modernizing their nuclear arsenals, but also in preparing the types of activities that would be required for a test,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n Moscow has ratified the treaty, but Russian President Vladimir Putin said <\/strong>in February he would order a test, if the US moves first, adding that \u201cno one should have dangerous illusions that global strategic parity can be destroyed.\u201d <\/p>\n The expansions risk sparking a race to modernize nuclear weapons testing infrastructure at a time of deep mistrust between Washington and the two authoritarian governments, analysts said, though the idea of actual armed conflict is not considered imminent. <\/p>\n \u201cThe threat from nuclear testing is from the degree to which it accelerates the growing arms race between the United States on one hand, and Russia and China on the other,\u201d Lewis said. \u201cThe consequences of that are that we spend vast sums of money, even though we don\u2019t get any safer.\u201d <\/p>\n Lewis\u2019 comments came after a prominent nuclear watchdog group, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, earlier this year set its iconic Doomsday Clock, a measure of how close the world is to self-destruction, to 90 seconds to midnight, the clock\u2019s <\/strong>most precarious setting since its inception in 1947. <\/p>\n The group cited the war in Ukraine, sparked by Russia\u2019s illegal invasion of its neighbor in February 2022, as main reason for its sobering assessment. <\/p>\n \u201cRussia\u2019s thinly veiled threats to use nuclear weapons remind the world that escalation of the conflict \u2013 by accident, intention, or miscalculation \u2013 is a terrible risk. The possibility that the conflict could spin out of anyone\u2019s control remains high,\u201d the group said. <\/p>\n In other words, the Doomsday Clock today signals a higher risk of the end of humankind than in 1953, when both the United States and the Soviet Union conducted dramatic above-ground tests of nuclear weapons. <\/p>\n Last month United Nations Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres issued a fresh appeal for key countries to ratify the international treaty that bans experiments for both peaceful and military purposes <\/p>\n \u201cThis year, we face an alarming rise in global mistrust and division,\u201d Guterres said. \u201cAt a time in which nearly 13,000 nuclear weapons are stockpiled around the world \u2014 and countries are working to improve their accuracy, reach and destructive power \u2014 this is a recipe for annihilation.\u201d <\/p>\n Lewis pointed out that the unexpectedly poor performance of the Russian military in Ukraine could be part of the impetus for Moscow to consider resuming nuclear tests. <\/p>\n Dmitry Medvedev, a hawkish backer of Putin and the current deputy chairman of Russia\u2019s Security Council, has vowed Moscow \u201cwould have to use nuclear weapons\u201d if the Ukraine counteroffensive became successful. Medvedev\u2019s bellicose rhetoric has raised eyebrows, but Putin is Russia\u2019s key decision-maker, and widely seen as the real power behind the throne during Medvedev\u2019s four-year presidency. <\/p>\n Belarus, which has played a key role in Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine, has also received tactical nuclear weapons from Moscow, President Alexander Lukashenko said in August. He added that Minsk would be willing to use them in the face of foreign \u201caggression.\u201d <\/p>\n Even as the Russian military was invading Ukraine last year, analysts have also seen an expansion of the country\u2019s nuclear test site in Novaya Zemlya in the Arctic Ocean archipelago. <\/strong> <\/p>\n In mid-August, the facility received renewed focus when Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu paid a visit, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. <\/strong> <\/p>\n The Novaya Zemlya site was first used by the Soviet Union to conduct nuclear tests in 1955 until the USSR\u2019s final underground explosion in 1990. During that time, the site saw a total of 130 tests involving more than 200 devices, according to a review published in the Science and Global Security journal. <\/p>\n \u201cThe Russian test site is now open year round, we see them clearing snow off roads, we see them building new facilities.\u201d Lewis said. <\/p>\n Near those facilities are tunnels where Russia has tested in past, Lewis said. \u201cIn the past five or six years, we\u2019ve seen Russia dig new tunnels, which suggests that they are prepared to resume nuclear testing,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n \u201cThe Russians may be trying to go right up to the line by making all the preparations for a nuclear test, but not actually carrying one out. In essence, they\u2019d be doing this to \u2018scare\u2019 the West,\u201d Leighton said. <\/p>\n Increased activity was also detected at the Chinese nuclear test site in Lop Nur, a dried up salt lake between two deserts in the sparsely populated western China. <\/p>\n Satellite images show a new, fifth underground tunnel has been under excavation in recent years, and fresh roads have been built. A comparison of the images taken in 2022 and 2023 shows the spoil pile has been steadily increasing in size, leading analysts to believe tunnels are being expanded, Lewis said. <\/p>\n In addition, the main administration and support area has seen new construction projects. A new storage area was built in 2021 and 2022, which could be used for storing explosives, he added. <\/p>\n \u201cThe Chinese test site is different than the Russian test site,\u201d Lewis said. \u201cThe Chinese test site is vast, and there are many different parts of it.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201c(It) looks really busy, and these things are easily seen in satellite imagery. If we can see them, I think the US government certainly can,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n Increased activity at Lop Nur was also noted in an April report by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation\u2019s China Observer project, a group of China experts in Japan. <\/p>\n After an analysis of satellite photos of the Lop Nur site, the group concluded that China\u2019s \u201cpossible goal is to conduct subcritical nuclear tests.\u201d <\/p>\n It found a possible sixth testing tunnel under construction at Lop Nur, saying \u201cthe fact that a very long tunnel has been dug along the mountain\u2019s terrain with bends on the way indicates that the construction of the test site is in its final phase.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cSince the announcement of suspending nuclear tests in 1996, the Chinese side has consistently respected this promise and worked hard in defending the international consensus on prohibiting nuclear testing,\u201d it said. <\/p>\n It added that the international world should have \u201chigh vigilance\u201d about the United States\u2019 activities in nuclear testing. <\/p>\n The US <\/strong>releases an unclassified version of the Nuclear Posture Review every few years, which provides an overview of the role of nuclear weapons in its security strategy. <\/p>\n The most recent report, released in October last year, said that Washington would only consider using nuclear weapons in \u201cextreme circumstances.\u201d However, it also stated that the US does not adopt a \u201cno first use policy\u201d because it would result in an \u201cunacceptable level of risk\u201d to its security. <\/p>\n The US conducted its last underground test in 1992, but Lewis said the US has long been keeping itself in a state of readiness for a nuclear test, ready to react if one of its rivals moves first. <\/p>\n \u201cThe United States has a policy of being prepared to conduct a nuclear test on relatively short notice, about six months,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n The commercial satellite imagery, taken above the nuclear test site in Nevada, officially known as the Nevada National Security Site, shows that an underground facility \u2013 the U1a complex \u2013 was expanded greatly between 2018 and 2023. <\/p>\n The National Security Administration (NNSA), an arm of the US Department of Energy that oversees the site, says the laboratory is for conducting \u201csubcritical\u201d nuclear experiments, a longstanding practice meant to ensure the reliability of weapons in the current stockpile without full-scale testing. <\/p>\n \u201cIn subcritical experiments, chemical high explosives generate high pressures, which are applied to nuclear weapon materials, such as plutonium. The configuration and quantities of explosives and nuclear materials are such that no nuclear explosion will occur,\u201d the NNSA\u2019s website says. <\/p>\n \u201c(This) will provide modern diagnostic capabilities and data to help maintain the safety and performance of the US nuclear stockpile without further underground nuclear explosive testing,\u201d the spokesman added. <\/p>\n A report from the US Governmental Accountability Office (GAO) released in August says the US will build two measurement devices at the Nevada site to \u201cmake new measurements of plutonium during subcritical experiments.\u201d <\/p>\n The devices and related infrastructure improvements, needed \u201cto inform plans for modernizing the nuclear weapons stockpile\u201d will cost about $2.5 billion to $2.6 billion and be ready by 2030, according to the GAO report. <\/p>\n However, the expansion of facilities at the Nevada test site could fuel fears in Moscow and Beijing that Washington may be preparing for a nuclear test \u2013 because while both countries could see the development from satellite images, they lack the ability to independently verify what\u2019s going on inside, Lewis said. <\/p>\n And such perceptions can become dangerous, especially in the current era with fear and lack of trust on all sides, he said. <\/p>\n \u201cThe danger is even if all three start by only planning to go second, one of them might talk themselves into the importance of going first, one of them might decide that since everybody else is doing it, it\u2019s better to get the jump and really get going.\u201d <\/p>\n If they do, the world would know \u2013 any major underground blast is likely to be detected by the International Monitoring System (IMS), a network of 337 facilities that monitors the planet for signs of nuclear explosions. <\/p>\n Hans Kristensen, the director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, agreed there is a real danger of testing escalation should one of the major powers do so. <\/p>\n \u201cThe minute one of the major nuclear powers pops a nuclear weapon somewhere, you know, all bets are off, because there\u2019s no doubt that everyone will join that business again,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n In a recent yearbook on world nuclear forces, co-authored by Kristensen and published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) in June, analysts concluded that all of the world\u2019s nuclear powers \u2013 which also included the United Kingdom, France, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel \u2013 have continued to \u201cmodernize their nuclear arsenals\u201d last year. <\/p>\n Russia, for instance, announced on September 1 that its new Sarmat or \u201cSatan II\u201d intercontinental ballistic missile is operational. The Sarmat could carry 10 and possibly more independently targeted nuclear warheads with a range of up to 18,000 kilometers (or about 11,185 miles), according to the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. <\/p>\n The US is also building new delivery systems for nuclear warheads like the B-21 stealth bomber and Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine. As part of the upgrade, nuclear storage sites will also be added to US Air Force bases in Ellsworth and Dyess, Kristensen wrote in a report in the Federation of American Scientists in 2020. <\/p>\n The SIPRI report said that Russia and the US currently possess about 90% of all nuclear weapons in the world, with the US estimated to have more than 3,700 warheads stockpiled, and Russia having about 4,500. Both countries keep their strategic nuclear arsenals on \u201chair-trigger\u201d alert, meaning that nuclear weapons can be launched on short notice. <\/p>\n China\u2019s nuclear arsenal has increased from 350 warheads in January 2022 to 410 in January 2023. <\/p>\n In the past, China did not marry up warheads with delivery systems, keeping their nuclear forces on a \u201clow-alert\u201d status. But the Arms Control Association (ACA) NGO said this year the PLA now rotates missile battalions from stand-by to ready-to-launch status monthly. <\/p>\n Fiona Cunningham, a nonresident scholar in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote in the ACA\u2019s monthly journal in August that Beijing\u2019s nuclear stance is hard to discern. <\/p>\n \u201cThe increasing size, accuracy, readiness, and diversity of China\u2019s arsenal bolsters the credibility of the country\u2019s ability to threaten retaliation for a nuclear strike and enables China to make more credible threats to use nuclear weapons first,\u201d she wrote. <\/p>\n Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, agreed, writing in the organization\u2019s September newsletter that \u201cChina, Russia, and the United States continue to engage in weapons-related activities at their former nuclear testing sites.\u201d <\/p>\n But Kimball noted that without a real test, \u201cit is more difficult, although not impossible, for states to develop, prove, and field new warhead designs.\u201d <\/p>\n But if all three countries have suspended nuclear testing since the 1990s, what could they gain from the resumption of these tests? <\/p>\n Lewis said a reason to test, especially for China, is to get more up-to-date data for computer models that show what a nuclear explosion will do. Because while the United States and Russia have conducted hundreds of tests, China has only done around 40 and has significantly fewer data points. <\/p>\n \u201cThose 40 tests were done in the 1960s, in the 1970s, in the 1980s, when their technology wasn\u2019t that high. The data that you have is not that good,\u201d Lewis said. <\/p>\n Others point out that the big powers have not tested low-yield nuclear weapons, which produce a smaller nuclear explosion that might be targeted on a specific battlefield unit or formation, rather than destroying a major city. <\/p>\n In a 2022 report for the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Baltimore, researchers Michael Frankel, James Scouras and George Ullrich suggest that the US might hesitate to retaliate for a Russian low-yield attack because it has not tested the types of weapons it would need to use. <\/p>\n \u201cWhile the United States now has several lower-yield weapons in its arsenal, they are insufficient in quantity and diversity of delivery systems,\u201d their report, titled \u201cTickling the Sleeping Dragon\u2019s Tail,\u201d says. <\/p>\n In particular, the report says, smaller nukes, with yields lower than a kiloton (for comparison, the atomic bomb the US dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945 had a yield of about 15 kilotons) that can be delivered by aircraft or ships have been proposed a deterrent to Russian nuclear threats. <\/p>\n \u201cSuch weapons are unlikely to be available absent testing,\u201d the report says. <\/p>\n The United States, the world\u2019s first nuclear power, has conducted 1,032 tests, the first coming in 1945 and the last coming in 1992, according to the United Nations\u2019 data. The Soviet Union \u2013 now Russia \u2013 conducted 715 between 1949 and 1990, and China has tested 45 times between 1964 and 1996. <\/p>\n Lewis believed an urge for the US, Russia and China to be the first to develop \u201cexotic\u201d weapons of the future also instills a need for nuclear testing of those possible systemsl. <\/p>\n Some of these may soon be in the Russian arsenal, as Putin has boasted about weapons like an nuclear-armed doomsday torpedo and a nuclear-powered cruise missile. <\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re on the verge of this kind of science fiction future where we are resurrecting all of these terrible ideas from the Cold War,\u201d Lewis said. <\/p>\n\n While there is no evidence to suggest that Russia, the US or China is preparing for an imminent nuclear test, the images, obtained and provided by a prominent analyst in military nonproliferation studies, illustrate recent expansions at three nuclear test sites compared with just a few years ago. One is operated by China in the <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":9049,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9048","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} Nuclear threats<\/h2>\n
Russia and China<\/h2>\n
Activity in Nevada\u2019s desert<\/h2>\n
Continued modernization<\/h2>\n
What\u2019s the point of more tests?<\/h2>\n