The world is in a new nuclear arms race.
Depending on where you live in the United States, you may not even realize it.
After decades of decommissioning world-ending nuclear weapons, America, Russia, and China are all building new ones.
The nuclear option.© davidhills image via Getty Images.
Russia is testing new nuclear-powered cruise missiles.
China is building silos in its deserts from which to launch nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles.
They want to put Americas nuclear enterprise on a wartime footing.
© An M65 atomic cannon, a weapon the U.S. once deployed to Europe. (Photo: U.S. Army)
Joseph Cirincione has seen it all before, and hes worried.
Project 2025 is unlike anything weve ever seen, he tells me.
Cirincione is a longtime nuclear weapons expert.
Workers package an AT400 container at the Pantex Plant March, 1996 near Amarillo, TX. The Pantex Plant has dismantled about 50,000 atomic bombs since it was constructed by the US Army in 1942. (Photo by Remi Benali/Liaison)
This is the last time we had an organized conservative group calling for a nuclear arms buildup.
I was there for this.
The new nuclear bible
Project 2025 has a lot to say about nuclear weapons.
© USA, Arizona, Titan nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile in silo (Photo: Michael Dunning)
The Heritage Foundation has released several updates about nukes since its initial publication.
In March, it released adetailed planfor how to implement its policy goals.
So whats the plan?
The U.S. and Russia have gotten rid of a lot of nuclear weapons in the past few decades.
In 1987, there were 70,000 total nukes in the world.
The trend is reversing.
Republican and Democrat presidents have both removed nukes from Americas arsenal.
The U.S. used to field artillery units in Europe capable of launching a nuke, for example.
It withdrew them in 1991.
Biden, like many previous administrations, shelved a few nuclear weapons projects.
The B83 is a particularly dangerous weapon to bring back.
The gravity bomb is 80 times more powerful than the weapon America dropped on Hiroshima.
Thats just one bomb.
The U.S. doesnt need the B83.
But Project 2025 wants to keep it around.
It also wants to check that America is allowed to test its nuclear weapons again.
America tested its last nuke in 1992.
Four years later, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).
The treaty bans nuclear weapons tests and nuclear explosions for any reason, civilian or military.
Russia signed and ratified the treaty.
President Clinton signed it, but couldnt get the Senate to ratify it.
According to Squassoni, lots of American politicians have wanted to bring back nuclear testing.
She says it comes from a knee-jerk feeling of not wanting to be restricted.
They also worry about nukes.
What if nuclear weapons go bad?
What if America cant make nukes like they used to?
For the most part, these are not scientists who are saying that, she says.
America tested nukes for decades, more than any other country.
Its computer models for nuclear weapons are excellent.
It doesnt need to test more.
I think it would be a huge political mistake for the U.S. to resume testing for several reasons.
One, weve tested more than anybody else.
Russia already walked away from the treaty.
In November 2023, Putin signed a law that pulled the country out of the CTBT.
And Project 2025 absolutely points to an era of resumed nuclear testing.
Project 2025 calls for getting ready to test a nuclear weapon within six months, Cirincione says.
It would take years for the U.S. to renew the test site that we have in Nevada.
They want to test nuclear weapons.
If that happens, says Cirincione, were back.
Trumps pick to head the Department of Energy is energy executive Chris Wright.
The DOEs principal concern is nuclear weapons, but you wouldnt know that based on the coverage of Wright.
ANew York Times profileof Wright from December 12 doesnt mention nuclear weapons once.
Its mostly about how he thinks fracking, oil, and gas are virtuous.
I dont know much about him.
When Perry took the job, hefamously had no ideathat the DOE was in charge of nukes.
So what does that mean?
That means he will basically be a rubber stamp for the Project 2025 Agenda, Cirincione says.
Squassoni didnt know Wright either.
The question is whos going to run NNSA.
They want the President to make a speech on the importance of nuclear weapons.
They have specific goals for the production of new plutonium cores, he says.
Its all about the money
Cirincione has lived through all this before.
Hes seen the nuclear buildups, the calls to arms, and the destruction of arms control treaties before.
He says that this time its different.
Thats what they believed, he says.
Thats what drove the build-up.
Thats not whats happening now.
It is the justification for the contracts, not the driver of any of the programs.
And this is being done basically for money.
The new nuclear arms race is big business.
The U.S. is already set to spend trillions of dollars modernizing its nuclear arsenal.
A new nuclear arms race will make a few people very rich.
But, when it comes to nukes, there are always costs other than money.
Even the detonation of one modern nuke could have vast and horrifying consequences for the environment.
New nuclear tests would generate new nuclear waste.
Nuclear material from the Manhattan Project is still killing people in 2024.
Project 2025 calls on the incoming administration to deal with this problem, but its light on details.
The defense industry has over 770 lobbyists In Washington lobbying for defense contracts.
They shower the committees in political contributions.
He says that the defense contractors learned from Big Oil and how it handled climate change.
You just start funding your own studies that downplay the climate crisis.
The reality of nuclear weapons is that the U.S. president has sole authority to use them.
On January 20, the person is going to be Donald Trump.
The pages of Project 2025 constitute a recipe for a nuclear arms race, Squassoni says.
China and Russia are both building up their nuclear stockpiles.
Its an Obama-era policy, one Trump isnt likely to pursue.
Putin also isnt interested.
Were in the middle of a crisis, one that calls for cool heads and diplomacy.
The world isnt safer with more nuclear weapons in it.
Its very much: Were going to get out of this security dilemma by just building up.
News from the future, delivered to your present.
