Nuclear Weapons Stock: A Surprisingly Positive Record & Future Outlook

the post-war international order might potentially be tearing apart‍ at‍ the seams and international law is increasingly looking like a polite ⁤fiction, but we did⁢ just pass one notable milestone of ⁣global peace‍ and stability: As ‍of this month, the world has gone the longest time without a ‍nuclear explosion as the ⁤atomic era began more than 80 years ago.

The last nuclear test took place in north Korea on september 3,⁢ 2017.⁢ The previous longest period without a detonation was ⁣between May 30, 1998, when Pakistan conducted its last test, and October 9, 2006, when North Korea conducted its first. We reached the new record ‍on⁣ January 14, and are now at eight years, four months ⁤and 21 days.

Though they’ve only been⁣ used in ‍war twice since their creation in 1945,‍ Dylan Spaulding of the Union of Concerned Scientists noted in a recent blog post that‍ “at least ⁤eight countries have detonated more than 2,000 nuclear ‍weapons” over the years, all in tests. (For a⁢ mesmerizing and disturbing ⁢visualization ⁤of these nuclear tests, I recommend this time-lapse animation by ⁤the Japanese artist Isao Hashimoto, which runs to 1998.)

It’s difficult for people today to imagine just⁤ how constant nuclear detonations were in the first decades after ⁤Hiroshima. At the height of the testing era in the late 1950s and early 1960s, dozens ⁢of nuclear tests were taking place every year.‍ Most of those tests ⁤were done above ground, marked ⁢by iconic mushroom ⁤clouds.

The detonations were the visible backdrop to rising fears of a civilization-ending nuclear⁣ war, which⁤ at times seemed not just possible but inevitable. (The Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel⁢ Ellsberg, who worked for the national⁢ security think tank the Rand Corporation in the ⁤late 1950s,

Some nuclear tests, like the record-setting “Tsar Bomba” set off by the Soviet Union – a 50-megaton warhead ⁢that ‍was over 3,300 times more powerful⁣ than the⁣ bomb dropped on Hiroshima – may have been about projecting a powerful image as much as obtaining practical research data.

Those “laboratory methods” have⁣ only gotten more refined since then. When the world passed the record ⁢on January 14,I happened to be in Los Alamos reporting for a⁤ forthcoming story on how the ⁣lab that Oppenheimer built is now integrating artificial intelligence into its advanced modeling work,which includes ⁢ensuring that America’s nuclear weapons will work the way they’re supposed to in the hopefully‍ unlikely circumstance that we ever decide to use them.

But there are worrying signs that the pause on tests⁤ may not last indefinitely.⁢ In October, ‍President⁣ Donald Trump called for the US to ⁤resume nuclear testing. It’s not clear if any work ⁢has actually begun to make⁢ that⁢ happen,and it would probably be years before the US would be ⁣ready to test again,but the idea is gaining support amid a new nuclear era in which China is building up its arsenal ⁤and Russia is increasing its nuclear saber rattling. Next month, New START, the last remaining nuclear ‍arms control⁣ agreement between ⁢the United States ⁤and Russia, will lapse, and there’s little momentum toward replacing it.

Advocates, including the drafters of the conservative Heritage Foundation’s⁣ “Project 2025,”⁣ argue⁢ that⁤ a return to testing is necessary ⁣not so much for technical reasons, but as a demonstration ‍of the credibility of America’s nuclear deterrent. But in a recent essay in foreign Affairs, Siegfried Hecker, former director of Los Alamos National Laboratory,⁣ warned that “a return to testing at this time would l