Category: Nuclear Testing

Nuclear Weapons Issues & The Accelerating Arms Race: February 2026

Sophia MerynNuclear Testing, Nuclear Weapons, Plutonium Pit Production, Trump Administration

American imperialism:

Recommended listening: Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Davos speech at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnE2HTfDivQ

Talking about Trump’s impacts, he said, “This not a transition, it is a rupture.” Speaking on American imperialism (without explicitly calling it that) to “Middle Powers” such as Canada, he said “We are either at the table, or we on the menu.”

Recommended reading concerning pending dictatorship: Robert Kagan’s interview at https://www.npr.org/2026/02/04/nx-s1-5699388/is-the-u-s-heading-into-a-dictatorship

Nuclear Weapons

Trump is proposing to increase the military budget from $1 trillion this FY 2026 to $1.5 trillion next year. The largest single component in this will probably be his ill-conceived Golden Dome. In the Alice in Wonderland upside down world of nuclear weapons policies, defense is offense and offense is defense. Unrealistic ballistic missile defenses have always the enemy of nuclear disarmament, starting with Edward Teller’s lies to Reagan that kept him from signing a nuclear weapons ban treaty with Mikhail Gorbachev in 1986.

The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) expired yesterday (Feb 5), the first time the word is without any arms control treaties since the mid-1970s. The US and Russia are now likely to upload more warheads since the 1,550 numerical cap is now gone. Multiple warheads is regarded as particularly dangerous and destabilizing, inviting preemptive strikes and use them or lose them scenarios.

Today (Feb 6) the Trump Administration accused China of conducting a hydronuclear test in 2020, just above the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty’s no yield threshold. This may be a prelude to the US resuming testing.

Plutonium pit production:

DOE’s “special assessment” was scheduled for completion mid-December 2025 — It is still not publicly available. Sen. Warren and Rep. Garamendi demanded its release on January 9.

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Nuclear Weapons Issues & The Accelerating Arms Race: December 2025

Sophia MerynDNFSB, DOE, Nuclear Testing, Nuclear Weapons, Russia

Nuclear weapons: 

The government is running on a Continuing Resolution (CR) until the end of January. It’s possible to have another shutdown depending on how tough the Dems want to be. The legislative process is starting to move again, with the annual Defense Authorization Act up first and then appropriations. Both give funding increases to nuclear weapons programs, delivery systems and Trump’s “Golden Dome.”

Cost overruns in nearly all things remains the rule. Golden Dome could cost up to $4 trillion, be destabilizing and never be 100% effective. Putin has already taken steps to circumvent it and China may well be doing the same, particularly with hypersonic delivery systems. The arms race continues, likely to be accelerated by artificial intelligence as well. 

Nuclear weapons testing: No specific new developments but this article by ex-LANL Director Sig Hecker is good:

Lessons From Los Alamos
Last month, U.S. President Donald Trump rekindled a decades-old debate about nuclear testing. “Because of other countries testing programs,” he wrote on social media, “I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis…” A return to testing at this time would likely benefit U.S. adversaries more than it would the United States. Worse still, it might rekindle an even greater and broader arms race than in the first few decades of the Cold War.
Siegfried Hecker | Foreign Affairs
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Article continued:

“My greatest concern about resuming full-scale nuclear testing is that it will fuel another dangerous arms race at a time when global tensions among the great powers are high. Engaging in another arms race is contrary to Trump’s comment that “it would be great if we could all denuclearize, because the power of nuclear weapons is crazy.”

Instead of suggesting an immediate return to nuclear testing, then, Trump should focus on returning to arms control measures to ensure strategic stability with Russia and with China. Hopefully, these measures would lead to a reduction in U.S. and Russian nuclear forces and reduce incentives for China to increase its arsenal. For nuclear testing, he should help erect the highest possible barriers for any country to test by leading an effort to ratify the CTBT. To settle the question of evasion of low-yield tests or hydronuclear experiments, the president and his counterparts in Beijing and Moscow would need to show the political will to agree on a verifiable low-yield limit. That will almost surely require onsite inspections, which were demonstrated to be possible in 1988.

The bottom line is that even though the United States could derive important benefits from resumed nuclear testing, it would lose more than it stands to gain.”

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Nuclear Watch New Mexico Attends the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability Fall Meeting Nov. 21-23 in Las Vegas, Protesting Nuclear Testing in Nevada & Much More!

Sophia MerynDownwinders, Environmental Impact, Environmental Justice, Nevada National Security Site, Nuclear Testing, Plutonium Pit Production

Sophie Stroud, Communications and Associate Director, represented NukeWatch at the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability's (ANA) fall meeting Nov. 21-23 in Las Vegas, hosted locally by Ian Zabarte, Principal Man of the Western Shoshone, Secretary of State of the Western Shoshone National Council, and Secretary of the Native Community Action Council (NCAC). The Nevada Test Site, now called the "Nevada National Security Site" and Yucca Mountain are both nuclear sites on Shoshone Land, and nuclear issues continue to threaten the Western Shoshone People. Yucca Mountain is Western Shoshone property with Constitutional protection, and the Department of Energy cannot prove ownership. ANA is a national network made up of 30 organizations whose members live near US nuclear bomb plants and their waste sites. The meeting was scheduled in coordination with the renowned International Uranium Film Festival — uraniumfilmfestival.org. As an organizer of the ANA Meeting as well as the International Uranium Film Festival, NCAC, composed of Shoshone and Paiute peoples, believe these films are a necessary part of the ongoing awareness, witness and resistance to nuclear war, human health and a livable Mother Earth. As 2025 marks the 80th anniversary of the first atomic bombings at the Trinity Site, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, the world faces a new nuclear arms race that includes nuclear "modernization" of weapons, as well as the fast-tracking of uranium mining for nuclear-powered artificial intelligence data centers.

Friday morning, Nov. 21, the group traveled to the Mercury Exit gate of the Nevada Test Site with banners opposing nuclear weapons and nuclear testing. On October 29, before a meeting in South Korea with Chinese President Xi, President Donald Trump announced on social media that he “instructed the Department of War to start testing [U.S.] Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis” with Russia and China. The post contains various inaccuracies and ambiguity over whether he wants to resume underground nuclear explosive testing — an act the United States, Russia, and China have not undertaken in over 30 years — or continue testing of delivery systems.

Trump Orders Nuclear Weapons Testing for New Nuclear Arms Race

Press Release: The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability Condemns the Suggestion of Nuclear Testing by President Trump

Nuclear Weapons Issues & The Accelerating Arms Race: November 2025

Sophia MerynDNFSB, DOE, Nuclear Testing, Nuclear Weapons, Russia

Nuclear weapons: 

The government shutdown has impact:

https://sourcenm.com/2025/10/22/national-nuclear-security-agency-confirms-furloughs-at-offices-in-albuquerque-los-alamos/

National Nuclear Security Agency confirms 152 furloughed at offices in Albuquerque, Los Alamos

Only 14 employees remain at the two sites By: Danielle Prokop-October 22, 2025

The NNSA confirmed 152 New Mexico employees charged with overseeing national laboratories’ nuclear weapons work were furloughed on Oct. 20, 2025. (Courtesy of NNSA)

The federal government this week sent home more than 150 federal New Mexico employees charged with overseeing national laboratories’ nuclear weapons work, with only 14 employees across two sites remaining at work, the National Nuclear Security Agency confirmed to Source NM.

The furloughs include 71 employees at NNSA’s Los Alamos field office and 81 at the Sandia National Laboratories location, NNSA Deputy Director of Communications Laynee Buckels told Source NM in an email. Seven employees remain at each site, working without pay, she said.

The field offices are responsible for “ensuring compliance with federal contracts to manage and operate the national security assets,” according to the NNSA website

To date there doesn’t appear to be furloughs at LANL, whose employees technically work for a contractor rather than the federal government. Congress is not furloughed, but Speaker Mike Johnson has kept the House out of session. As a result, legislation has come to a screeching halt.

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RECA Advocates on Capitol Hill Renew Push for Nuclear Radiation Victim Compensation This Week

Sophia MerynEnvironmental Impact, Environmental Justice, New Mexico, Nuclear Testing, Nuclear Weapons, RECA

This week saw important developments surrounding the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA), which provides compensation to individuals affected by U.S. nuclear testing and uranium mining and expired in June earlier this year, leaving many who were exposed to radiation without compensation. Advocates and lawmakers are intensifying efforts to push Speaker Mike Johnson to bring RECA back to the House floor for a vote.

Two Native American women, Linda Evers and Tina Cordova, have been at the forefront of this fight, advocating tirelessly to preserve and extend RECA’s provisions. Their work has resonated powerfully, especially in New Mexico, where uranium mining and nuclear tests have left entire communities facing severe health crises. These populations have been disproportionately impacted by radiation and suffered from generations of exposure to radioactive contamination, leading to chronic illnesses, cancers, and premature deaths. The situation is especially dire for Native American and rural communities, who have long borne the brunt of this toxic legacy, with little to no compensation or acknowledgment. The fight to extend RECA is not just about justice—it’s about survival for those still suffering the long-term effects of these catastrophic policies.

In a recent Washington, D.C. event, activists from New Mexico voiced their frustrations over the lack of progress, pushing lawmakers to extend the act and increase compensation limits. See more on this in the news report above from KOB 4.

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The Second Meeting of States Parties on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

Sophia MerynDownwinders, ICAN, Nuclear Policy, Nuclear Testing, Nuclear Weapons, TPNW

Since the invasion of Ukraine nearly two years ago, to the recent situation in Israel/Gaza, the risk of impending nuclear war has been a reality considered by many for the first time.  As stated at a side event during the weeklong meeting of States Parties on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) held last week from November 27 to Decmber 1st, Hirotsugu Terasaki, Director General of Peace and Global Issues, Soka Gakkai International (SGI), warned that the wide-scale violence brought by these two events “continue to heighten the risk that nuclear weapons could actually be used.” This fear is made all the more tangible when considering also that earlier this month, the Putin announced Russia would be revoking its ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which Terasaki pointed out is a “serious setback for the cause of nuclear disarmament.”

As stated in the article, The Voices of Victims of Nuclear Weapons Testing, “these realities make convening the current Second Meeting of States Parties of the TPNW, which concludes December 1, all the more important and a crucial opportunity to revive momentum for nuclear disarmament and abolition.”

Breakthrough Study Bolsters RECA Claims for New Mexicans Exposed to Trinity Test Site Radiation

Sophia MerynDownwinders, Environmental Impact, Environmental Justice, New Mexico, Nuclear Testing, Nuclear Weapons, RECA

Plutonium Detections From Trinity Test Discovered 78 years After Test – Confirm RECA Must Be Expanded

Located in the Tularosa Basin in southern New Mexico, the Trinity Test Site marks the location of the first detonation of a nuclear weapon. Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” would have you believe this area is desolate, inhospitable and uninhabited. Contrary to this narrative and popular opinion, The area where the Trinity test occurred was not  uninhabited. There were more than 13,000 New Mexicans living within a 50-mile radius. Many of those children, women and men were not warned before or after the test. The event marking the dawn of the nuclear age in July 1945 ushered in decades of health issues for residents living downwind due to exposure to radioactive fallout. The long-lasting impact of radiation exposure is a painful legacy that the New Mexican communities have had to bear.

New preliminary information strongly supports Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) status for New Mexicans downwind of the Trinity Test Site. In the past weeks, Michael E. Ketterer, (Professor Emeritus, Chemistry and Biochemistry, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ) has completed a short “proof of principle” study that directly investigates where plutonium in soils originates by analyzing isotopic ratios, in a known portion of the Trinity Test plume.

Dr. Ketterer sampled soils along highways NM 42, US 54, NM 55, US 60, and US 380. The isotopes show that there is definitely plutonium from the Trinity Test in the northeast plume, and distinguishes it from global (stratospheric) background and New Mexico regional background from Nevada Test Site fallout. Soils along all five of these highways contain plutonium that reflects mixtures of Trinity Test debris and global/Nevada regional background fallout; in some cases, nearly 100% of the Pu originates from the Trinity Test.

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Current U.S. Nuclear Weapons Issues Updates — November 15, 2021

Sophia MerynBiden Administration, China, Climate Change, Modernization, New Mexico, Nuclear Testing, Nuclear Weapons, Russia

The current Continuing Resolution keeping the government running expires 12/3. Another Continuing Resolution is likely.

The Pentagon has released a major threat assessment of China at https://media.defense.gov/2021/Nov/03/2002885874/-1/-1/0/2021-CMPR-FINAL.PDF.

Under “Nuclear Capabilities” it concludes:

► Over the next decade, the PRC [People’s Republic of China] aims to modernize, diversify, and expand its nuclear forces.
► The PRC is investing in, and expanding, the number of its land-, sea-, and air-based nuclear delivery platforms and constructing the infrastructure necessary to support this major expansion of its nuclear forces.
► The PRC is also supporting this expansion by increasing its capacity to produce and separate plutonium by constructing fast breeder reactors and reprocessing facilities.
► The accelerating pace of the PRC’s nuclear expansion may enable the PRC to have up to 700 deliverable nuclear warheads by 2027. The PRC likely intends to have at least 1,000 warheads by 2030, exceeding the pace and size the DoD projected in 2020.
► The PRC has possibly already established a nascent “nuclear triad” with the development of a nuclear capable air-launched ballistic missile (ALBM) and improvement of its ground and sea-based nuclear capabilities.
► New developments in 2020 further suggest that the PRC intends to increase the peacetime readiness of its nuclear forces by moving to a launch-on-warning (LOW) posture with an expanded silo-based force.

This is bound to have a major influence on Biden’s Nuclear Posture Review, to be released in early 2022. China’s expansion of its nuclear weapons capabilities, along with U.S. and Russian “modernization” programs, may also be big issues at the January 2022 NonProliferation Treaty Review Conference.

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An Environmental & Nuclear Disaster in LA’s Backyard: How Much Contamination Really Fell on Top of Communities from Thousand Oaks to Simi Valley from the Woolsey Fire?

Sophia MerynDOE, Environmental Impact, Nuclear Safety, Nuclear Testing, Nuclear Waste, Santa Susana Field Laboratory

The Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL) is a 3,000 acre site sitting on top of the San Fernando and Simi Valleys in California, located less than 30 miles from Malibu. In 1947 the site was developed as a central location for U.S. rocket engine testing and space exploration, and in the 1950’s SSFL began experimenting with constructing nuclear reactors.

Ten nuclear reactors were built in total, and tens of thousands of rocket, energy, and weapons tests took place there from when the laboratory went into operation in 1947 until it’s closure in 2006. The rocket engine tests specifically produced numerous toxic spills and releases. The nuclear reactors built include a “Hot Lab” to “cut up irradiated reactor fuel from around the country,” “plutonium and uranium-carbide fuel fabrication facilities,” and a “sodium burn pit in which open-air burning of contaminated reactor components took place.” One of the reactors, the Sodium Reactor Experiment, experienced a partial nuclear meltdown in 1959, and two other reactors experienced accidents with fuel damage as well.

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76 Years After the First Nuclear Bomb Test, the U.S. is Still Dead Set on Building Weapons of Mass Destruction

76 Years After the First Nuclear Bomb Test, the U.S. is Still Dead Set on Building New Weapons of Mass Destruction

Sophia MerynEnvironmental Impact, Modernization, New Mexico, Nuclear Testing, Nuclear Weapons

Last week, July 16 2021, marked the 76th anniversary of the world’s first nuclear bomb explosion. Within another month, memorials and commemorations will be held for the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which the U.S. bombed on 6 and 9 August 1945, respectively. Although it was unknown to most residents of New Mexico until after the United States’ atomic bombing of Japan, the citizens and communities in the southern region of the state were in fact the first nuclear victims.

When the U.S. Army detonated an atomic bomb on July 16, 1945 at 5:29 a.m., “its thunderous roar during the rainy season knocked people from breakfast tables in Tularosa and sent others on the Mescalero Apache reservation into hiding.” (axios.com) Hispanics and Mescalero Apache tribal members in New Mexico are working to pressure lawmakers to compensate those who have suffered extremely because of the experiment. Rare forms of cancer and other health problems have been discovered in those living near the site of the Trinity Test, and the vast, noxious consequences of this experiment have had lasting impact on now multiple, entire generations.

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