Staff Reports
President Trump’s blunt decision to order the Pentagon to resume nuclear testing broke a 33-year silence and forced a long-overdue conversation about American strength and deterrence. He announced the move publicly, saying the U.S. must test “on an equal basis” with rivals who have been quietly modernizing their arsenals. This was a clear signal that Washington will no longer pretend the old post-Cold War lull guarantees American security.
Moscow’s reaction was immediate and revealing: President Putin called for proposals on how to respond, and Defense Minister Andrei Belousov urged that Russia begin preparations for full-scale nuclear tests. That’s not the language of calm restraint — it’s the language of a regime that feels cornered and is scrambling to save face. What Belousov’s panic shows is that Trump’s move cut through decades of smoke-and-mirrors confidence on the other side of the world.
Putin stopped short of ordering detonations, instead asking ministries and agencies to analyze the situation — but make no mistake, the Kremlin has mobilized because it was embarrassed and worried. Russian officials openly said their Arctic Novaya Zemlya test site could be made ready on short notice, which is a tacit admission their arsenal’s reliability is an open question. Americans should read that as validation, not as provocation: when an adversary’s leaders panic, you don’t debate your resolve — you strengthen it.
Back here at home the United States didn’t sit idle: the Air Force conducted a scheduled, unarmed Minuteman III ICBM test on November 5 to validate the triad’s readiness and command-and-control chains. These routine launches, carried out by Global Strike Command from Vandenberg, remind the world that our deterrent is not a relic but a living, tested force. If the media wants to scream about “escalation,” remind them these tests are how you keep an honest peace—by being unquestionably capable.
Inside the beltway the usual technocrats rushed to soothe nerves, with Energy Secretary Chris Wright insisting the initial tests will be “system tests” and not nuclear explosions. Fine — if the administration can preserve safety and avoid needless environmental risk while proving our weapons work, that’s prudent execution of a necessary policy. But don’t let bureaucratic jargon become a cover for weakness; anyone who thinks talking down American resolve will keep adversaries honest is living in a fantasy.
Senators like Tom Cotton and intelligence voices who’ve tracked “supercritical” experiments by Russia and China made one thing clear: our rivals have been conducting low-yield, secretive experiments for years while the U.S. pretended the moratorium meant equality. The Washington foreign-policy establishment wanted to sleepwalk through this threat; President Trump woke them up. If CIA and other intel assessments suggest adversaries were testing in that gray zone, answering in kind — carefully and on our terms — is responsible defense, not recklessness.
Let’s be candid: for 33 years we relied on treaties, computer models, and the kindness of rivals to keep the peace. That was naive. Real peace is the product of real strength, and leadership means making hard choices so our children never have to. Conservatives should not apologize for demanding a military posture that deters war through overwhelming preparedness and clear credibility.
Now Congress, the military, and the American people face a choice: cower before the elites who fear showing strength, or stand with a president who insists America will not be outpaced or outmaneuvered. If Moscow and Beijing want to test themselves, let them do it under the light of American preparedness — because a safe, free nation is preserved not by wishful thinking, but by being the toughest kid on the block.
