Erico Platt looks at the disarmament exhibition that she staged, “Three Quarters of a Century After Hiroshima and Nagasaki: The Hibakusha—Brave Survivors Working for a Nuclear-Free World”. On 6 and 9 August 1945, the United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, during World War II. Credit: UNODA/Diane Barnes
By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 4 2025 – The 80th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II triggers the question: Is nuclear testing dead or is it still alive–and threatening?
The August 6-9 anniversary marks the devastating bombings, which claimed the lives of between 150,000 and 246,000 civilians– and still remains the only use of nuclear weapons in an armed conflict.
Are there any lessons learnt? And will the unpredictable Trump Administration resume nuclear testing?
The New York Times quoted Senator Jackey Rosen (Democrat-Nevada) as saying that her state hosted nearly 1,000 nuclear tests, mostly underground, during the Cold War.
The US has not ratified the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). While the U.S. signed the treaty in 1996, the Senate has not given its consent to ratification. The Senate rejected the treaty in 1999.
Until today, the Nevada Test Site remains contaminated with an estimated 11,100 PBq of radioactive material in the soil and 4,440 PBq in groundwater.
In the years following nuclear tests, thousands of residents developed cancers and diseases they believe were caused by the nuclear blast. Individuals known as “downwinders,” exposed in communities across the United States, have fought for nearly 80 years to receive government recognition.
The last nuclear test conducted by the United States was on September 23, 1992, at the Nevada Test Site (now known as the Nevada National Security Site). The test was part of Operation Julin, and specifically, it was the “Divider” test, according to the Nevada National Security Site.
At a disarmament exhibition in UN Headquarters in New York, a visitor reads text about a young boy bringing his little brother to a cremation site in Nagasaki, Japan. Credit: UNODA/Erico Platt
Brandon Williams, who is expected to be the next keeper of the US nuclear arsenal, told the Senate Armed Services Committee last April, he would NOT recommend to re-start US nuclear testing.
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump last week ordered two “nuclear submarines” to be positioned in regions near Russia in response to threats from former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. But left unsaid was: were they nuclear-armed submarines or nuclear-powered submarines?
“I have ordered two Nuclear Submarines to be positioned in the appropriate regions, just in case these foolish and inflammatory statements are more than just that,” Trump said in a social media post that called Medvedev’s statements highly provocative.
Dr. Natalie Goldring, the Acronym Institute’s representative at the United Nations, told IPS the 80th anniversary of the horrific bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is an opportunity to recommit to a world free of nuclear weapons, including by immediately adopting a permanent moratorium on nuclear weapons testing. In contrast, the Trump administration is reportedly considering restarting nuclear weapons testing.
In the first several months of the second Trump administration, she pointed out, there has been ample evidence of the administration’s dependence on the Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025”, formally known as “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise.” The Project 2025 section on the National Nuclear Security Administration stated that a conservative administration should:
“Reject ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and indicate a willingness to conduct nuclear tests in response to adversary nuclear developments if necessary. This will require that NNSA be directed to move to immediate and test readiness to give the Administration maximum flexibility in responding to adversary actions.”
Dr Goldring said “Implementing Project 2025’s recommendations would mean immediately moving toward resuming nuclear weapons testing, without even demonstrating that any adversary actions had occurred. This is an aggressive stance, and could be a self-fulfilling prophecy, prompting the behavior we should be seeking to dissuade.”
“Of course, we can’t reliably predict what President Trump will do, given his impulsive and mercurial nature. He could decide to resume nuclear testing in the mistaken belief that it would make the US look strong. He seems to be fond of dramatic gestures, with little apparent consideration for potential negative consequences. “
“Testing is a symptom of the enormous problem of reliance on nuclear weapons. When we get rid of nuclear weapons, we get rid of the nuclear testing problem. Absent abolition, there will likely be continued pressure to test”.
She said: “Nuclear weapons pose extraordinary risks – in their development, testing, deployment, use, and threats of use. The only real solution to the overwhelming risk associated with nuclear weapons is abolition. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons provides an effective blueprint for abolition.”
“If abolition of nuclear weapons is not accomplished, the question isn’t whether nuclear weapons will be exploded in wartime again. It’s only a question of when that will happen. And, of course, nuclear weapons are “used” frequently in other ways, including to threaten other countries, and to attempt to coerce them into particular actions or inaction.”
Dr Goldring said nuclear testing should have ended decades ago. Unfortunately, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty has not entered into force, in part because of the failure of the US Senate to ratify the treaty. Even so, with the exception of North Korea, a defacto nuclear testing ban has seemingly been in effect since the 1990s.
“The human and environmental consequences of nuclear weapons testing continue to be enormous. Rather than spending money restarting nuclear testing and developing and deploying new nuclear weapons, we should be committing ourselves to long-term assistance to the affected communities. Such assistance must address their medical, economic, and environmental needs, among others,” declared Dr Goldring.
Project 2025:
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Expressing his personal views, Tariq Rauf, former Head of Verification and Security Policy at the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told IPS between 16 July 1945 and 3 December 2017, it is estimated that 2,121 nuclear test detonations involving 2,476 nuclear explosive devices have been carried out by ten States – in chronological order: USA, USSR, UK, France, China, India, Israel/South Africa, Pakistan and North Korea.
Though the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) prohibits all nuclear test detonations, in all environments, and has been signed to date by 187 States and ratified by 178, it still languishes having not entered into force.
In particular, he said, entry-into-force depends on 44 named States to have ratified. Nine such States are holding up entry into force: alphabetically, China, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, and USA.
Indonesia was the latest among this group of 44 States to have ratified in February 2012 – since then not a single State among the remaining nine has taken any steps to sign and/or ratify the CTBT, placing its future in doubt.
While the CTBT prohibits all nuclear testing once in force, nevertheless it has created a powerful global norm against further nuclear test detonations. On the other hand, all nine current nuclear-armed States are modernizing their nuclear explosive devices (warheads), in one way or another, and their nuclear weapon engineers and scientists direly would like to resume some limited explosive testing to validate new designs and certify older existing ones.
Only the CTBT stands in their way. Were any one of the nine nuclear-armed States to resume nuclear test detonations, it is quite probable that others would follow. Though not confirmed, it is speculated that pressure to test nuclear devices likely is strongest in India, followed by Russia, China, North Korea, Pakistan and the United States, said Rauf.
Meanwhile, Senator Edward Markey, co-President Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (PNND) — along with Senators Merkley, Sanders, Van Holen and Welch – marked the 80th anniversary by introducing Senate Resolution 317 urging the United States to lead the world to halt and reverse the nuclear arms race, including by:
- • working with Russia, China and the other nuclear-armed countries to reduce nuclear risks and arsenals;
• renouncing the first use of nuclear weapons;
• limiting the President’s sole authority to start nuclear war;
• ending the production of new nuclear weapons;
• maintaining the global moratorium on nuclear testing.
“Eighty years after the Trinity test, much progress has been made to reduce nuclear dangers, but much work remains to be done,” said Senator Markey.
“The United States, Russia, and China must work together to reduce their arsenals. In particular, Washington and Moscow must work to replace the New START Treaty before it expires next year. If they do not, we may be on the cusp of a new and more dangerous nuclear arms race. When it comes to reducing the risk of nuclear war, we cannot afford to go backward.”
Jackie Cabasso, Executive Director, Western States Legal Foundation, Oakland, California, told IPS: “As we approach the 80th commemorations of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we are called upon to remember the estimated 210,000 human beings who were instantly incinerated by the blasts, or who died from agonizing burns and radiation sickness by the end of 1945.
Those who survived, she pointed out, have continued to suffer from physical and emotional damage for eight decades, and radiation-related illnesses among their children and grandchildren are being documented.
“Authoritarian nationalists now hold state power in seven of the nine nuclear-armed states that wield some 13,000 nuclear weapons, most an order of magnitude more powerful than the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki – over 90% of them in the hands of the U.S. and Russia. Even limited progress towards arms control and disarmament has gone into reverse. The growing dangers of wars among nuclear armed states are palpable and intolerable”.
But Hiroshima and Nagasaki, she argued, were only the tip of the iceberg. Since 1945, there have been 2,056 explosive nuclear weapons tests by at least eight countries. Most of these test explosions have been conducted on the lands of indigenous and colonized people.
The U.S. conducted 1,030 of those tests in the atmosphere, underwater, and underground, while the USSR carried out 715 nuclear test detonations.
Not only did these nuclear test explosions fuel the development and spread of new and more deadly types of nuclear weapons, but hundreds of thousands of people have died and millions more have suffered—and continue to suffer—from illnesses directly related to the radioactive fallout from nuclear detonations in the United States, islands in the Pacific, in Australia, China, Algeria, across Russia, in Kazakhstan, India, Pakistan, North Korea, and elsewhere.
“While we’re not seeing visible signs of resumption of full scale nuclear testing by the U.S., it is very disturbing that Project 2025 proposes that the second Trump administration prioritize nuclear weapons programs over other security programs, accelerate the development and production of all nuclear weapons programs, and increase funding for the development and production of new and modernized nuclear warheads,” said Cabasso.
It also proposes that the administration prepare to test new nuclear weapons. Separately, Robert O’Brien, Trump’s national security advisor during his first term, has written that in order to counter China and Russia’s continued investments in their nuclear arsenals, the U.S. should resume nuclear testing.
“Should the United States conduct a full-scale explosive nuclear test, the moratorium on full-scale explosive nuclear testing that has largely held since 1992 would be shattered. It is almost certain that other nuclear-armed states would follow suit. It would be the final nail in the coffin of nuclear arms control and disarmament for the foreseeable future and would signal an unfettered new nuclear arms race,” she warned.
As the 2024 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, Nihon Hidankyo, the organization of Japanese atomic bomb survivors, has warned: “Nuclear weapons and human beings cannot co-exist.” Nuclear weapons must be eliminated before they eliminate us.
As recognized in the 1945 Constitution of UNESCO, “Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed.” It is incumbent on each of us to contribute in some way to this noble project.
This article is brought to you by IPS NORAM, in collaboration with INPS Japan and Soka Gakkai International, in consultative status with the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).
IPS UN Bureau Report
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