White House officials held a series of discussions over the past two years on the possibility of resuming US nuclear testing, according to the former national security adviser John Bolton.“Certainly the subject was discussed,” Bolton, a fierce advocate of testing, told the Guardian. However, there was opposition from some in the administration who felt current computer-based testing of US warheads was sufficient, and no decision was made by the time Bolton left the White House last September.When the prospect of the first US underground nuclear test in nearly three decades came up at a White House meeting in May, it triggered an outcry from arms control advocates and a Democratic amendment to the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, blocking funding for preparations for a test.Bolton, who has published a memoir on his time in the Trump White House titled The Room Where It Happened, said the issue was discussed in general terms on a number of occasions while he was national security adviser from April 2018 to September 2019. However, the discussions did not become “operational” as his priority had been to take the US out of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty.Donald Trump first announced he would leave the agreement – on the grounds of Russian violations – in October 2018, and the departure came into effect in August 2019. Bolton made it clear that he planned to withdraw the US signature on the Comprehensive Test Ban treaty (CTBT), paving the way to nuclear testing, if he had stayed on at the White House.“We had general discussions about it on a number of occasions but there wasn’t a decision point,” he said. “I personally had other objectives like getting out of the INF treaty. I mean, you can’t do everything all at once.”A senior official told the Washington Post that the motivation for testing cited in the White House “deputies meeting” in May was to put pressure on Russia and China to enter trilateral arms control negotiations.“I never made that argument, and I doubt it would provide much leverage,” Bolton said.His argument for underground testing is that it is necessary to be certain of the reliability of the thousands of warheads in the US arsenal.Opponents of testing say that the computer-based analysis of the “stockpile stewardship and management plan” is quite sufficient, and that detonating a warhead would trigger a cascade of tests by other nuclear weapons states.“We don’t know fully what the impact of ageing is on either the reliability or the security and safety of the nuclear devices. So this is something we need for the credibility of the deterrent,” Bolton said. “I’m not talking about massive testing. I’m certainly not talking about atmospheric testing, but as one military commander described it to me: ‘Having 5,000 nuclear warheads is like having 5,000 Toyotas in a garage. You want to know that when you turn the key, it works the first time. Because if it doesn’t, it doesn’t work at all.’”The administration’s new arms control envoy, Marshall Billingslea, told the Senate on Tuesday: “We maintain and will maintain the ability to conduct nuclear tests if we see reason to do so.” But he added that he was “not aware of any reason to test at this stage”. More
