The nuclear weapons testing ordered by US President Donald Trump will not include any nuclear explosions, Energy Secretary Chris Wright clarified on Sunday. Speaking in an interview with Fox News, Wright said the upcoming tests would be “system tests,” meaning they would involve non-critical explosions that do not produce nuclear blasts.
“These are not nuclear explosions. These are what we call non-critical explosions,” Wright said, explaining that the tests would assess the performance of all other components of a nuclear weapon to ensure they function properly and can safely set up the conditions for a potential nuclear detonation if required.
According to Wright, the non-explosive testing will focus on new systems and replacement weapons to verify that the next generation of nuclear arms performs better than earlier models. His remarks came amid renewed debate following President Trump’s announcement that he had ordered the military to restart nuclear weapons testing for the first time in 33 years.
Trump made the announcement on Thursday, just before meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea — a move interpreted by analysts as a signal to rival nuclear powers China and Russia. The president reaffirmed his directive on Friday but avoided specifying whether it would include underground tests similar to those conducted during the Cold War.
Wright noted that the United States had carried out numerous nuclear test explosions in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, collecting extensive data and measurements from those experiments. He emphasized that with modern scientific advances and computing power, the US can now simulate nuclear detonations with remarkable precision.
“With our science and computation power, we can simulate incredibly accurately exactly what will happen in a nuclear explosion,” Wright said. “Now we simulate the conditions that delivered that, and as we change bomb designs, what they will deliver.”
