KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — President Trump’s decision to resume nuclear tests was needed to strengthen the credibility of the U.S. nuclear arsenal and will help prevent nuclear war, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Friday.
Mr. Hegseth told reporters the Pentagon will partner with the Energy Department, which is in charge of maintaining nuclear warheads, on resuming underground tests after Mr. Trump announced this week that the testing will resume.
“The president was clear: We need to have a credible nuclear deterrent. That is the baseline of our deterrence,” Mr. Hegseth said during a meeting with Kao Kim Hourn, secretary general of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, host of an international defense leaders’ conference.
Understanding nuclear warhead capabilities and resuming testing is “a very responsible way to do that,” he said.
“I think it makes nuclear conflict less likely if you know what you have and make sure it operates properly,” he said of underground testing that was halted in 1992.
The Pentagon is moving quickly to implement the president’s directive to resume testing, Mr. Hegseth said.
“We don’t seek conflict with China or any other nation, but the stronger we are, the stronger our alliances are, the more we work with allies in this region and around the
world, I think the less likely conflict becomes,” he said.
Mr. Trump said the decision to begin testing again after a 33-year hiatus under a self-imposed testing moratorium was based on adversaries resuming nuclear tests. He provided no details on those tests.
However, Russian President Vladimir Putin said recently that if the United States begins nuclear testing again, Russia will also conduct nuclear tests.
“America will ensure that we have the strongest, most capable nuclear arsenal, so that we maintain peace through strength,” Mr. Hegseth said.
The defense chief said that, during multiple bilateral meetings with defense leaders from Southeast Asia states, he stressed the Trump administration’s approach to security is “peace through strength” and the nuclear arsenal is part of it.
The Pentagon is currently engaged in a $1 trillion modernization program over 10 years to upgrade nuclear weapons and the missiles, bombers and submarines that
can deliver them.
For decades, anti-nuclear advocates in Congress blocked the development of newer, safer and more reliable nuclear warheads.
Instead, the warhead stockpile has been regularly maintained and monitored without conducting tests to determine if the warheads are still functioning properly.
As part of the modernization, the new Sentinel land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles are being built along with the new Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines and new B-21 strategic stealth bombers.
The modernization comes as China’s nuclear forces expanded rapidly from the several hundred warheads they had a decade ago to more than 600 today. Intelligence estimates China’s arsenal will include up to 1,500 warheads by 2035, according to military officials.
U.S. intelligence agencies reported that between 2020 and 2024, China sharply expanded the nuclear-weapons test site at Lop Nur.
The Pentagon’s most recent annual report on the Chinese military said the expanded activity is likely preparation for operating the test site continuously “raised concerns regarding its adherence to the U.S. ’zero yield’ standard adhered to by the United States, the United Kingdom, and France in their respective nuclear weapons testing moratoria.”
No full-scale nuclear tests at Lop Nur, however, have been reported.
China’s nuclear warheads were also developed with stolen U.S. warhead designs. In the 1990s, U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that China obtained secrets on every deployed U.S. warhead through espionage.
Mr. Trump announced Wednesday on Truth Social that he was ordering the Pentagon to test the U.S. nuclear arsenal on an “equal basis” with other nuclear-armed states.
“Because of other countries’ testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis. That process will
begin immediately,” he stated, using the new name for the Pentagon, which has yet to be formally approved by Congress.
“Russia is second, and China is a distant third, but will be even within five years,” the president said.
The announced resumption of U.S. testing came days after Russia tested two new nuclear weapons, the Poseidon — a nuclear-powered, nuclear-capable underwater drone, and the Burevestnik, a nuclear-powered cruise missile.
The timing suggests Mr. Trump may have been referring to the Russian drone and missile tests as the reason.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in response to the president that the Russian tests “cannot in any way be interpreted as a nuclear test.”
Mr. Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on the way back to the U.S. from South Korea that other nations’ testing prompted the shift in policy.
“With others doing testing, I think it’s appropriate that we do also,” he said.
Nuclear testing sites will be determined later. Nevada was the most recent nuclear test site.
On mounting nuclear threats posed by China and Russia, Mr. Trump said he favored holding talks to reduce nuclear arsenals.
“I’d like to see a denuclearization because we have so many and Russia’s second and China’s third and China will catch up within four or five years,” he said. “We are actually talking to Russia about that, and China would be added to that if we do something.”
For several years, China has refused to join U.S.-Russia nuclear arms talks and has said it would do so after sharp reductions in U.S. nuclear forces.
“The United States has more Nuclear Weapons than any other country. This was accomplished, including a complete update and renovation of existing weapons, during my First Term in office,” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social shortly before meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping in Busan, South Korea, on Thursday.
Currently, the U.S. nuclear warhead arsenal includes 3,700 nuclear warheads, behind Russia’s 4,300, according to data compiled by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
Mr. Hegseth was in Malaysia as part of a meeting of ASEAN defense ministers.
Earlier Friday, he met with Adm. Dong Jun, China’s defense minister and voiced concerns about China’s military activities near Taiwan and in the South China Sea.
• Bill Gertz can be reached at bgertz@washingtontimes.com.
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