Nuclear testing was largely phased
out by the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban
Treaty
in 1996, with the exception of non-signatories like India, Pakistan (both
last testing weapons in 1998) and North Korea (tests during the 2010s).
I see two arguments in favor of restarting some limited nuclear tests,
and a couple of weak counter-arguments.
Reinstating such tests would include public announcement of their time &
place, with penalties for unannounced tests.
Arguments:
Testing of warning systems: Early warning systems malfunctioning
present a large risk of normal events being mistaken as attacks, with
correspoding nuclear counter-attacks. Reading through the FLI Close Calls
Timeline,
I identify 7⁄28 events as being clear examples of malfunctioning early
detection systems as causes for close calls (e.g. “Lost Contact with 50
Missiles”, “Six Mis-Routed Nukes”, “Soviets Misinterpret US Nuclear War
Games” (which would be much easier under a setup where announced military
testing was expected and acceptable), and “False Alarm During DEFCON 3″)
and 6⁄28 more as being at least linked to detection systems malfunctioning
(“Norwegian Rocket Mistaken for ICBM”, “Soviet Union Detects Incoming
Missiles”, “Faulty Chip Signals Soviet Attack”, “Power Failure Mistaken
for Nuclear Blasts”, “Missiles over Georgia”). However, there is at least
one case in which a test was perceived as an attack (“Soviet Missile
Headed Toward US?”) — could this one have been avoided if announcing
nuclear tests was common? Additionally, some false alarms (e.g. “Tampa
is getting nuked”) result from participants mistaking training tapes for
real attacks, which would not happen as much in the case of real-world
tests. Having real-world nuclear tests occurring regularly might be a
time to test early detection systems and thereby guard against false
positives
by increasing the
specificity
of early detection systems, thereby lowering the risk of accidental
escalation based on faulty information. My best guess is that operators of
those early warning systems are very uncertain about their reliability,
and would become significantly more relaxed if they had real-world
information to calibrate on.
Reducing redundancy: Similarly, unless
covert nuclear testing is occurring (which I
consider unlikely10%, given the related intensive
monitoring),
I expect there to be significant uncertainty in the military commands of
nuclear states about the reliability of those weapons, with conservatism
about the reliability of those weapons leading to larger stockpiles (“If
we don’t know whether our weapons work, it’s probably better to make more
& different ones.”). This uncertainty probably leads to an effective
number of nuclear weapons that is larger than strictly necessary for
military purposes, and has large negative externalities—the weapons
would probably still be used in a nuclear conflict. Nuclear testing
could reduce this uncertainty about the reliability of the weapons,
making reductions in stockpiles more realistic. If I imagine having to
rely on weapons that haven’t been tested in more than 30 years, I’d also
want to err on having more of those weapons rather than less.
There are some counterarguments to restarting the testing:
Tests as cover for attack: More tests would mean that countries
could mistake tests as attacks, or tests be used as a plausibly deniable
scenario in which to strike first (perhaps even masking the attack as
an accident). This risk could be strongly reduced by requiring public
announcements of the tests e.g. a month ahead.
Environmental impact: Wikipedia
states
that nuclear fallout has lead to an excess of ~11,000 deaths due to
nuclear radiation. Resuming (restricted) nuclear tests would likely have
similarly high externalities—could these perhaps be mitigated in some
way, such as testing in very remote (internationally shared?) locations,
such as the Antarctic?
Making more powerful weapons: Nuclear tests might enable
the development of even more powerful nuclear weapons. I’m not sure
how bottle-necked the development of bombs with higher yields is on
experimental data: the reason I know about the limit of the size of
nuclear weapons is that “there is no target big enough to be hit by them”.
If this is not true, then more destructive nuclear weapons developed
using experimental data would be negative for the world. (Relatedly,
I’m not sure whether, if nuclear testing allow for weapons with higher
precision, that would be good or bad for the world: nuclear strikes would
have fewer externalities, but leaders might also be more willing to use
nuclear strikes due to lower civilian casualties (and thereby increasing
the risk of nuclear escalation)).
Two Reasons For Restarting the Testing of Nuclear Weapons
Nuclear testing was largely phased out by the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty in 1996, with the exception of non-signatories like India, Pakistan (both last testing weapons in 1998) and North Korea (tests during the 2010s).
I see two arguments in favor of restarting some limited nuclear tests, and a couple of weak counter-arguments.
Reinstating such tests would include public announcement of their time & place, with penalties for unannounced tests.
Arguments:
Testing of warning systems: Early warning systems malfunctioning present a large risk of normal events being mistaken as attacks, with correspoding nuclear counter-attacks. Reading through the FLI Close Calls Timeline, I identify 7⁄28 events as being clear examples of malfunctioning early detection systems as causes for close calls (e.g. “Lost Contact with 50 Missiles”, “Six Mis-Routed Nukes”, “Soviets Misinterpret US Nuclear War Games” (which would be much easier under a setup where announced military testing was expected and acceptable), and “False Alarm During DEFCON 3″) and 6⁄28 more as being at least linked to detection systems malfunctioning (“Norwegian Rocket Mistaken for ICBM”, “Soviet Union Detects Incoming Missiles”, “Faulty Chip Signals Soviet Attack”, “Power Failure Mistaken for Nuclear Blasts”, “Missiles over Georgia”). However, there is at least one case in which a test was perceived as an attack (“Soviet Missile Headed Toward US?”) — could this one have been avoided if announcing nuclear tests was common? Additionally, some false alarms (e.g. “Tampa is getting nuked”) result from participants mistaking training tapes for real attacks, which would not happen as much in the case of real-world tests. Having real-world nuclear tests occurring regularly might be a time to test early detection systems and thereby guard against false positives by increasing the specificity of early detection systems, thereby lowering the risk of accidental escalation based on faulty information. My best guess is that operators of those early warning systems are very uncertain about their reliability, and would become significantly more relaxed if they had real-world information to calibrate on.
Reducing redundancy: Similarly, unless covert nuclear testing is occurring (which I consider unlikely10%, given the related intensive monitoring), I expect there to be significant uncertainty in the military commands of nuclear states about the reliability of those weapons, with conservatism about the reliability of those weapons leading to larger stockpiles (“If we don’t know whether our weapons work, it’s probably better to make more & different ones.”). This uncertainty probably leads to an effective number of nuclear weapons that is larger than strictly necessary for military purposes, and has large negative externalities—the weapons would probably still be used in a nuclear conflict. Nuclear testing could reduce this uncertainty about the reliability of the weapons, making reductions in stockpiles more realistic. If I imagine having to rely on weapons that haven’t been tested in more than 30 years, I’d also want to err on having more of those weapons rather than less.
There are some counterarguments to restarting the testing:
Tests as cover for attack: More tests would mean that countries could mistake tests as attacks, or tests be used as a plausibly deniable scenario in which to strike first (perhaps even masking the attack as an accident). This risk could be strongly reduced by requiring public announcements of the tests e.g. a month ahead.
Environmental impact: Wikipedia states that nuclear fallout has lead to an excess of ~11,000 deaths due to nuclear radiation. Resuming (restricted) nuclear tests would likely have similarly high externalities—could these perhaps be mitigated in some way, such as testing in very remote (internationally shared?) locations, such as the Antarctic?
Making more powerful weapons: Nuclear tests might enable the development of even more powerful nuclear weapons. I’m not sure how bottle-necked the development of bombs with higher yields is on experimental data: the reason I know about the limit of the size of nuclear weapons is that “there is no target big enough to be hit by them”. If this is not true, then more destructive nuclear weapons developed using experimental data would be negative for the world. (Relatedly, I’m not sure whether, if nuclear testing allow for weapons with higher precision, that would be good or bad for the world: nuclear strikes would have fewer externalities, but leaders might also be more willing to use nuclear strikes due to lower civilian casualties (and thereby increasing the risk of nuclear escalation)).