The end of the Cold War had removed from the minds of Europeans the risk of apocalypse posed by nuclear weapons, which had long been part of their daily lives. The threats made by the Russian president with the invasion of Ukraine have reintroduced it abruptly. This is not the only symptom of a shift into a new era. The Russian-American bipolarity is being challenged by China, whose arsenal continues to grow in opacity. New “endowed” powers are emerging: North Korea, already; Iran if it decides, and other states, tomorrow, if they see it as the only way to ensure their survival. In 1964, the director Stanley Kubrick titled his satirical film Dr. Strangelove: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the BombThis “mad love” has taken over the world and complicates the game of powers.
EPISODE 1 – Nuclear weapons, the bidding war: how Ukraine had to give up its bomb
EPISODE 2 – Putin and the nuclear bomb: the risk of apocalypse
EPISODE 3 – China and its colossal nuclear arsenal: the inside story of Beijing’s mysterious expansion
EPISODE 4 – Nuclear weapons: the titanic plan of the United States against China and Russia
A shock wave travels across the Polynesian atoll of Fangataufa on the morning of January 27, 1996. The surface of the water is lifted and whitened for a few seconds. For the last time, France has conducted a nuclear test, named Xouthos – a king from Greek mythology. At the heart of the basalt base of the coral island, several hundred meters deep, the temperature rose for a moment to hundreds of millions of degrees. This is where an experimental device was placed by the Directorate of Military Applications of the Atomic Energy Commission (CEA/DAM), designer of French nuclear weapons.
“At such temperatures, the state of matter no longer has anything to do with what we know,” explains a former CEA/DAM employee. “We make assumptions to find out whether a given mathematical system models physical reality well, but the physics of nuclear weapons is so unintuitive that if there is no test, we cannot be sure.” At Fangataufa, Xouthos fulfilled its role: the sensors confirm the accuracy of their models to the physicists. Beyond Xouthos, this latest test campaign guarantees the proper functioning of French nuclear warheads. French deterrence is assured: if the head of state orders an atomic strike, there will be no failure.
Kim Jong-un would like to have the same assurance. But for that, the leader of North Korea needs his scientists to progress in the physics of nuclear weapons – Pyongyang is already said to have around fifty atomic bombs. The last of their seven tests dates back to 2017. However, as our engineer explains, “it takes a lot more to master the physics of weapons”. The United States has carried out more than 1,000, Russia more than 700, and France 210, with a final campaign, in 1995 and 1996, decisive in calibrating the simulation tools to guarantee the functioning of the weapons of the French deterrent without a new test.
In the northeast of North Korea, the underground site of Punggye-ri has been preparing since 2022 for a new test, the date of which remains unknown, even if it means facing a new round of international sanctions. “The North Koreans are trying to build tactical nuclear weapons, more compact devices, with lower yield, different from those tested until now, explains Ankit Panda, a proliferation specialist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. History has taught us the usefulness of tests to validate the design of such engineering.”
Modernization of test sites in China and Russia
North Korea is not the only country preparing. China, engaged in an unprecedented expansion program of its arsenal, is carrying out a vast modernization of its Lop Nur site, in the Xinjiang desert. It has built new buildings and dug tunnels and shafts that could host new tests. “China has conducted fewer tests (45) than the USSR and the United States and could find it interesting to conduct them for its new weapons, as could India and Pakistan, whose warheads are not at the same level as those of other weapon states,” explains Hans Kristensen, the director of the Federation of American Scientists.
Russia is not far behind. An investigation by CNN revealed that its Novaya Zemlya site, where the last test decided by Moscow took place on October 24, 1990, has undergone major expansion work. This country “could proceed with tests to confirm the credibility of its arsenal after years of modernization, estimates, in a noteHeather Williams, nuclear specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. [Ils] would send a strong message that Russia is so determined to win the war in Ukraine that it is prepared to undermine the few remaining international nuclear treaties and norms.”
While Paris has chosen to dismantle the facilities of its Pacific Experimental Center, Washington has refrained from such a decision. An hour’s drive from Las Vegas, its “Nevada test site”, where the last one took place in 1992, is still active. The United States recently extended the underground infrastructure of a center, U1a, where so-called “non-critical” tests are conducted – these explosions with radioactive materials do not cause a chain reaction and are not officially considered nuclear tests. If the White House decided to, physicists could quickly resume atomic explosions there.
The erasure of the last safety nets
The last arms control agreement between Russia and the United States, New Start, expires in February 2026. Vladimir Putin has already suspended its implementation. The Cold War-era Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Disarmament Treaty (500–5,500 kilometers) expired in 2019. And earlier this summer, the Russian president announced that Russia “should begin producing such strike systems.” In November 2023, he also revoked Russia’s ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (negotiated and adopted in 1996, but never entered into force), on the grounds that the United States had never ratified it – nor had China.
With the removal of these last safety nets, arsenals could begin to grow as never before since the end of the Cold War. “Sometimes, for things to get better, they first have to get worse, arms control and limitation could return,” hopes Hans Kristensen. “But for there to be an agreement, each of the actors must be interested in making concessions.” We are far from that.
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