These stoppages came in the 1990s for a reason: By that time, it became possible to test new nuclear weapon designs reliably through technical and computer developments, without having to actually explode them.
So, essentially, the nuclear states, particularly the more advanced ones, stopped when they no longer needed to explosively test new weapon designs to keep modernising their stocks, as they’re still doing.
WORRYING LEVELS OF NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION
There is some good news on the nuclear weapons front. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons has now been signed by half the world’s nations. This is a historic treaty that, for the first time, bans nuclear weapons and provides the only internationally agreed framework for their eventual elimination.
With the exception of this significant development, however, everything else has been going badly.
All nine nuclear-armed states (the US, China, Russia, France, the United Kingdom, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel) are investing unprecedented sums in developing more accurate, stealthier, longer-range, faster, more concealable nuclear weapons.
This potentially lowers the threshold for their use. And it certainly gives no indication these powers are serious about fulfilling their legally binding obligations to disarm under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
