With Trump at the Helm, Nuclear Uncertainty Is Set to Grow in 2025

When the clock strikes noon on January 20, 2025, Donald Trump will once again be given launch authority over the U.S.’s nuclear arsenal in a time of nuclear uncertainty and growing risks. From the volatility of the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East to rising tensions on the Korean Peninsula and potential clashes around Taiwan and the South China Sea, the danger of miscalculation points to a perilous future.

After decades of hard-fought arms control agreements and a major reduction in the U.S. nuclear stockpile between 1989 and 2009, the deteriorating global security environment is contributing to a greater reliance on nuclear weapons. Today, all nine nuclear-armed nations are “modernizing,” upgrading or expanding their stockpiles; spending on nuclear weapons is surging, international arms control agreements have been all but abandoned, and the threshold for nuclear use is falling.

These conditions, paired with cavalier threats to use nuclear weapons, in particular nonstrategic “tactical” nuclear weapons, have led nuclear analysts and experts to warn that we’re headed in the wrong direction. In early 2024, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists set the Doomsday Clock at 90 seconds to midnight, the closest the symbolic clock has been to global catastrophe.

Time for a New Start

February 5, 2025, will mark the one-year countdown until the New START Treaty, the last remaining agreement limiting strategic arsenals of Russia and the United States, expires. Unless the treaty is extended or the two countries agree to abide by the limitations even without a formal extension, the world’s biggest nuclear rivals could rapidly begin building up their arsenals or uploading warheads onto submarine-launched ballistic missiles and intercontinental ballistic missiles.

The U.S. is poised to spend in excess of $756 billion over the next 10 years on its existing nuclear weapons modernization, but according to Daryl Kimball, executive director of the nonpartisan Arms Control Association, the number is likely much higher. Kimball said a larger nuclear arsenal is financially untenable and would only spur Russia and China to follow suit: “In the end, nobody gets ahead in an arms race. We just have more nuclear firepower and less security.”

Kimball sees the year ahead fraught with nuclear challenges: elevated tensions between the U.S. and Israel with an Iran that has nuclear knowledge and capabilities that can’t be bombed away and the likelihood that Trump, further emboldened by his like-minded ally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, will return to his maximum pressure approach to Iran, which includes the reinstatement of severe sanctions and restrictive measures.

There’s also the potential for renewed hostile rhetoric between Washington and Pyongyang with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un dismissing the prospect of future diplomacy with the U.S. based on his past experience. Since the failed Trump-Kim Hanoi summit in 2019, North Korea’s nuclear program has accelerated, its ballistic missile capabilities are greater, and it recently designated South Korea a “foreign, hostile state.”

With so many nuclear challenges, Kimball said, “it would have been a dangerous situation no matter who was elected, but there’s going to be even more unpredictability under Donald Trump.”

New Nukes? New Tests?

Among the many nuclear uncertainties the world faces in 2025, researchers at the Federation of American Scientists’ Nuclear Information Project are closely watching three key areas: alliance management, nuclear rhetoric and the potential resumption of underground explosive nuclear testing. Mackenzie Knight, a senior research associate with the project, said the way the U.S. manages its alliances with NATO nations and other partners like Japan and South Korea could have far-reaching implications for nuclear stability.

For example, if the U.S. under the incoming Trump administration were to dramatically reduce support for the U.S.-Republic of Korea alliance, South Korea has the domestic capability in terms of economy, infrastructure and technology to pursue its own nuclear weapon if it chooses to do so. Recent public opinion polls indicate widespread support among South Koreans for Seoul developing its own nuclear weapon, although survey results vary.

If a tenth country decided to pursue nuclear weapons, the first to do so since North Korea, the implications would be enormous. Likewise, if the U.S. were to resume underground explosive nuclear testing, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) would be gravely undermined. Although the CTBT has not yet entered into force, it has been ratified by 178 of 187 signatory nations and is recognized as an effective treaty preventing nuclear weapons explosive testing.

Speaking on a public panel in November, Corey Hinderstein, acting principal deputy administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), addressed the question of a resumption of U.S. underground nuclear testing, saying, “… the answer was no. The answer remains no. And the answer to whether we need to conduct a nuclear test is also no and that is a technical conclusion and a political conclusion. And I don’t see that technical conclusion changing any time soon. The political conclusion could change. The technical conclusion is that there is no technical question about the safety, security, reliability or effectiveness of our nuclear arsenal that we envision that we could answer through an underground nuclear test.”

Knight told Truthout that she expects Trump will appoint new NNSA leadership, but given the complex dynamics that drive nuclear policy, it’s unclear to what degree new appointments may impact the agency’s work.

Knight and others have expressed concern over former Trump administration officials who have discussed the possible resumption of U.S. underground explosive nuclear testing. Over the summer, Trump’s former national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, wrote in Foreign Affairs magazine: “The United States has to maintain technical and numerical superiority to the combined Chinese and Russian nuclear stockpiles. To do so, Washington must test new nuclear weapons for reliability and safety in the real world for the first time since 1992 — not just by using computer models.”

The Project 2025 manifesto, a right-wing blueprint for the next Trump administration created by the Heritage Foundation, contains arguments for upscaling and increasing the U.S. nuclear arsenal, as well as a call to “Restore readiness to test nuclear weapons at the Nevada National Security Site to ensure the ability of the U.S. to respond quickly to asymmetric technology surprises.”

“The concern here is several-fold. One, environmental,” Knight said. “Explosive nuclear testing was halted for a reason … it’s very harmful to the environment. And the other concern is that the desire to resume nuclear testing is based on political reasons.”

“Calls to prepare to resume explosive testing or develop the capability to do so,” Knight added, would be “incredibly concerning for the risk of nuclear war breaking out.”

Knight said the U.S. has overwhelmingly conducted more explosive nuclear testing than any other country and has the least to gain by resuming explosive nuclear testing. “If the U.S. decides to do so, it just green-lights other countries to engage in nuclear testing once again and they have way more to learn and much more to benefit from doing so.”

Knight noted the pivotal role of Congress in advancing or blocking funding that could support efforts to resume nuclear explosive testing, as well as nuclear weapons programs which are over budget and behind schedule. The same is true, she said, for the uncertain future of a nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile introduced by the first Trump administration, it was determined to be “cost prohibitive” by the Navy during the Biden administration, but could again be pursued in the new Trump administration despite financial and industrial challenges.

Knight and her colleagues continue to closely follow documents, reports and open-source satellite imagery that can reveal nuclear weapons-related activities. For example, specific language in military budgetary documents indicated construction of new infrastructure hinting at the possible return of U.S. nuclear gravity bombs to an airbase in the United Kingdom. In 2021, the same analysts discovered the construction of a new nuclear missile silo in China.

Calling Dr. Strangelove

Immediately after the U.S. election, Council For a Livable World, a nonpartisan organization that promotes policies to reduce nuclear weapons, identified nine goals for the incoming Trump administration, including demanding greater accountability over nuclear weapons modernization and systems considered “strategically questionable,” adhering to the New START Treaty, and upholding the taboo on explosive nuclear weapons tests.

The council’s executive director, John Tierney, told Truthout that he is concerned about how the Trump administration could respond to China’s rapid expansion of its nuclear forces.

“It’s ridiculous to think that the number of missiles and bombs that we have right now are not a suitable deterrent,” Tierney said. Currently, the U.S. has a total nuclear stockpile of around 3,700 warheads. Of these, approximately 1,770 warheads are deployed and available for delivery by strategic launchers. In comparison, China possesses an estimated stockpile of approximately 500 nuclear weapons.

Tierney is watching how the U.S. manages its own nuclear stockpile as it spends what could ultimately surpass $1.5 trillion to modernize an arsenal that includes Sentinel, a weapon system designed to replace the U.S.’s aging Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. Tierney said that besides being grossly behind schedule and far over budget, Sentinel’s “very existence is an impediment to security.” Calling for closer scrutiny of the program, he described Sentinel as a “relic of the Cold War” which drains resources other programs more essential to U.S. security.

One area where Tierney sees potential for positive change is increased public engagement on nuclear weapons issues: “We’ve got to grab the public’s attention and give them the notion they can do something.” Without the public pressure that existed in the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s, Tierney said, nuclear treaties, agreements and norms wouldn’t have happened.

He sees a great need for a cultural shift that would introduce more music, books, movies, and other popular media, as well as more frequent reporting on nuclear issues. “It’s been a long time since Dr. Strangelove,” said Tierney.

A Reason for Hope

The year 2025 offers one bright spot in the form of an international agreement that is gaining member states. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), also called the nuclear weapon ban treaty, entered into force in 2021 and now has 94 signatories and 73 states parties, the latter being countries that have signed and ratified the treaty, including, most recently, Indonesia.

Leading efforts to advance the treaty is the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), a global civil society coalition. Susi Snyder, ICAN’s program coordinator, told Truthout the treaty has crossed the threshold of more than half of UN members either signing or ratifying the treaty, with more on the way.

Next March, the TPNW’s Third Meeting of States Parties will be held in New York as a forum in which nations that have ratified the treaty can assess nuclear risks and realities and pursue implementation of treaty obligations and objectives. In addition to civil society and international organizations, the meetings are also open to countries that have not yet ratified the treaty but intend to do so or are willing to participate as an observer.

Snyder expects to see a growing number of observer nations that could include Germany, Norway, Australia and, in what would mark a major shift, Japan which is reportedly mulling participation as an observer. Because these countries are considered nuclear endorsers — meaning they enable, host or support the possible use of nuclear weapons — their participation as observers would be significant, having the potential to influence other endorsing nations, as well as the nine nuclear-armed states, all of which remain opposed to the treaty.

Parliamentarians may also participate as observers, equipping them to brief members of their own government. For example, in the U.S., Massachusetts Congressman Jim McGovern observed the Second Meeting of States Parties and is among a handful of Congress members calling for the U.S. to join the ban treaty. Similar efforts are underway in Australia and will likely spread to other nonsignatory nations.

80 Years Is Enough

In December, the Japanese NGO Nihon Hidankyo received the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize for its more than seven decades of work seeking the complete abolition of nuclear weapons. The group’s members are hibakusha — Japanese survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. The award was presented just ahead of the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombings. Snyder sees 2025 as a yearlong opportunity for people everywhere to reexamine the urgent need to eliminate nuclear weapons once and for all.

Snyder is based in the Netherlands, one of five NATO countries that host U.S. nuclear gravity bombs on military bases. She noted a nuclear conflict between the U.S. and Russia could lead to catastrophe — not just for nuclear hosting nations like the Netherlands, but the entire world. Pointing to her own community, Snyder said, “We know that we’re at risk. It’s taking that knowledge and not letting it freeze us and not letting it stop us, but recognizing this is actually an opportunity for action. That’s how we see it. We see the local mayor talking about this issue. We encourage the local parliamentarians to do something and to demand action from the government.”

To bring the issue of nuclear weapons into daily life, Snyder said, is to commit to solutions because “it is a solvable problem. The tools exist and we just need to make it a priority for action.” Snyder pointed to ICAN’s more than 700 partners around the world and said the issue is something everyone can get involved in.

“We’re all looking at making it really clear, after 80 years this issue has gone on long enough. Well, let’s fix it.”