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Updated November 14 2025
Over recent weeks, there has been an upsurge in nuclear signalling by nuclear-armed countries, including missile tests and full blown nuclear exercises, reminders to adversaries of nuclear weapons capabilities and even a threat to resume nuclear testing, although exactly what that meant remains uncertain. Here’s a summary of recent activities and what they mean.
On 30 October, U.S. President Donald Trump posted on social media that he had ordered the Department of War to “start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis” with Russia and China.
The announcement brought about immediate confusion due to its many inaccuracies, including that neither China nor Russia have carried out explosive nuclear tests since the 1990s, and that the Department of War is not responsible for the U.S. stockpile of nuclear warheads - that is the Department of Energy.
Mr Trump then alleged on November 2, without citing evidence, that China and Russia have been testing. But on the same day the U.S. Secretary of Energy clarified that President Trump was not referring to the US carrying out nuclear explosions but “systems tests” or “noncritical explosions.”
In response, Russian officials said Moscow would respond in a "mirror manner" if the US carried out a test. China has been more measured, calling on the US to maintain the moratorium on testing to "safeguard the international nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation regime".
President Trump’s original social media post, sent as he travelled to a meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, that he had ordered the US military to immediately restart nuclear testing could have been intended as a threat to potential enemies. The US Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, had followed up Trump’s post with his own, saying: “America will ensure that we have the strongest, most capable nuclear arsenal so that we maintain PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH.”
Trump then confused things even more on November 7 by reviving his call for denuclearisation talks with Russia and China.
Whatever the President's intent, the talk of testing is a clear escalation in nuclear rhetoric from the person who controls the second largest nuclear arsenal in the world.
Shortly before Trump posted his comment on social media, President Putin had announced the successful testing of a new nuclear torpedo, Poseidon, which analysts say is more like an underwater drone. Only a few days before that, Mr Putin had said that Russia’s new long-range nuclear-powered cruise missile, Burevestnik, that has been in development for several years, had been successfully tested and is “invincible”.
Both these nuclear weapons seem to be designed for all-out nuclear war given their destructiveness, Burevestnik, particularly, as it is powered by a nuclear reactor. The missile has been dubbed a “flying Chernobyl”, given that even if armed with a conventional warhead its detonation would cause widespread radioactive contamination.
These US and Russian announcements followed both countries rehearsing the use of their nuclear arsenals. Russia tested all three legs of its strategic nuclear forces in the Arctic in the annual Grom (Thunder) exercise, firing ground based and submarine launched (unarmed) ballistic missiles and practising launching missiles from bombers.
For its part, the US carried out its annual exercise involving its nuclear triad. Global Thunder, as the American exercise is called, took place at the same time as NATO was carrying out its yearly rehearsal to use nuclear weapons in – and on – Europe. This exercise, called Steadfast Noon, is designed to train the pilots and ground crews of the countries where the US bases nuclear bombs in Europe – Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Türkiye – in how to use them. It is also intended, as are all nuclear exercises, to send a message to Russia that NATO is ready and willing to use nuclear weapons.
This year, for the first time, the media were offered the chance to film planes taking off and to interview military personnel. The decision to invite journalists to report on this was almost certainly a result of governments wanting to send a message not just to Russia, but also to their own citizens, to habituate them to the (false) idea that nuclear weapons are there to protect them, rather than the reality that they are an existential threat.
The result was a report where no awkward questions (such as how do you feel about practising mass killing of civilians) were asked and ended up, like most reports done by ‘embedded’ journalists at the invitation of the military, looking like PR rather than journalism..
Before all this U.S., Russian and NATO activity in October, China celebrated the 80th anniversary of the victory over Japan in 1945 on 3 September. This included a major military parade where, for the first time, Beijing displayed all three legs of its strategic nuclear forces.
Shortly afterwards, the Chinese military released images of an upgraded version of an intercontinental ballistic missile (the DF-5C) with the range to hit a target anywhere on the planet.
Following the brief conflict between India and Pakistan in May this year, both countries have been busy trying to persuade the other to fear the threat their nuclear weapons pose. India has done this through ballistic missile tests, while Pakistan has conveyed its message through the words of its army’s Chief of Staff, Asim Munir, who, on a visit to the US in September, said “We are a nuclear nation. If we are going down, we will take half the world down with us.”
North Korea carried out ballistic and cruise missile tests just ahead of President Trump’s recent visit to South Korea where he discussed more US military support for Seoul, including developing nuclear-powered attack submarines.
This rise in implicit threats has come at a time when the risk that nuclear weapons will be used again, either by accident or intentionally, is at its highest since the Cold War, or even higher.
The nuclear taboo that has prevented the use of nuclear weapons in conflict since 1945 and restrained the use of nuclear rhetoric is being weakened.
It is all the more important for governments and civil society to push back against this increase in nuclear signalling and make it clear that any use, threat of use, or preparation to use nuclear weapons, at any time and by anyone is unacceptable.
ICAN’s Executive Director, Melissa Parke, says all these recent actions are deeply worrying: “The upsurge in nuclear rhetoric and nuclear exercises, that are nothing more than rehearsals for ending all complex life on this planet, are escalatory and dangerous, particularly with geopolitical tensions so high. All of these states claim to be responsible actors, but their conduct is anything but. As the former United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki Moon said “There are no right hands for wrong weapons”. There is now a global majority of nations that have joined the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons that outlaws all these activities. Instead of threatening the rest of the world, it’s time for the nuclear-armed states to get on the right side of history and join the treaty.”