US nuclear tests will benefit the Chinese arsenal, US senator says

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00:00President Trump says the United States will immediately start testing nuclear weapons

00:04to counter adversaries.

00:06So how will the weapons be tested, and will it really benefit the United States?

00:10One senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee thinks not.

00:13This benefits the Chinese.

00:17So here's a quick rundown of how we got here.

00:20Russia says it successfully tested two nuclear-powered, nuclear-capable weapons over the last week.

00:26One is a cruise missile that went 8,700 miles during a 15-hour flight.

00:31The other is the Poseidon, a torpedo that Russia says can send what amounts to a radioactive

00:37tsunami to coastal communities.

00:39President Trump responded by announcing, because of other countries' testing programs, I have

00:43instructed the Department of War to start testing our nuclear weapons on an equal basis.

00:49Senator Mark Kelly is a member of the Armed Services Committee and a retired U.S. Navy

00:52captain.

00:53He explained that if the U.S. starts testing nuclear weapons, it will benefit China.

00:58Here's why.

00:59When we say we're going to start testing weapons, the implication is the Chinese says, OK, we'll

01:02start testing our weapons.

01:04This benefits the Chinese.

01:06We don't need, we know our systems are reliable.

01:09If they start testing again, they could build greater reliability into their strategic forces,

01:15all legs of it.

01:16They have a nuclear triad like we have.

01:18From 1945 to 1992, the United States conducted over 1,000 nuclear tests.

01:24Congress passed a law prohibiting underground tests in 1992, and that's when we entered into

01:29the moratorium that has been in place to this day.

01:32We don't have a need to test our nuclear weapons.

01:34We can model this stuff.

01:36And we also have enough data from the hundreds, maybe up to a thousand tests that we've already

01:41done.

01:42Congress wants to know more about the type of testing the president is talking about,

01:46because there are multiple ways to test without actually detonating an atomic bomb.

01:51They can perform testing in laboratories.

01:53They can also test the missile that carries the bomb, but not the warhead itself.

01:57He said he can match our enemy, I think there's a deterrent rhetoric.

02:06And what, you know, the testing goes on all the time.

02:10I don't know what specific type of testing he was talking about.

02:13I don't imagine he was talking about above ground detonations, or even underground detonation

02:18at this point.

02:19Federal law still prohibits underground nuclear testing.

02:31The United States signed onto the Limited Test Ban Treaty in 1963, which prohibits testing

02:36in the atmosphere, underwater and outer space.

02:39So if the Trump administration does want to detonate a nuclear device, it would be very

02:43limited on how it could do that without breaking the law or the treaty.

02:48I'm Murray Bogan for Straight Arrow News.

02:50For more unbiased reporting straight from our nation's capital, download the SAN app.

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