Trump Risks Igniting a Nuclear Wildfire

By The Editorial Board

The editorial board is a group of opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate and certain longstanding values. It is separate from the newsroom.

The world is entering a dangerous new nuclear age. This month, the New START treaty between the United States and Russia — the last major restraint on the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals — expired. In its place, the Trump administration is substituting a policy of vague threats and dangerous brinkmanship that portends an unconstrained arms race not seen since the height of the Cold War.

President Trump’s approach to this new, unbound era is alarming in both its words and its mechanics. Rather than preserving the stability that has held for half a century, the administration is weighing the deployment of more nuclear weapons and, perhaps most recklessly, the resumption of underground nuclear testing.

Times Opinion and this editorial board have spent the past two years documenting the terrifying reality of these weapons in our series “At the Brink.” We explored the catastrophic consequences of a single detonation, the forgotten victims of past testing and the fragility of the systems meant to prevent the unthinkable. The intention of that series was to raise public awareness about the dangers of nuclear weapons. Now that lack of awareness is being exploited to abandon the last of the international agreements that helped keep humanity safe for decades and to pursue an unchecked arms race.

The administration seems to think that when it comes to nuclear weapons, more is better. With New START gone, the Navy is studying whether to reopen disabled launch........

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