Under Secretary of State for Arms Control Thomas DiNanno recently revealed that the Chinese Communist Party has covertly explosively tested nuclear weapons creating yields of “hundreds of tons” of dynamite. By so doing, the CCP has validated that the state-of-the-art arms they are putting on an astonishing array of new missiles and bomber aircraft actually work. 

That amounts to Chinese cheating on an international ban on such testing. It also demands that that the United States – which hasn’t conducted such a test since 1992 and, unlike China, has no treaty obligation to refrain from doing so, must validate that the obsolescing weapons in its arsenal are actually still safe, reliable and effective, too.  

President Trump says he wants to test our nuclear weapons as others have done. Our national security and deterrence requires we do just that now.  

This is Frank Gaffney.