The first nuclear tests took place in the United States in July 1945. Thus began the era of nuclear weapons.
Four years later, the USSR entered the nuclear race by testing the RDS-1 device.
Such tests may serve different purposes. Since nuclear weapons are the most powerful weapons ever invented by mankind, it is necessary to imagine all the possible consequences.
A nuclear explosion yields at least six damaging effects which are very different in nature.
All these effects have been tested over the widest possible geography, from the tropics to the polar latitudes.
There are four types of nuclear tests.
For reasons explained later, underground explosions are the most common type of nuclear tests, three times more frequent than atmospheric, trans-atmospheric or underwater explosions.
Each such event leaves behind a trail of harmful consequences – military, political and environmental ones.
The tests could fuel a nuclear arms race, as happened between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
India, Pakistan and North Korea faced international criticism and some political and economic sanctions after their tests.
The United States spent $45 million to clean up just one of the 60 islands that make up Rongelap Atoll.
Nuclear testing significantly increases the risk of cancer for local residents and participating personnel.
In subsequent years, the number of tests grew rapidly, and more and more countries joined the “Nuclear Club”.
As of 2023, club members had conducted a total of 2,056 nuclear weapons tests.
The proliferation of nuclear tests around the world as well as the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 so frightened the international community that in 1963 the first treaty to limit nuclear tests was adopted.
The climate effect became apparent almost immediately. The atmosphere began to be cleared of radioactive carbon C-14 – the accumulated consequences of explosions.
The success achieved was consolidated five years later with the signing of the main treaty against the nuclear militarisation of the planet.
Finally, in 1996, the UN adopted a multilateral treaty that put an end to any nuclear testing.
However, the document never came into force. Of the 44 countries whose ratification is required, 8 have not ratified it, including the US and China.
On November 2, 2023, the Russian Federation withdrew its ratification of the CTBT, citing the lack of ratification by the United States.
Nevertheless, members of the nuclear club no longer conduct tests. On the initiative of the USSR in 1990, these countries introduced unilateral moratoriums on them, and so far, they have been observed.
Some countries, such as the United States, have replaced real nuclear explosions with simulations on super-powerful computers.
The DPRK, which failed to introduce a moratorium, has carried out tests several times in the 21st century. The result was 9 packages of sanctions from the UN Security Council.
On the initiative of Kazakhstan, which at one time suffered greatly from tests, in 2009 the UN introduced an “International Day against Nuclear Tests”.
However, the Doomsday Clock, which symbolically shows the time until “nuclear midnight,” was moved forward by 10 seconds in 2023.
Humanity has never come so close to a full-scale nuclear war.