Developing nuclear fusion and modernizing the US nuclear arsenal will require substantial collaboration with the private enterprise.

President Donald Trump’s announcement of the possibility of resumed nuclear testing highlights the importance of maintaining the readiness and credibility of the US nuclear deterrent. The world is more dangerous than it was in the president’s first term. Russia has threatened a nuclear first strike, and China is expanding its own nuclear arsenal at an alarming pace.

To deter our adversaries and ensure the United States is not surpassed strategically, we must leverage the private sector to rapidly build advanced radiation testing facilities that mimic the conditions of a nuclear blast without having to detonate warheads themselves. Having such a capability would complement the administration’s agenda of nuclear modernization and provide a powerful card to play in the strategic competition with Beijing and Moscow.

Trump’s comments point to a strategic reckoning, shaped by two peer nuclear-capable competitors who have to be deterred differently. China has completed a triad, constructed expansive missile fields, unveiled its arsenal of hypersonic weapons, and invested in pulsed-power and radiation-effects complexes designed to accelerate weapons science. Russia has nearly completed modernizing every leg of its arsenal while experimenting with exotic nuclear-enabled delivery systems, like the Poseidon nuclear-propelled torpedo.

Deterrence in this unprecedented global nuclear environment requires that US weapons work in a crisis under the most degraded and disruptive wartime environments imaginable. Demonstrating that high-altitude EMPs or other disruptive nuclear options are incapable of significantly damaging US systems reduces an adversary’s incentives for seeking a first strike advantage. The credibility of the American nuclear triad and its arsenal of warheads rests on its perceived and actual resilience.

China and Russia are pursuing systems designed to blind, jam, and fracture American command-and-control. In any scenario involving limited nuclear use, adversaries may employ weapons specifically to disrupt US operations with the hope that a narrow attack would not trigger a full-scale nuclear exchange. That means conventional forces, space architectures, sensor networks, and broad communications systems must be able to function in radiation-stressed environments without inviting an attack.

If these systems are perceived as liable to fail, even a reliable nuclear arsenal will lack deterrent credibility. Ensuring American systems and platforms can operate through radiation and electromagnetic disruption is essential to credible deterrence.

The United States requires testing infrastructure that produces empirical data and enables rapid iteration necessary to continuously harden, adapt, and modernize its command and control and nuclear arsenal. Engineers and strategists need reliable data on how weapons platforms and associated systems respond in high-radiation environments. Demonstrating survivability increases deterrent power.

The national laboratories remain the intellectual and scientific heart of the nuclear enterprise. Yet the current lab infrastructure cannot meet the timelines demanded by geopolitical competition. Large-scale national capabilities take decades to deploy under today’s procurement processes. Meanwhile, adversaries compress timelines and expand their capacity at an alarming speed.