As global consensus against nuclear testing frays, India should re

When President Donald Trump announced that the United States would consider resuming nuclear testing, he did more than reopen an old debate. He reminded the world how fragile the post-Cold War consensus on restraint has become. For nearly three decades, a voluntary global moratorium on nuclear testing has held, not because it was legally binding, but because it was politically convenient and morally persuasive. That consensus is now fraying.

Washington’s doubts about the reliability of its nuclear arsenal without testing mirror similar trends elsewhere. Russia has revived activity at its Arctic test sites. China is expanding its facilities at Lop Nur. When the most powerful states begin to question the sufficiency of self-restraint, the assumptions that have governed the nuclear order sta