China's Alleged Nuclear Test || Feb. 20, 2026
The Trump administration has accused China of conducting a small nuclear test in 2020. The claim is that a seismic event was detected in Western China around that time. A lot is going on here, so let's unpack it.
A nuclear blast creating that small of a seismic reading would have to be from a small weapon in a massive underground containment facility. However, developing a weapon that small and testing it doesn’t add up. So, could there be a political rationale for raising this accusation now?
One theory is that the Trump administration wanted justification for restarting U.S. nuclear testing (which has no military support) to garner leverage in negotiations. The Cold War showed us this is a fairly strange path to go down, but we'll just have to wait and see what comes of this.
Comments (31)
See Monday’s 012326 WSJ editorial on this topic
Yes. Heard that and immediately saw it as a 'test balloon' for an excuse to restart testing. Trump is a fool who has a big woody for playing with nukes.
If there’s a rumour from this administration that is both a bad and/or stupid idea from the Cold War, it’s coming from the top and someone else in the administration is hoping the leak will stop it
I'm surprised that we haven't seen the orange man water skiing yet. Think weekend at Bernie's starring JD and Nosferatu...
Little boy with big toys. Scary
My understanding is that this is suspected to have been a 4th generation nuclear weapons that does not use fission but only fusion, causing the explosion with tritium only, which only generates between 1 to 100 tons of TNT equivalent. With very little short acting radiation, therefore it would be used as a conventional weapon but with 100 times the destructive power of a TNT weapon. So to be used as a tactical weapons with no fall out. So the likelihood that it would be used is much higher.
Only way this would be possible is if they have figured out a way to create a contained plasma ignition system, especially because using tritium only instead of adding deuterium into the mix has to ignite at much higher temperatures...and it would definitely cause radiation, just not the long lasting type. Think mini neutron bomb that also has very low yield destructive capacity.
The bad old days are returning. Anyone remember Atomic Sunsets?
The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades
It would make the most sense to me that the White House is stating this to give them the pass to detonate a nuke, I think it is legitimately just an ego thing. Trump has never really done anything for the good of the country and his administration is more about looting the treasury so I don’t think they would really care about us testing a nuke and all the political consequences of doing so. It’s also important to remember most billionaires in the United States have bunkers for what they perceive will be the inevitable end of the world anyways via climate change or social collapse from them making their billions, so it’s not like we’re dealing with logical people here, this is another emperor does not have his clothes on situation… In my personal opinion
6 7 Hundred feet
Funny and original 👍
FYI, Google says we maintain an arsenal of approximately 100 tactical nukes in and around the European theater consisting or converting soon into B61-12s and B61-13s
Technically, most of our warheads can be tactical. They effectively have a "dial a yield" capability from 10kt to 250kt
Burt the turtle says “duck and cover”. Maybe CBS should do a rerun of the movie “The Day After” or better yet “Dr Strangelove” in honor of Mr T’s MAGA movement.
The first time CBS broadcast "The Day After", the American people got spooked and Reagan started the "Star Wars", SDI.
Diaper Donnie wants to play with "his" toys. Nuff said.
Going with the negotiation chip, the message would be, hey look, we are willing to take military action against Iran if no nuke deal is made. So you better buy more soy beans, and then I'll reduce tariffs, then that will help the Affordability issue in time for the mid term elections.
Trump has openly said he wants to test nukes so pretty sure he’s trying to set the stage to able to do that.
Yeah I remeber when he also said nuke a hurricane.
It appears that Trump has a need for psychological reasons to conduct nuclear testing again, similar to his need to own Greenland, as he has stated. Perhaps it would make him feel more powerful and he wants to intimidate other nuclear powers and nuclear wannabes.
I have not heard anything about the Panama Canal from Trump either, but I expect he will bring it all up again. Same with Greenland and nuclear testing, etc.
Oh stfu Trump. Clean up your own shit hole with children slaughtering each other in schools first. The irony that the orange psychopath is decimating the US with his own nuclear level of stupidity.
They used to call these small mass nukes "suitcase" bombs. I have no doubt that with the current world circumstances that the plan to use that form of device strategically if not surreptitiously is well under way.
If this happened in 2020, why was there no immediate objection? The President should have brought this up then. Who was president in 2020? Donald, can you answer that? Wake up! Hey, Donald!
Could it have been a failed attempt?
This is an interesting question and a more salient comment than the one I left. Could it have been a fizzle fub? Maybe? Without like data about what they were doing it is kinda hard to guess, but again, it’s a good question! PZ brought up the Nuclear Watchdog Groups, and let me tell you, I played a game against Secretary Ernie Moniz once, and you don’t go sleeping on him. If there was evidence of a Chinese violation of the test ban treaty, https://www.nti.org/ would have emailed me like 5 times asking for, well, about $3.50.
Does seem like Trump wants to set off some nukes as a cheap thrill and negotiation tactic. Hopefully, the military will resist.
NEW- KLEE- ARE !!!!!
Nu- ku- lar
Hmmmmm I think someone in the WH really, really is hoping to star in Season 4 of Fallout, which I believe takes place in 2029, in a mansion, in Florida. I don’t have access to scripts in development like I used to, but… well… I understand that ghouls actually do suffer from chronic venous insufficiency, so it’s a natural casting choice!