In a development that historians argue echoes the late 1950s and early 1960s, Russian President Vladimir Putin last week declared successful tests of two unconventional weapons, a nuclear-powered cruise missile called Burevestnik and a nuclear-powered underwater drone called Poseidon. The declarations were swiftly met by President Donald Trump’s announcement of a resumption of U.S. nuclear testing. Both moves have injected uncertainty and urgency into a global security architecture already frayed by years of treaty erosion and technological change.

Serhii Plokhy, author of “The Nuclear Age: An Epic Race for Arms, Power, and Survival,” places the moment in historical context: the reappearance of nuclear brinkmanship and the prospect of an arms race driven by novel platforms and strategic signaling. Yet while the political rhetoric is stark, technical verification remains elusive. Intelligence and arms-control experts have raised doubts about whether the tested Russian systems function as described. Equally ambiguous is what the U.S. announcement signifies in practice: whether it signals an intent to conduct explosive tests, to relax a long-standing moratorium, or to leverage political pressure in negotiations.

The policy implications are immediate. Arms-control frameworks that once restrained competition have weakened. New START, the last remaining bilateral treaty limiting U.S.-Russia deployed strategic warheads, faces an uncertain future beyond its current term. The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, adopted decades ago, has not entered into force, and the United States has not conducted explosive nuclear tests since the early 1990s. A resumption of testing by any major power would shatter a norm that has constrained qualitative advances in warhead design and could prompt reciprocal steps with rapid strategic consequences.

Institutional capacity for verification and oversight will be tested. Intelligence agencies, the National Nuclear Security Administration and the national laboratories would confront heightened pressure to produce definitive assessments and to manage weapon modernization programs under political scrutiny. Congress will be central: funding decisions, treaty ratification and oversight hearings will determine whether political signaling translates into sustained policy changes or temporary posturing. Voters will, in turn, have to weigh how candidates and parties approach nuclear risk, treaty commitments and military modernization in coming elections.

The renewed nuclear rhetoric also revives classic Cold War lessons about transparency, crisis communication and deterrence stability. In an era of faster weapons, cyber interference and globalized information flows, misperception and inadvertent escalation are heightened risks. Restoring confidence will require more than statements: meaningful verification mechanisms, regular dialogues, and clearer thresholds for testing and deployment.

Public engagement is essential. Nuclear policy is often conducted at a remove from citizens’ daily concerns, yet its implications for national security, fiscal priorities and democratic accountability are profound. As democratic institutions confront these decisions, voters and civil society groups have a role in demanding clarity, institutional checks and a sober assessment of risks rather than unchecked rhetoric. The choices lawmakers make now will shape whether the world drifts into a renewed, costly arms competition or rediscovers the restraint that helped avert catastrophe in a previous nuclear era.