https://www.sciencenews.org/article/nuclear-weapons-tests-comeback-threats . Calls to restart nuclear weapons tests stir dismay and debate among scientists A U.S. return to underground detonations would have wide-ranging implications Some see the ability to test as a necessity for a world in which nuclear weapons are a rising threat. “We are seeing an environment in which the autocrats are increasingly relying on nuclear weapons to threaten and coerce their adversaries,” says Robert Peters, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. “If you’re in an acute crisis or conflict in which your adversary is threatening to employ nuclear weapons, you don’t want to limit the options of the president to get you out of that crisis.” Testing, and the signal it sends to an adversary, he argues, should be such an option.