The era of symbolic deterrence

The President’s Recent Announcements donald trump about what united states of america The possibility of restarting nuclear tests in pursuit of a supposed “strategic parity” with other countries rocked headlines around the world. This is not a column about the news itself, which is already well-discussed, but about how power is projected in this new era of what many call “power.” era of algorithms.

It’s worth analyzing, then, what great powers like the United States are trying to tell the world when nuclear powers, with the sole exception of North Korea, which carried out its last explosion in 2017, have taken a decades-long voluntary moratorium and are threatening to return to past practices such as nuclear testing.

American evangelical leader Franklin Graham: “Trump and Milley believe they are where they are because of God.”

Its anachronistic past led to extreme tensions in pointless competition, consuming vast resources to develop increasingly sophisticated weapons that were never used at the time. For many, the era of physical restraint was a wasted opportunity for humanity, a pitiful mirror of a power that has forgotten its purpose.

The world has changed since then. Today, power is demonstrated not by uranium or plutonium or deuterium or tritium, but by symbols, algorithms, and narratives. We see it constantly.

Incidentally, the US president’s vague statement came just as Russia was demonstrating its capabilities by announcing tests of strategic launch systems such as long-range torpedoes. poseidonwhose marketing predicts radioactive tsunamis and cruise missiles Burevestnikcapable of carrying nuclear warheads. This statement was doubly suggestive. It was announced on October 29, the day before President Trump’s meeting with the Chinese leader. Xi Jinpinggiven that the Asian giant has recently doubled down on its arsenal.

Washington’s outlook was clear. The United States cannot afford to be left behind in the face of such developments by strategic adversaries. We needed power staging to remind us that we could redefine the board as needed. a kind of nuclear MAGA.

Those who interpreted Trump to be referring to the more than 2,000 explosive tests carried out during the Cold War reacted with strong condemnation. Even within the United States, opinions ranged from criticism to accusations of recklessness.

A line that should not be crossed

The contradiction was obvious. If the objective was to achieve “strategic equivalence,” then references to conventional nuclear tests were inappropriate. Russia and China took note of this, calling on the current fragile strategic stability not to be disrupted and warning of the downward spiral that a violation of the moratorium would imply.

The fact is that today there is no technical need to carry out actual explosions to maintain or develop nuclear weapons. The US verifies the reliability of weapons through programs Stockpile managementsimulation, supercomputing and artificial intelligence models.

In light of the warning, the government clarified that it was not talking about an explosion, but rather a low-risk experiment. It wasn’t enough to reduce the impact. In a climate of global uncertainty, the words of a first-class leader can carry as much weight as an actual nuclear test.

Ambiguous representation can erode the system’s architecture. Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT)the 1996 bill is a pillar of global security, but it has not yet entered into force because it has not been ratified by major powers such as the United States, China, and Russia.

Deterrence has changed its nature and is no longer physical, but symbolic. Rather than the number of nuclear warheads each power possesses, there is more debate about who controls the security narrative. Power becomes dialectical. Saying “I can” becomes equivalent to power.

In this context, nuclear testing reappears as a metaphor, as a rhetorical pulse to measure obedience. The explosion is discursive. Crater, political.

The 20th century saw experiments with atoms. In number 21, we experiment with algorithms, images (real or fake), and narratives that shape perception. Physical destruction is replaced by strategic chaos and moral decline.

In a world where technology allows us to simulate things that previously required explosions, and words create reality, the challenge is to use power responsibly before risks get out of control.

Yet many of us continue to believe that power can be used wisely, as long as those who hold it remember that they also live in a world they endanger. That’s not naive. It’s strategic clarity.

*NPSGLOBAL Representative Director and President. Expert in strategy, geopolitics, and AI.