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The World Ahead | Arms control in 2024

Nuclear testing could start a new arms race

This time it would be three sides, not just two

A number of missiles with a hand picking one out
Illustration: Ben Denzer

By Anton La Guardia

SEISMOLOGICAL detectors around the world could soon twitch not to the tremors of earthquakes, but of an underground nuclear explosion, at Novaya Zemlya in Russia’s Arctic region, or Lop Nur, in the Xinjiang region of China. Then, soon enough, a blast at the Nevada National Security Site in America.

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This article appeared in the International section of the print edition of The World Ahead 2024 under the headline “A new nuclear era?”

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