ASSESSING THE MERITS OF THE CTBT

Abstract

The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and the nonproliferation regime have been weakened; perhaps no other issue demonstrates this as dramatically as the status of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), the ratification of which the U.S. Senate rejected in October 1999. Despite the U.S. rejection, the test ban has strong international support—the most recent vote to promote the CTBT in the UN General Assembly passed overwhelmingly, with 175 votes to 1 (the United States) and three abstentions. The Obama administration favors U.S. ratification of the CTBT, but this is no guarantee that Washington will ratify the test ban. Members of Congress must weigh the benefits and risks of signing the treaty; however, these calculations can sometimes be difficult to carry out. This article examines whether a return to nuclear testing would in fact benefit the United States, or if a test ban would be a greater contribution to U.S. national security.

Keywords:

• Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty
• United States
• nuclear weapons

Notes

1. Associated Press, “U.S. Aiming to Ratify Nuke Test Ban Treaty by Next Spring: Sources,” August 7, 2009.

2. Pavel Podvig, “Russia's New Arms Development,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, January 16, 2009, <thebulletin.org/web-edition/columnists/pavel-podvig/russias-new-arms-development>.

3. NAS, Technical Issues Related to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 2002), pp. 1–4 and Chapter 1.

4. I have discussed this and other related ideas previously; see David Hafemeister, “How Much Reliability Is Enough for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty?” Physics and Society 36 (April 2007), pp. 3–8.

5. NAS, Technical Issues Related to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban, pp. 29, 34.

6. Linton F. Brooks, “Testimony of Linton F. Brooks before the Senate Armed Services Committee Subcommittee on Strategic Forces,” NNSA, April 4, 2005.

7. David Hafemeister, “How Much Reliability Is Enough for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty?”, pp. 3-8.

8. See Robert S. Norris and Hans Kristensen, “The U.S. Nuclear Stockpile, Today and Tomorrow,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, September/October 2007, pp. 60–63.

9. Sidney Drell, “The Future of the CTBT,” 2009 Carnegie NonProliferation Conference, April 7, 2009, Washington, DC.

10. Steve Fetter, Toward a Comprehensive Test Ban (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger, 1988), pp. 89–105.

11. E.A. Barfield, Department of Energy Freedom of Information Act Office, Number 95–207–C, January 5, 1996. FOIA, see Arjun Makhijani, Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, Takoma Park, MD, <www.ieer.org>.

12. Sid Drell and Robert Peurifoy, “Technical Issues of a Nuclear Test Ban,” Annual Review of Particle Science 44, 1994, pp. 285–327; Hafemeister, “How Much Reliability Is Enough for a Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty?”

13. NAS, Technical Issues Related to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, p. 21.

14. E.A. Barfield, DOE Freedom of Information Officer, Albuquerque, NM, January 5, 1996.

15. David W. Hafemeister, Physics of Societal Issues (New York: Springer, 2007), Chapter 2.

16. Hafemeister, “How Much Reliability Is Enough for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty?”

17. Hafemeister, “How Much Reliability Is Enough for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty?”

18. Ivan Oelrich, “Missions for Nuclear Weapons after the Cold War,” Federation of American Scientists, Occasional Paper No. 3, January 2005.

19. Hafemeister, “How Much Reliability Is Enough for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty?”

20. Department of Defense, “Nuclear Posture Review [Excerpts],” January 8, 2002, <www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/policy/dod/npr.htm, www.nrdc.org/nuclear>.

21. Robert S. Norris and Hans M. Kristensen, “U.S. Nuclear Forces,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March/April 2008, pp. 50–53.

22. Podvig, “Russia's New Arms Development.”

23. See Robert S. Norris and Hans Kristensen, “Nuclear Notebook: Russian Nuclear Forces: 2009,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, May/June 2009, pp. 55–63.

24. U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee reports on ratification, “The START Treaty,” Executive Report 102–53, September 1992, pp. 49–64; and “START II Treaty,” Executive Report 104–10, pp. 29–37.

25. NAS, Technical Issues Related to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, pp. 70–78.

26. General John M. Shalikashvili, special adviser to the president and the secretary of state for the CTBT, “Letter to the President and Report on the Findings and Recommendations Concerning the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty,” Washington, DC, January 4, 2001, pp. 29–33.

27. General John M. Shalikashvili, special adviser to the president and the secretary of state for the CTBT, “Letter to the President and Report on the Findings and Recommendations Concerning the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty,” Washington, DC, January 4, 2001, pp. 29–33.