End Game: More Reasons Why The Clinton Administration Should Stop Trying To Conclude A Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

(Washington, D.C.): The Clinton Administration is frantically pushing international negotiators in Geneva to find ways to paper over important differences and conclude a Comprehensive Test Ban (CTB) before the U.S. presidential election in November. Given President Clinton’s present lead in the polls, the reason for this urgency might appear to be his desire further to burnish his record in the area of "denuclearization" for the fall campaign by claiming to have rid the world of all underground nuclear testing. There is fresh reason to believe, however, that the real impetus behind this Let’s Make a Deal-style negotiating frenzy is the fact that this may be the last chance to complete an accord that is so manifestly inconsistent with U.S. national interests.

As the Center for Security Policy has noted previously,⁽¹⁾ the current U.S. nuclear stockpile was created on the assumption that actual weapons testing would continue to be available. Accordingly, in order for the United States to maintain an effective, safe and reliable — and therefore credible — nuclear deterrent, it is necessary to perform periodic detonations of actual weapons. Successive U.S. presidents, including Jimmy Carter, have declined to complete a comprehensive ban on nuclear testing for this reason, among others.

Supporters of the CTB — few of whom have heretofore evinced much support for the Nation’s offensive nuclear capabilities — assert that advances in computer simulation technology can reliably substitute for "live" tests. Although technological advances may theoretically permit other effective means of testing the reliability and safety of our stockpile, the demonstration of such capability is still years down the road. Until such time, the effect of the Clinton Administration’s CTB would be undoubtedly to degrade the safety and reliability of a key national security asset at the very moment rogue states are accelerating their own efforts to acquire nuclear weapons capabilities.

‘Objection is Heard’

Fortunately, the reckless absurdity of this situation has been squarely addressed by the Republican Party in its 1996 platform. The relevant section serves notice on President Clinton that the "loyal opposition" does not concur that the cessation of U.S. nuclear testing is in the national interest:

"To cope with the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the United States will have to deter the threat or use of weapons of mass destruction by rogue states. This in turn will require the continuing maintenance and development of nuclear weapons and their periodic testing. The Clinton Administration’s proposed Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) is inconsistent with American security interests."

Clinton End-Game Concessions Make Matters Worse

Republican and other national security-minded objections to the Clinton Comprehensive Test Ban are being compounded with each round of eleventh-hour negotiations. Thanks in part to recent concessions to China, for example, on-site inspections are being circumscribed in a way that will add to the unverifiability of this treaty. The gravity of the problem is evident in the fact that, in January of this year, the Department of Defense detected seismic activity consistent with an underground nuclear test in Russia even though Moscow claims that it is observing a self-imposed moratorium on nuclear testing.

Unfortunately, even if a CTB had effective on-site inspection provisions, past experience suggests that the U.S. government would be reluctant to employ them in a manner that would prove other states parties — especially preeminent ones like Russia and China — were in violation. This is an especially unlikely prospect given the enormous political capital expended by the Clinton Administration in securing this accord.

As of this writing, the Administration is exploring further concessions that will induce India to permit a consensus to be reached in the Conference on Disarmament’s draft CTB so that the document can be brought to a vote in the U.N. General Assembly this fall. Thus far, India has sought to wield a veto over such consensus — ostensibly in order to goad the declared nuclear powers into adopting specific steps leading to complete nuclear disarmament. (The irony would be delicious if it were not so pernicious: The Clinton Administration is pursuing unilateral policies that will, over time, produce just such a result at least for the U.S. nuclear deterrent.)

While the Administration is reportedly also exploring ways in which it can end-run or simply ignore the Indian objections, it must be expected that as part of its end-game wheeling-and-dealing the Clinton team is also conveying its willingness to enter into further negotiations — perhaps leading to a START III agreement — that will entail further, radical cuts in the American nuclear deterrent. Given the fact that the START I and START II agreements are not exactly working out in the symmetrical, equitable and verifiable fashion that had been intended, it can only be hoped that the nature of any such undertakings to the Indians will be made public and subjected to congressional consideration and debate before they are formalized.

The Bottom Line

The Center for Security Policy applauds the Republican Party for laying down a clear marker about the ill-advised nature of the emerging Comprehensive Test Ban. In the face of such serious concerns on the part of those whose support will be required to ratify such a treaty, the responsible course for the Clinton Administration would be to defer completion of negotiations until after the November election.

If Mr. Clinton’s mandate is renewed, there will be ample time to pursue the CTB end-game. If it is not, the Nation will not be saddled with international obligations regarding nuclear testing and other factors governing the adequacy, safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear deterrent that might be binding upon the Nation even if these Clinton initiatives prove unratifiable.

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1. See, for example, the Center’s Decision Brief entitled Vive La France! French Determination to Perform Necessary Nuclear Testing Should Be Wake-Up Call to U.S. (No. 95-D 47, 14 July 1995).