Senator Lugar Delivers Kiss-of-Death to C.T.B.T

(Washington, D.C.): As the Senate prepares to open debate on the Comprehensive Test
Ban
Treaty (CTBT), arms control’s preeminent Republican champion in the Senate, Sen. Richard
Lugar (R-IN) has delivered what is surely the kiss-of-death for this accord. In a lengthy and
detailed memorandum released today, Sen. Lugar declared “I will vote against the
ratification
of the CTBT.”

The Senator’s reasons for reaching what was clearly a wrenching decision are
characteristically
thoughtful and powerfully explained in the following excerpts of his memorandum. The Center
applauds Senator Lugar for his courageous leadership in this matter and commends his
arguments to his colleagues — and to the American people on behalf of whose security they are
made.

Press Release from U.S. Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana

A Senior Member of the Senate Intelligence and Foreign Relations
Committees
and the Senate’s National Security Working Group

The Senate is poised to begin consideration of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty under a
unanimous consent agreement that will provide for 14 hours of general debate, debate on two
amendments, and a final vote on ratification….In anticipation of the general debate, I will state
my reasons for opposing ratification of the CTBT.

The goal of the CTBT is to ban all nuclear explosions worldwide: I do not believe it
can
succeed. I have little confidence that the verification and enforcement provisions will
dissuade other nations from nuclear testing. Furthermore, I am concerned about our
country’s ability to maintain the integrity and safety of our own nuclear arsenal under the
conditions of the treaty.

I am a strong advocate of effective and verifiable arms control agreements. As a former
Vice-Chairman of the Senate Arms Control Observer Group and a member of the Foreign
Relations
Committee, I have had the privilege of managing Senate consideration of many arms control
treaties and agreements.

* * *

I understand the impulse of the proponents of the CTBT to express U.S. leadership in another
area of arms control. Inevitably, arms control treaties are accompanied by idealistic
principles
that envision a future in which international norms prevail over the threat of conflict between
nations. However, while affirming our desire for international peace and stability, the U.S.
Senate is charged with the constitutional responsibility of making hard judgments about the
likely outcomes of treaties. This requires that we examine the treaties in close detail and calculate
the consequences of ratification for the present and the future. Viewed in this context, I cannot
support the treaty’s ratification.

I do not believe that the CTBT is of the same caliber as the arms control treaties that have
come
before the Senate in recent decades. Its usefulness to the goal of non-proliferation is highly
questionable. Its likely ineffectuality will risk undermining support and confidence in the concept
of multi-lateral arms control. Even as a symbolic statement of our desire for a safer world, it is
problematic because it would exacerbate risks and uncertainties related to the safety of our
nuclear stockpile.

STOCKPILE STEWARDSHIP

The United States must maintain a reliable nuclear deterrent for the foreseeable
future.
Although the Cold War is over, significant threats to our country still exist. At present our
nuclear capability provides a deterrent that is crucial to the safety of the American people and is
relied upon as a safety umbrella by most countries around the world. One of the most critical
issues under the CTBT would be that of ensuring the safety and reliability of our nuclear
weapons stockpile without testing. The safe maintenance and storage of these weapons is a
crucial concern. We cannot allow them to fall into disrepair or permit their safety to be called
into question.

The Administration has proposed an ambitious program that would verify the safety and
reliability of our weapons through computer modeling and simulations. Unfortunately, the jury is
still out on the Stockpile Stewardship Program. The last nine years have seen improvements, but
the bottom line is that the Senate is being asked to trust the security of our country to a program
that is unproven and unlikely to be fully operational until perhaps 2010. I believe a National
Journal article, by James Kitfield, summed it up best by quoting a nuclear scientist who likens
the challenge of maintaining the viability of our stockpile without testing to “walking an obstacle
course in the dark when your last glimpse of light was a flash of lightning back in 1992.”

The most likely problems facing our stockpile are a result of aging. This is a threat because
nuclear materials and components degrade in unpredictable ways, in some cases causing
weapons to fail. This is compounded by the fact that the U.S. currently has the oldest inventory
in the history of our nuclear weapons programs.

Over the last forty years, a large percentage of the weapon designs in our stockpile have
required
post-deployment tests to resolve problems. Without these tests, not only would the problems
have remained undetected, but they also would have gone unrepaired. The Congressional
Research Service reported last year that: “A problem with one warhead type can affect hundreds
of thousands of individually deployed warheads; with only 9 types of warheads expected to be in
the stockpile in 2000, compared to 30 in 1985, a single problem could affect a large fraction of
the U.S. nuclear force.” If we are to put our faith in a program other than testing to ensure the
safety and reliability of our nuclear deterrent and thus our security, we must have complete faith
in its efficacy. The Stockpile Stewardship Program falls well short of that
standard.

The United States has chosen to re-manufacture our aging stockpile rather than creating and
building new weapon designs. This could be a potential problem because many of the
components and procedures used in original weapon designs no longer exist. New production
procedures need to be developed and substituted for the originals, but we must ensure that the
re-manufactured weapons will work as designed.

I am concerned further by the fact that some of the weapons in our arsenal are not as safe as
we
could make them. Of the nine weapon designs currently in our arsenal, only one employs all of
the most modern safety and security measures. Our nuclear weapons laboratories are unable to
provide the American people with these protections because of the inability of the Stockpile
Stewardship Program to completely mimic testing.

At present, I am not convinced the Stockpile Stewardship Program will permit our experts to
maintain a credible deterrent in the absence of testing. Without a complete, effective, and proven
Stockpile Stewardship program, the CTBT could erode our ability to discover and fix problems
with the nuclear stockpile and to make safety improvements.

In fact, the most important debate on this issue may be an honest discussion of whether we
should commence limited testing and continue such a program with consistency and certainty.

VERIFICATION

President Reagan’s words “trust but verify” remain an important measuring stick of
whether a treaty serves the national security interests of the United States. The U.S. must
be confident of its ability to detect cheating among member states. While the exact
thresholds
are classified, it is commonly understood that the United States cannot detect nuclear explosions
below a few kilotons of yield. The Treaty’s verification regime, which includes an international
monitoring system and on-site inspections, was designed to fill the gaps in our national technical
means. Unfortunately, the CTBT’s verification regime will not be up to that task even if
it is
ever fully deployed.

Advances in mining technologies have enabled nations to smother nuclear tests,
allowing
them to conduct tests with little chance of being detected. Similarly, countries can
utilize
existing geologic formations to decouple their nuclear tests, thereby dramatically reducing the
seismic signal produced and rendering the test undetectable. A recent Washington Post article
points out that part of the problem of detecting suspected Russian tests at Novaya Zemlya is that
the incidents take place in a large granite cave that has proven effective in muffling tests.

The verification regime is further bedeviled by the lack of a common definition of a nuclear
test.
Russia believes hydro-nuclear activities and sub-critical experiments are permitted under the
treaty. The U.S. believes sub-critical experiments are permitted but hydro-nuclear tests are not.
Other states believe both are illegal. A common understanding or definition of what is and what
is not permitted under the treaty has not been established.

Proponents point out that if the U.S. needs additional evidence to detect violations, on-site
inspections can be requested. Unfortunately, the CTBT will utilize a red-light inspection process.
Requests for on-site inspections must be approved by at least 30 affirmative votes of members of
the Treaty’s 51-member Executive Council. In other words, if the United States accused another
country of carrying out a nuclear test, we could only get an inspection if 29 other nations
concurred with our request. In addition, each country can declare a 50 square kilometer area of its
territory as off limits to any inspections that are approved.

The CTBT stands in stark contrast to the Chemical Weapons Convention in the area of
verifiability. Whereas the CTBT requires an affirmative vote of the Executive Council for an
inspection to be approved, the CWC requires an affirmative vote to stop an inspection from
proceeding. Furthermore, the CWC did not exclude large tracts of land from the inspection
regime, as does the CTBT.

The CTBT’s verification regime seems to be the embodiment of everything the United States
has
been fighting against in the UNSCOM inspection process in Iraq. We have rejected Iraq’s
position of choosing and approving the national origin of inspectors. In addition, the 50 square
kilometer inspection-free zones could become analogous to the controversy over the inspections
of Iraqi presidential palaces. The UNSCOM experience is one that is best not repeated under a
CTBT.

ENFORCEMENT

Let me turn to some enforcement concerns. Even if the United States were
successful in
utilizing the laborious verification regime and non-compliance was detected, the Treaty is
almost powerless to respond. This treaty simply has no teeth. Arms control advocates
need to
reflect on the possible damage to the concept of arms control if we embrace a treaty that comes
to be perceived as ineffectual. Arms control based only on a symbolic purpose can breed
cynicism in the process and undercut support for more substantive and proven arms control
measures.

The CTBT’s answer to illegal nuclear testing is the possible implementation of sanctions. It
is
clear that this will not prove particularly compelling in the decision-making processes of foreign
states intent on building nuclear weapons. For those countries seeking nuclear weapons, the
perceived benefits in international stature and deterrence generally far outweigh the concern
about sanctions that could be brought to bear by the international community.

Further, recent experience has demonstrated that enforcing effective multilateral sanctions
against a country is extraordinarily difficult. Currently, the United States is struggling to
maintain multilateral sanctions on Iraq, a country that openly seeks weapons of mass destruction
and blatantly invaded and looted a neighboring nation, among other transgressions. If it is
difficult to maintain the international will behind sanctions on an outlaw nation, how would we
enforce sanctions against more responsible nations of greater commercial importance like India
and Pakistan?

In particularly grave cases, the CTBT Executive Council can bring the issue to the attention
of
the United Nations. Unfortunately, this too would most likely prove ineffective, given that
permanent members of the Security Council could veto any efforts to punish CTBT violators.
Chances of a better result in the General Assembly are remote at best.

I believe the enforcement mechanisms of the CTBT provide little reason for countries to
forego
nuclear testing. Some of my friends respond to this charge by pointing out that even if the
enforcement provisions of the treaty are ineffective, the treaty will impose new international
norms for behavior. In this case, we have observed that “norms” have not been persuasive for
North Korea, Iraq, Iran, India and Pakistan, the very countries whose actions we seek to
influence through a CTBT.

If a country breaks the international norm embodied in the CTBT, that country has already
broken the norm associated with the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Countries other than the
recognized nuclear powers who attempt to test a weapon must first manufacture or obtain a
weapon, which would constitute a violation of the NPT. I fail to see how an additional norm will
deter a motivated nation from developing nuclear weapons after violating the long-standing norm
of the NPT.

CONCLUSION

On Tuesday the Senate is scheduled to vote on the ratification of the CTBT. If this
vote
takes place, I believe the treaty should be defeated. The Administration has failed to make
a case on why this treaty is in our national security interests.

The Senate is being asked to rely on an unfinished and unproven Stockpile Stewardship
Program.
This program might meet our needs in the future, but as yet, it is not close to doing so. The treaty
is flawed with an ineffective verification regime and a practically nonexistent enforcement
process.

For these reasons, I will vote against ratification of the CTBT.