What Are The Bush Administration’s ‘Next Steps’ On Nuclear Testing Arms Control?

Coincident with the start of the Senate Armed Services Committee’s deliberations on two arms control treaties involving nuclear testing, the Center for Security Policy today called on the Committee to examine critically the latest calls for still more constraining limitations on underground nuclear test explosions.

One such a call is contained in the current version of the resolution of ratification of the Threshold Test Ban and Peaceful Nuclear Explosions Treaties (TTBT and PNET) adopted by the Foreign Relations Committee on 14 September and scheduled for consideration by the full Senate later this week. Specifically, this resolution would — in its present form — have the Senate go on record as saying the United States "shares a special responsibility with the Soviet Union to continue the bilateral Nuclear Testing Talks to achieve further limitations on nuclear testing, including the achievement of a verifiable comprehensive test ban."

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., the Center’s director, said, "It is incumbent on members of the Senate Armed Services Committee to ensure that — before they are asked to endorse additional testing constraints — their colleagues are aware of the stated view of the Bush Administration: ‘The United States has not identified any further limitations on nuclear testing beyond those now contained in the TTBT that would be in the U.S. national interest.’" (U.S. policy statement, 9 January 1990.)

An even more stark warning against agreements that would reduce the number of nuclear tests or the yields of those tests was provided on 6 June 1990 by those directly responsible for validating the weapons that comprise the U.S. nuclear deterrent — the directors of the Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos National Laboratories:

At the current level of testing, we can no longer maintain both the level of nuclear competence and forward looking program that meets the nation’s needs in safety, security, effectiveness, stockpile reliability and avoidance of technological surprise….Our experts claim that the present testing rate would have to be doubled to meet our requirements. (Emphasis added.)

 

To assist the Committee and the Senate in its consideration of the present resolution, the Center re-released in excerpted form an analysis originally published in June 1989 entitled Nuclear Testing Negotiations: What is the Bush Administration’s Agenda?. This paper details authoritative information (including excerpts from compelling official reports) about the continuing requirement for nuclear testing as long as the United States relies upon nuclear weapons for deterrence.