C.T.B.T. Truth or Consequences #4: The Zero-Yield, Permanent Test Ban’s Pedigree is Hard Left, Not Bipartisan or Responsible

(Washington, D.C.): President Clinton is found of saying that the Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty (CTBT) is the “longest-sought, hardest-fought prize in the history of arms control.” He
and his subordinates and other CTBT proponents try, however, to confuse by whom the present,
zero-yield, permanent ban on all nuclear tests has been so long sought and hard fought. This is
not an accident. After all, as it has become clear that this arms control initiative has been the
agenda not, as the CTBT’s champions contend, for every President since Dwight Eisenhower,
but rather for radical, left-wing anti-nuclear ideologues, its prospects for approval by the
Republican Senate dwindle.

The fact is, as Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse
Helms has observed “not
a single president before the current one has ever sought a zero-yield, indefinite duration CTBT.”
Actually, every one of his predecessors rejected such an approach.

President Reagan’s Legacy

Particularly instructive is the forceful 1988 rejection of nuclear test bans and other
limitations on
nuclear testing beyond those currently on the books that was sent by President Reagan to the
Congress in September of that year. The highlights of this carefully prepared,
interagency-approved report entitled, The Relationship between Progress in Other Areas of
Arms Control and
More Stringent Limitations on Nuclear Testing should be required reading for Senators
now
confronting the decision whether to advise and consent to the CTBT:

The Requirement for Testing

• “Nuclear testing is indispensable to maintaining the credible nuclear deterrent
  which
  has kept the peace for over 40 years.”

• “Thus we do not regard nuclear testing as an evil to be curtailed, but as a tool to be
  employed responsibly in pursuit of national security.”

• “The U.S. tests neither more often nor at higher yields than is required for our security.”

• “As long as we must depend on nuclear weapons for our fundamental security,
  nuclear
  testing will be necessary.”

Why the United States Tests Nuclear Weapons

• “First, we do so to ensure the reliability of our nuclear deterrent.”

• “Second, we conduct nuclear tests in order to improve the safety, security, survivability,
  and
  effectiveness of our nuclear arsenal. Testing has allowed the introduction of modern
  safety
  and security features on our weapons. It has permitted a reduction by nearly one-third in
  the total number of weapons in the stockpile since 1960, as well as a reduction in the total
  megatonnage in that stockpile to approximately one-quarter of its 1960
  value.”

• “Third, the U.S. tests to ensure we understand the effects of a nuclear
  environment on
  military systems.”

• “Finally, by continuing to advance our understanding of nuclear weapons design, nuclear
  testing serves to avoid technological surprise and to allow us to respond to the
  evolving
  threat.”

• “These four purposes are vital national security goals. As companion
  reports by the
  Departments of Defense and Energy indicate, they cannot currently be met without
  nuclear
  testing.”

Reductions in Nuclear and/or Conventional Arms May Actually
Increase U.S. Testing
Requirements

• “…It is important to recognize that there is no direct technical linkage between the size of
  the
  nuclear stockpile and the requirements for nuclear testing.”

• “Indeed, under [an agreement providing for] deep reductions in strategic offensive arms the
  reliability of our remaining U.S. strategic weapons could be even more important and the need
  for testing even greater….”

• “Similarly, neither reductions in strategic offensive arms themselves nor success in
  conventional arms reductions will eliminate the third reason for U.S. nuclear testing, the
  requirement to ensure we understand, from both an offensive and defensive standpoint, the
  effects of the environment produced by nuclear explosions on military systems….Even in a
  world with reduced strategic arms and an improved balance in conventional forces, nuclear
  arms will exist. In such a world, understanding nuclear effects would be no less important.”

Further Policy Caveats

• “…The U.S. recognizes that neither nuclear testing nor arms control per se are ends in
  themselves. They are tools to be employed in the interests of enhancing national security.”

• “…It is clear that limitations as stringent as a complete ban on tests above either 1
  kiloton-
  or 10 kilotons-yield pose serious risks and will almost certainly not prove to be
  compatible with our overall security interests. As the companion reports by the
  Departments of Defense and Energy make clear, such limitations have exceptionally severe
  effects on U.S. programs. In addition, we do not know how to verify such yield
  limitations.”

The Bottom Line

The Reagan Administration report declared in closing that “A
comprehensive test ban remains a
long-term objective of the United States.” It makes clear, however, that the circumstances under
which such a ban might be acceptable are very different from those that applied at the time,
or
today: “We believe such a ban must be viewed in the context of a time when we do not
need to
depend on nuclear deterrence to ensure international security and stability, and when we have
achieved broad, deep, and effectively verifiable arms reductions, substantially improved
verification capabilities, expanded confidence-building measures, and greater balance in
conventional forces.”

Senators being asked to consider postponing a final vote on the Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty
should understand that the practical effect of doing so would effectively be to agree that —
despite its incompatibility with U.S. national security interests and its consistency with the sort
of wooly-headed, radical disarmament notions Ronald Reagan eschewed — the CTBT’s
restraints would continue to bind the United States. For, under international legal
practice,
unless and until a nation formally gives notice of its intention not to ratify a treaty, it is obliged to
refrain from actions that would undercut its object and purpose. Such notice should be given,
and promptly.