‘New Democrat’ Watch #2: A CTB Is One “Old Democrat” Agenda Item Clinton Should Eschew

(Washington, D.C.): Tomorrow marks the 30th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s announcement at American University of his intention to pursue a Comprehensive Test Ban (CTB) Treaty banning all nuclear tests. Proponents of the CTB plan to utilize this anniversary to urge one of Kennedy’s greatest admirers and successors, Bill Clinton, to realize this as-yet-unfulfilled objective.

A central tenet of this campaign is that the cause of non-proliferation will be greatly — if not decisively — advanced if only the United States will permanently give up nuclear testing. Since halting the spread of nuclear weapons is one of the Clinton Administration’s highest priorities, the line goes, it should not hesitate to enter into a Comprehensive Test Ban. There are, however, several serious problems with this proposition:

It Ain’t Necessarily So

First, it assumes that the reason non-nuclear weapon states wish to obtain thermonuclear capabilities is to emulate the U.S. and others who possess such weaponry. A throw-back to the Cold War rivalry between the superpowers, this theory avers that by halting nuclear testing, the United States and others with "the Bomb" would radically alter the attraction "going nuclear" holds for non-nuclear states.

The on-going drama over North Korea’s decision to withdraw from the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is but the latest evidence that strategic calculations — not some sort of Freudian "Bomb envy" — drive decisions by developing nations to acquire nuclear weapons. India, Pakistan and South Africa, for example, have gone this route, but not because the United States tested nuclear devices or even because it possessed them.

Rather, they did so because, in the judgment of their respective leaders, such weapons have value both as local deterrents and in terms of clout on the larger international stage. Neither calculation would be appreciably influenced by U.S. restraint on the testing or fielding of nuclear arms.

The same is true of Pyongyang’s long-running covert nuclear program. Against the backdrop of pending U.S. decisions about entering into a CTB, however, there is a special irony associated with the North Korean program: It has come to fruition during a period when the U.S. was prohibited by law from conducting nuclear tests.

Test Bans Don’t Prevent Weapons Acquisition Programs

A second problem with the CTB advocates’ premise is that, of these new nuclear weapon states (e.g., Israel, India, Pakistan and South Africa), only India can be said with certainty to have conducted a nuclear test. While sophisticated nuclear devices like those that make up the American deterrent require testing to assure specified performance, safety and reliability, relatively crude weapons can be developed — and are being fielded — by a number of nations that have chosen to forego this step.

In other words, a Comprehensive Test Ban would not deny "the Bomb" to states like Saddam Hussein’s Iraq or Kim Il Sung’s North Korea. Never mind that such a treaty could not be effectively verified or that states may choose not to accede to it even if the U.S. did; these should be showstoppers in their own right. Even if verification were to be absolute and adherence universal, however, nuclear proliferation still could — and probably would — continue apace, notwithstanding the refusal of those who lust after an Islamic (or other) Bomb to give warning of their budding capability by testing it.

U.S. Confidence and Deterrent Credibility Require Testing

A CTB would have one certain effect, though: It would seriously degrade the confidence that U.S. decision-makers have in the effectiveness and the credibility of this nation’s nuclear forces. After all, the United States stopped producing nuclear weapons several years ago; a significant proportion of the arsenal is over ten years old. As with any piece of complex hardware, age degrades performance.

This is particularly true, however, of devices with the extremely precise tolerances of nuclear weapons. Absent the periodic ability to conduct at least a few realistic, underground nuclear detonations, such systems can over time be catastrophically affected by unpredictable changes in the chemical properties of components.

Of course, a CTB would also preclude other steps that should be part of maintaining an effective nuclear deterrent, notably, safety improvements or performance upgrades. But even if the nation chooses not to enhance its forces in these ways, it is entitled to certainty that the older weapons it does rely upon will work when they are supposed to and will not go off when they are not supposed to — certainty only a test program can provide.

New Engine of Proliferation?

A fourth problem is a real wild card: In the face of a CTB, even friendly nations may feel obliged to reconsider their strategic situation. An American decision to abandon nuclear testing and to accept an attendant erosion in the deterrent power of the U.S. arsenal could leave those who have been sheltered under its umbrella with no perceived choice but to obtain their own nuclear arms.

Truth be told, the most notable accomplishment of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty has not been its success in inhibiting international bad actors from "going nuclear." Instead, it is the extent to which advanced industrial nations like Japan, Germany, South Korea and Taiwan — that could easily have had nuclear arms — chose not to do so. Faced with the threat of ongoing proliferation, a CTB that primarily has the effect of degrading the U.S. deterrent and the sense that the United States is more generally abandoning its role as a global leader, at least some such states should be expected to abandon their non-nuclear postures.

The Bottom Line

Far from advancing the cause of nuclear non-proliferation, a permanent U.S. cessation of nuclear testing is likely to do nothing to discourage pariah state weapon acquisition efforts and erode significantly the value of America’s nuclear forces. Worse yet, such a step may actually contribute to the very proliferation phenomenon it is intended to discourage.

Ironically, John Kennedy put his finger on some of these problems in a 2 March 1962 statement rejecting an "uninspected moratorium" on nuclear testing — precisely the sort of moratorium imposed by the U.S. Congress last year. He said:

"We know enough now about broken negotiations, secret preparations and the advantages gained from a long test series never to offer again an uninspected moratorium. Some may urge us to try it again, keeping our preparations to test in a constant state of readiness. But in actual practice, particularly in a society of free choice, we cannot keep top flight scientists concentrating on the preparation of an experiment which may or may not take place on an uncertain date in the undefined future.

 

"Nor can large technical laboratories be kept fully alert on a stand-by basis waiting for some other nation to break an agreement. This is not merely difficult or inconvenient — we have explored this alternative thoroughly and found it impossible of execution."

 

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1. "New Democrat" Watch is a series of Decision Briefs designed to illuminate important security policy decisions pending before the Clinton Administration. These decisions will do much to determine the compatibility of Clinton policies with the U.S. national interest. They will also provide objective measures of the President’s follow-through on his commitment to abandon the left-wing, "Old Democrat" behavior that has afflicted and undermined his presidency thus far.