skunk
Sep 22, 2005, 08:10 AM
U.S. goes missing
By Bennett Ramberg International Herald Tribune
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2005
LOS ANGELES As the Bush administration attempts to rally diplomatic support to suppress the nuclear ambitions of North Korea and Iran, it continues to undermine one of the very foundations of nuclear nonproliferation, namely the nuclear test ban treaty. This week, the Conference on Facilitating the Entry Into Force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty will convene in New York to encourage all nations to become treaty parties. Unfortunately, the United States will not be among the attendees.
To date, 123 nations have signed and ratified the test ban treaty. However, the covenant enters into force only upon the ratification of 44 states with nuclear power and research reactors. At this time, 11 of these countries have abstained, including the United States.
Washington thus finds itself in the company of both Pyongyang and Tehran, an outcome doubly ironic considering America's historic leadership role in generating the treaty.
The test ban treaty marks the culmination of efforts to halt nuclear weapons testing going back to the 1963 agreement negotiated by the Kennedy administration that banned atmospheric nuclear weapons tests. As the Cold War waned, momentum built to halt detonations entirely. In 1992 George W. Bush's father initiated a moratorium, and Congress directed the president to seek a comprehensive test ban. The Clinton administration complied, but under new political circumstances, the Senate failed to give its consent.
The current President Bush opposed the test ban treaty from the start, and today this position is U.S. policy. The administration argues that the United States must reserve the right to test in the event the weapons laboratories cannot certify the reliability and safety of the arsenal because of manufacturing and design defects and component aging. Second, Bush's advisers do not have total confidence that laboratory work and computer simulation will compensate for actual testing.
Finally, military planners want to explore the benefits of mini nuclear weapons to take out deep bunkers, which testing can assuredly confirm.
These arguments do not stand up to scrutiny. For one thing, the American position flies in the face of weapons laboratories' use of other methods - disassembly of the weapons coupled to component inspection - to uncover defects. In 2002, the National Academy of Sciences concluded that while "it is prudent to expect that age-related defects affecting stockpile reliability may occur increasingly as the average age of weapons in the stockpile increases ... nuclear testing is not needed to discover these problems and is not likely to be needed to address them."
Finally, the development of mini nuclear weapons, which Congress banned years ago, would actually lessen U.S. security by reducing the global nuclear taboo. Conventional weapons in the arsenal and under development can meet the bunker-busting requirements without the inevitable radiological consequences that even "small" nuclear detonations would pose.
Contrast these risks with the benefits of the test ban treaty. It already constrains Russian nuclear development. Were the United States to tie its ratification to China's, it would serve to reduce the prowess of an emerging nuclear competitor. Washington's example would also reinforce India's commitment not to test, which in turn would reduce Pakistan's incentive. Ultimately, U.S. ratification would strengthen its political, moral and normative position to combat nuclear proliferation while providing a basis to mobilize international action against violators.
That said, the test ban treaty is no panacea to nuclear proliferation. Rather it is a modest reinforcement. It promotes Bush's nonproliferation vision laid out at the National Defense University on Feb. 4, 2004. Then he called upon "all nations to strengthen the laws and international controls that govern proliferation." Bush added, "At the UN last fall, I proposed a new Security Council resolution requiring all states to criminalize proliferation, enact strict export controls and secure all sensitive materials within their borders."
The president's failure to include the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in his recipe, while continuing to promote new nuclear weapons development, ill serves the nuclear peace that Washington has long sought to promote.International agreements continue to apply to every nation apart from the USA, I see.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/09/21/opinion/edramberg.php
By Bennett Ramberg International Herald Tribune
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2005
LOS ANGELES As the Bush administration attempts to rally diplomatic support to suppress the nuclear ambitions of North Korea and Iran, it continues to undermine one of the very foundations of nuclear nonproliferation, namely the nuclear test ban treaty. This week, the Conference on Facilitating the Entry Into Force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty will convene in New York to encourage all nations to become treaty parties. Unfortunately, the United States will not be among the attendees.
To date, 123 nations have signed and ratified the test ban treaty. However, the covenant enters into force only upon the ratification of 44 states with nuclear power and research reactors. At this time, 11 of these countries have abstained, including the United States.
Washington thus finds itself in the company of both Pyongyang and Tehran, an outcome doubly ironic considering America's historic leadership role in generating the treaty.
The test ban treaty marks the culmination of efforts to halt nuclear weapons testing going back to the 1963 agreement negotiated by the Kennedy administration that banned atmospheric nuclear weapons tests. As the Cold War waned, momentum built to halt detonations entirely. In 1992 George W. Bush's father initiated a moratorium, and Congress directed the president to seek a comprehensive test ban. The Clinton administration complied, but under new political circumstances, the Senate failed to give its consent.
The current President Bush opposed the test ban treaty from the start, and today this position is U.S. policy. The administration argues that the United States must reserve the right to test in the event the weapons laboratories cannot certify the reliability and safety of the arsenal because of manufacturing and design defects and component aging. Second, Bush's advisers do not have total confidence that laboratory work and computer simulation will compensate for actual testing.
Finally, military planners want to explore the benefits of mini nuclear weapons to take out deep bunkers, which testing can assuredly confirm.
These arguments do not stand up to scrutiny. For one thing, the American position flies in the face of weapons laboratories' use of other methods - disassembly of the weapons coupled to component inspection - to uncover defects. In 2002, the National Academy of Sciences concluded that while "it is prudent to expect that age-related defects affecting stockpile reliability may occur increasingly as the average age of weapons in the stockpile increases ... nuclear testing is not needed to discover these problems and is not likely to be needed to address them."
Finally, the development of mini nuclear weapons, which Congress banned years ago, would actually lessen U.S. security by reducing the global nuclear taboo. Conventional weapons in the arsenal and under development can meet the bunker-busting requirements without the inevitable radiological consequences that even "small" nuclear detonations would pose.
Contrast these risks with the benefits of the test ban treaty. It already constrains Russian nuclear development. Were the United States to tie its ratification to China's, it would serve to reduce the prowess of an emerging nuclear competitor. Washington's example would also reinforce India's commitment not to test, which in turn would reduce Pakistan's incentive. Ultimately, U.S. ratification would strengthen its political, moral and normative position to combat nuclear proliferation while providing a basis to mobilize international action against violators.
That said, the test ban treaty is no panacea to nuclear proliferation. Rather it is a modest reinforcement. It promotes Bush's nonproliferation vision laid out at the National Defense University on Feb. 4, 2004. Then he called upon "all nations to strengthen the laws and international controls that govern proliferation." Bush added, "At the UN last fall, I proposed a new Security Council resolution requiring all states to criminalize proliferation, enact strict export controls and secure all sensitive materials within their borders."
The president's failure to include the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in his recipe, while continuing to promote new nuclear weapons development, ill serves the nuclear peace that Washington has long sought to promote.International agreements continue to apply to every nation apart from the USA, I see.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/09/21/opinion/edramberg.php
