BASIC's Project on Getting
to Zero
Working Towards a Nuclear Weapon-Free World
Commentary
Time for the Test Ban
By Ambassador James Goodby
31 March 2010
The presidents of the United States and Russia have proclaimed
that they will work for a world without nuclear weapons. Vice
President Joe Biden reaffirmed that goal in a recent major
policy speech. But the speech was more than that: Biden affirmed
that a world without nuclear weapons would also be a compass
by which the administration would steer current policy. He
did so by announcing the administration's strong support for
increased funding for the nation's nuclear weapons laboratories.
This was the same message that four champions of a world without
nuclear weapons—George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, Bill
Perry, and Sam Nunn—delivered last January in a Wall
Street Journal opinion piece.
The essential point in these statements is that America's
real nuclear deterrent resides in the skills of its scientists
and engineers, more than in the numbers and types of weapons
that have been manufactured at any given time. That will remain
true even if all of the world's nuclear weapons have been
eliminated.
The successes of American scientists and engineers have enabled
the United States to maintain a safe and reliable stockpile
of nuclear weapons despite the absence of any American nuclear
test explosions since 1992. This has been fundamental for
U.S. security and indeed for global security. Now, the United
States can confidently embark on a campaign to enlist the
world's possessors of nuclear weapons in a long-term effort
to reduce and eliminate nuclear weapons.
For this same reason, the United States can safely work for
the entry into force of a comprehensive, global ban on all
explosive nuclear tests.
This will not be easy, for some nations will want to enjoy
the freedom to test their newly designed nuclear weapons,
unencumbered by a treaty banning their tests. The most threatening
of those nations are not friendly toward the United States
nor are they friends of the nuclear nonproliferation treaty.
Currently, American diplomacy must work with one hand tied
behind its back, because the U.S. Senate has not yet given
its advice and consent to the ratification of a test ban treaty
that lies before it. But without U.S. leadership on the Test
Ban, a world free of nuclear weapons will not be perceived
as realistic and efforts to strengthen the nonproliferation
system will falter.
The Test Ban is an absolutely essential element in a network
of barriers against proliferation—not a panacea in itself,
but critical to the success of the whole project. The treaty
would prevent advanced nuclear weapon states from making significant
improvements in their weapons stockpiles and it would prevent
non-nuclear weapon states from developing more sophisticated
weapons useful for war-fighting.
What the nuclear powers do affects the decisions of other
countries. One would think that is a truism but it is hotly
debated. Some opponents of the Test Ban argue that whether
the United States tests or develops new weapons has no effect
on what the other nations do. But, in fact, expectations about
the future are what motivate all governments. Explosive testing
is perhaps the most visible of all nuclear weapons activities.
A nuclear explosion amounts to an announcement that nuclear
weapons are here to stay. That is what testing tells the world.
The United States has not conducted a nuclear test since
1992. The other four recognized nuclear weapons states Britain,
France, Russia, and China--have also stopped testing. Why
not just continue this informal arrangement? Well, the past
ten years have shown how moratoriums work and how they don't.
One lesson is that instabilities are inherent. Since there
are no agreed standards, there are bound to be doubts about
whether there is a level playing-field among the countries.
And there is no agreed way to remove doubts about other nations'
actions: no on-site inspections, no transparency at test sites.
This is what the Test ban treaty would provide.
The United States has much to gain by outlawing nuclear tests,
and the Senate should approve the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
as soon as possible.
--
Ambassador James E. Goodby is a research fellow at the Hoover
Institution at Stanford University. He was Deputy to General
John Shalikashvili, the Special Advisor to the President and
the Secretary of State for the CTBT, in 2000-2001. He is a
member of BASIC's Board of Directors. His views are his own.
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Working Towards a Nuclear Weapon-Free World
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Fund, the Ford Foundation,
the Joseph Rowntree Charitable
Trust, Polden Puckham Charitable Foundation,
Marmot Trust, Allan and Nesta Ferguson Foundation, Network
for Social Change, the Nuclear
Education Trust, Rockefeller Family & Associates,
and individual contributors to BASIC. We are grateful to all
of them for their support.
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