We’ll have a new Senate soon. We don’t know exactly who yet, but one mission regardless should be the same: The Senate must finish what Ike and JFK started: ending nuclear weapons testing.
Read the commentary at The Hill:
Tag Archives: CTBT
Kerry Urges Senate to End Nuclear Weapons Testing
Secretary of State John Kerry says it’s time to finish what President Kennedy started in 1963. Today (October 7) is the anniversary of Kennedy signing the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. It banned nuclear tests in the atmosphere, underwater…
Read the article at The Huffington Post:
Filed under nuclear weapons
G-7 Urges Treaty Ending Nuclear Testing
The G-7 nations issued a declaration on nuclear weapons this week. Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States called for a world without nuclear weapons.
To help achieve nuke disarmament the G-7 is urging passage of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). This treaty would end all types of nuclear test explosions. Prior treaties had placed limitations on nuke tests, but not a complete ban. Ending nuke testing is an essential step toward establishing the conditions where disarmament can take place.
The declaration reads, “Early entry into force and universalization of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) is in the security interests of every nation. States that have yet to sign or ratify the Treaty should do so without waiting for others.”
There are currently eight nations who have yet to ratify the treaty, and thus preventing it from taking effect. These countries include the United States, China, North Korea, Israel, Iran, Egypt, India and Pakistan.
The U.S. Senate rejected the treaty in a 1999 vote. President Obama supports the CTBT, but has not resubmitted to the Senate. Many believe passage by the Senate is more possible now than before. There is increasing confidence in the science behind the maintenance of nuclear arsenals without test explosions. This was a major concern when the Senate voted against the CTBT.
The G-7 is also urging nations to support the Treaty’s international monitoring system for detecting nuclear explosions. Hundreds of detection stations have been set up around the world. This system is critical for making sure other nations do not cheat the treaty and conduct test explosions in secret. However, the system will not be fully functional until the treaty has taken effect.
The declaration also reads, “We also welcome the establishment of the Group of Eminent Persons and support its activities, which will inject new energy and dynamics into the push for entry into force.”
What is needed to get the CTBT approved is active public support across all nations. Groups with a strong following like Global Zero, the Ploughshares Fund and others may hold the key to gaining that support.
The alternative is frightening. The resumption of nuclear testing would heighten international tensions, end disarmament hopes and increase the already expensive burden of nuclear arsenals. Other nations will be encouraged to build nuclear weapons, should the current powers resume testing.
Filed under nuclear weapons
Building the Case for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty
To achieve global nuclear disarmament, a treaty banning nuclear weapons testing needs to be in place. However, there are currently eight nations who have yet to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT): China, North Korea, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, Pakistan and the United States.
There is strong support for this treaty, but not everyone is on board yet, especially in the United States Senate. Yet, the consequences of returning to nuclear weapons testing would be a disaster. More nations would test their weapons and others would be encouraged to develop them. It would be almost impossible to gain further cuts in nuclear arsenals under those conditions.
The focus is gaining the confidence of those who are unsure of the treaty. Concerns over the ability to detect nuclear explosions in violation of the CTBT is one issue. Another is the ability to maintain current arsenals without testing.
A report from the National Research Council in 2012 showed that the U.S. did not need nuclear test explosions to maintain its nuclear weapons arsenal.
Ellen D. Williams, who led the committee that authored the report said, “So long as the nation is fully committed to securing its weapons stockpile and provides sufficient resources for doing so, the U.S. has the technical capabilities to maintain safe, reliable nuclear weapons into the foreseeable future without the need for underground weapons testing.”
The report also verified that the detection system for nuclear explosions has improved and is reliable. The capability to detect nuclear explosions has been developed little-by-little really since the Cold War. This research has improved and built the international monitoring system that the CTBT now uses. That monitoring system will improve even more once the treaty takes full effect. More detection stations will come online.
Ratification of the treaty by the Senate is huge because U.S. leadership is so vital for building nuclear security and peace worldwide. It’s hard to imagine at this time other nations approving this treaty if the U.S. does not.
The idea of ending nuclear weapons testing has been one historically shared by Democrats and Republicans. It was their cooperation that forged the first limited treaty that banned nuclear weapons testing in the atmosphere, underwater and outer space. In fact, both Dwight Eisenhower and John Kennedy championed the idea of ending all nuclear testing.
That same cooperation could again rise to the challenge. If it does we would achieve an important step toward reducing the nuclear danger and the massive cost of these weapons. The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty is that hurdle that must be cleared first.
Filed under nuclear weapons
Nuclear Peace Emerging in the Middle East
Last year ended with some momentum toward ending the standoff over Iran’s nuclear program. If a comprehensive agreement can be forged this year, it will be a major step toward freeing the world of the costly and dangerous burden of nuclear weapons.
Iran has suffered from sanctions for failing to live up to obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. A report from the International Federation of Human Rights stated the consequences for the Iranian people:
Read the full article at The Huffington Post
Filed under nuclear weapons
Starting a Peace Race with the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty
Fears of a nuclear-armed Iran may provoke a Middle East arms race, one that would place even more burdens on an impoverished region.
We see a similar scenario in Asia with India and Pakistan, where malnutrition rates are high while spending on nuclear weapons continues. The World Food Programme’s relief operation for flood-ravaged Pakistan has faced severe funding shortages.
At the same time, costly nuclear missile tests by Pakistan and India have gone forward; and in North Korea there have been famine conditions as the country has developed its nukes.
We need to challenge all these countries. But not to an arms race; rather to what President Kennedy called a “peace race.” This is our best hope for unifying the world in eliminating the threat of nuclear weapons and lifting this burden off all peoples.
This unity must first begin at home between Democrats and Republicans. A starting point should be ratifying a pact eliminating all nuclear weapons testing, finally finishing a job started long ago by Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy.
Back in 1963 when Kennedy put before the Senate a treaty with the Soviet Union limiting nuclear weapons testing, he gained strong support from the other side of the aisle. Republican Senator Everett Dirksen met with President Kennedy to help him win over key votes for treaty approval.
Former President Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican who actually started the road toward the treaty during his administration, lent his support in the form of a letter to the Senate. Eisenhower urged the treaty be passed as “people are frightened… world fears and tensions are intensified. There is placed upon too much of mankind the costly burdens of an all out arms race.”
Expensive and dangerous nuclear weapons: Dwight Eisenhower talking about pursuit of a nuclear test ban treaty in March of 1960 (audio and photo courtesy of the Eisenhower Library)
The Limited Test Ban Treaty won approval from the Senate one year after the Cuban Missile Crisis when the US and Soviets almost went to nuclear war. The 1963 treaty was a first step towards arms control in the fast-escalating nuclear age.
President Kennedy signs the Limited Test Ban Treaty in October, 1963 in the Treaty Room at the White House (courtesy Kennedy Library)
But decades later, what Ike and Kennedy started is not yet finished. The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty(CTBT) still needs to be ratified. This treaty goes a step further than the limited one of 1963 and bans all nuclear test explosions, including underground. The United States and seven other nations have yet to approve this treaty for it to take effect. Russia has already ratified it.
The U.S. Senate rejected the treaty in 1999 and the bipartisan cooperation of 1963 was absent, with almost all Republicans voting together against it. Now, in 2012, is the time to reconsider ratification for the sake of America’s national security.
Resuming nuclear weapons testing places additional costs on an arsenal that already costs Americans at least $52 billion a year. Progress toward nuclear disarmament is needed to reduce this burden which drains our treasury. But costs alone are not the only issue.
What would Russia and China’s reaction be should we resume nuclear weapons tests? As the Russian deputy foreign minister said, his country intends to fully comply with its CTBT commitment, “if other nuclear states do likewise.” But if we resume nuclear testing, will Russia follow? What will China do? Would a new arms race come next?
The CTBT is an important step toward nuclear disarmament, because you reach a wall in arms reductions if you are leaving the door open to new nuclear testing and development.
A CTBT would increase momentum toward gaining a disarmament agreement with Russia on tactical nuclear weapons, and offer hope of arms reductions in Asia, where China and rivals India and Pakistan have nuclear weaponry.
Arms Control Under Secretary Ellen Tauscher says, “Nowhere would these constraints be more relevant than in Asia, where you see states building up and modernizing their forces. A legally binding prohibition on all nuclear explosive testing would help reduce the chances of a potential regional arms race in the years and decades to come.”
But without a commitment to end nuclear weapons testing, it is far less likely such agreements will ever take place. Unity among the nuclear states is also needed to implement diplomatic pressure to get North Korea and Iran to abandon their nuclear ambitions.
One way Kennedy gained support for the limited test ban treaty was to ensure that the U.S. would commit to extensive research into technologies needed to ensure the reliability of the nuclear arsenal.
Today, there are opportunities to quell fears that the CTBT is not verifiable, and that nations could cheat the treaty. As Jonathan Medalia writes in a Congressional Research Service report, the U.S. could add additional planes for its nuclear detection system operated by the U.S. Air Force. This Atomic Energy Detection System has been place since the start of the Cold War, even detecting the Soviet Union’s first tests in 1949 and 1951.
The Air Force’s WC-135 Constant Phoenix aircraft collects air samples from areas around the world where nuclear explosions have occurred. (U.S. Air Force photo)Enhancing our own technical means would complement the treaty’s existing monitoring system which, even though not fully operational, detected North Korea’s 2006 and 2009 nuclear tests.
In ratifying the CTBT, the U.S. can join Russia and urge other nations to follow their lead and take further measures to reduce nuclear weapons. As diplomat Gerard Smith once wrote, “In urging others not to acquire this awesome capacity, the United States and Russia may persuasively say that they have found it expensive, dangerous and, ultimately, useless.”
Nuclear weapons in the world is a shared risk among all nations, for the cost of the armaments, the danger of terrorist theft, and the international tensions are a burden all countries feel. It is in the interest of all nations to end nuclear testing once and for all, and work toward further agreements reducing the nuclear menace.
Article first published as Starting a Peace Race with the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty on Blogcritics.
Filed under History, nuclear weapons
Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Negotiations
The Road to a Treaty Ending Nuclear Weapons Testing
The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) bans all nuclear weapons test explosions. The treaty has not yet entered into force as eight countries: China, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan and the United States, have yet to ratify the CTBT.
Efforts to achieve a treaty ending nuclear weapons testing go back to the Cold War. Here is video footage and documents of test ban treaty efforts leading up to the present day.
President Dwight Eisenhower’s Statement on the Suspension of Nuclear Testing on August 22nd, 1958
Read an article in the Cincinnati Enquirer about the power of the hydrogen bomb (March 18, 1957)
Read a memorandum of a meeting in which President Eisenhower and British Prime Minister Macmillan discuss the importance of a nuclear test ban treaty. (courtesy Eisenhower Library)
Short Video of President Eisenhower Talking About a Letter He Wrote to Nikita Khrushchev in Which He Proposed a Limited Nuclear Test Ban.
Books on the history of nuclear weapons and the test ban treaty
Filed under History, nuclear weapons
Author William Lambers 
