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>From www.security-policy.org/poapers/1999/99-D106.html
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Publications of the Center for Security Policy
No. 99-D 106
DECISION BRIEF
4 October 1999
End-Game for a Defective C.T.B.T.
(Washington, D.C.): On Wednesday, President Clinton, Vice President Gore and a
host of Cabinet officers, military leaders, Nobel Prize winners, scientists and
others will gather at the White House for a pep rally in support of the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). If, as expected, a sufficient number of
U.S. Senators next week reject this fatally flawed treaty on the grounds that
it is inconsistent with U.S. national security, many of the participants in
this extravaganza who would be expected to recognize that reality are likely to
find their authority seriously diminished in the future.
'You Can't Get There From Here'
In the event 34 or more Senators decline to consent to the CTBT's ratification,
one reason seems likely to prove overriding: Not one of those participating in
the White House pep rally -- not the Administration's luminati, not the former
chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, not the directors of the Nation's
nuclear laboratories or other scientists -- can honestly say that the U.S.
nuclear deterrent can be maintained in a safe, reliable and credible condition
for the indefinite future without at least low-yield, periodic underground
nuclear testing.
To be sure, there will be a lot of talk tomorrow about how "confident" these
assembled worthies are that that will be the case. The President and his
cheerleaders can be expected to reiterate some variation on the line Mr.
Clinton pronounced on August 14, 1995 -- the day he revealed that he would
agree to a treaty banning even undetectable, low-yield nuclear tests: "I
consider the maintenance of a safe and reliable nuclear stockpile to be a
supreme national interest of the United States." Clinton and Company will
assert their confidence that the Nation's supreme interest in preserving such a
stockpile will in the future (actually ten years or so in the future) be
satisfied by sophisticated computer modeling, not actual testing.
Unfortunately, being "confident" is not the same thing as being certain. And no
one can be certain that our arsenal of aging nuclear weapons will be viable in
the future if we are unable to use the tool that every President from Truman on
-- until, that is, Bill Clinton -- understood was necessary for that purpose:
realistic nuclear testing.
The Deterrent May Already be in Trouble
Indeed, there is already reason to be less-than-confident that today's U.S.
arsenal meets the exacting standards for safety and reliability that have
heretofore been observed. After all, we have not tested any nuclear weapons
since 1992 -- the longest such moratorium since the dawn of the nuclear age.
Importantly, up until the time we suspended testing seven years ago, we were
routinely finding problems with our arsenal.
In fact, according to Dr. Robert Barker, a physicist and thermonuclear weapons
designer who served as the Pentagon's top expert on atomic energy matters under
three Secretaries of Defense, he was obliged to recommend taking U.S. nuclear
arms off alert (known as "red-lining") five times during the six years before
U.S. testing was halted. No weapons have been red-lined since then. It strains
credulity that this is due to their condition actually being perfect. More
likely, we simply do not know what our weapons' defects are since, without
testing, they are not apparent.
'Safeguard F' is No Safeguard
Some of the military leaders and scientific experts whose authority and
credibility the President will be shamelessly exploit in the hope of selling
the CTBT to the requisite 67 Senators by the time the vote is held on October
12 may be willing to overlook this natty reality on the basis of what is known
as "Safeguard F." The Treaty's proponents want legislators and the public to
believe that there is an escape hatch in case our "supreme interests" are
jeopardized by an unexpected lack of confidence in our nuclear stockpile:
Pursuant to Safeguard F, they aver, we can always resume nuclear testing.
To appreciate what a fraud this assurance is, one only need read the
convoluted, characteristically hedged language the President used in describing
in August 1995 the nature of his commitment to resume testing, should the need
arise:
"In the event that I were informed by the Secretary of Defense and Secretary of
Energy, advised by the Nuclear Weapons Council, the directors of the Energy
Department's nuclear weapons labs and the Commander of U.S. Strategic Command
that a high level of confidence in the safety or reliability of a nuclear
weapons type which the two Secretaries considered to be critical to our nuclear
deterrent could no longer be certified, I would be prepared, in consultation
with Congress, to exercise our supreme national interest rights under the CTB
in order to conduct whatever testing might be required."
Let us count the weasel words: Everybody having anything to do with nuclear
weapons has to agree that a "high level of confidence" (a most subjective
standard) is no longer certifiable (another subjective judgment) with regard to
a weapon that is "critical" to America's deterrent posture (a third). If all
that happens, the President would "consult" with Congress. Assuming that goes
swimmingly, he would be -- what? -- "prepared" to conduct whatever testing
might be necessary.
In short, this so-called "safeguard" is pure Clintonian sophistry. Set aside
the fact that the Administration is allowing the ability to resume testing
seriously to erode, making it hard to do so even if the go-ahead were given. If
concerns about the safety and reliability of U.S. nuclear weapons arise, it is
far more likely that such weapons will be retired from the arsenal on the
grounds that the specified, subjective thresholds for resuming testing have not
been crossed. This is especially true since it will surely be argued at the
time that the effect of the United States returning to testing will be to
precipitate the wholesale abrogation of the CTBT by others and a huge upsurge
in nuclear proliferation.
The Bottom Line
Fortunately, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott and more than 33 of his
colleagues have broken the code on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. They
understand that, no matter how many respected former military officers, Nobel
Prize winners, Hollywood celebrities and Cabinet officers endorse this accord,
it is a formula for unilateral U.S. nuclear disarmament. This is precisely why
it has been a prime objective of every anti-nuclear crusade over the past fifty-
five years and the cherished goal of the Administration's high-ranking
"denuclearizers."
Far from "locking in America's technological superiority," this unverifiable
agreement will lock-out the technological tools upon which the United States'
deterrent uniquely relies. We already have evidence that other nations
(notably, Russia and China) are exploiting the CIA's acknowledged inability to
monitor low-yield testing -- a problem that will be aggravated, not corrected,
by the ambiguous information likely to be generated from the multilateral
seismic system being set up under this treaty. In any event, since the CTBT
does not define what constitutes a prohibited "nuclear test explosion," we will
be unable to hold others to the same stringent standard of zero tests to which
this country will surely adhere.
Defeating the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty will not be sufficient to ensure
the future safety and reliability of America's nuclear deterrent that President
Clinton professes to be a supreme interest of the United States. But it will be
an important and indispensable step in the right direction.
- 30 -
NOTE: The Center's publications are intended to invigorate and enrich the
debate on foreign policy and defense issues. The views expressed do not
necessarily reflect those of all members of the Center's Board of Advisors.
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� 1988-1999, Center for Security Policy
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