Todd Jacobson
NS&D Monitor
3/27/2015
Time is dwindling for the Obama Administration to make a push for Senate ratification of the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty, but Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Rose Gottemoeller said this week that she’s not giving up on one of the pillars of President Obama’s nuclear security agenda. The Administration has made little visible progress on the CTBT in recent years as officials have focused on educating the Senate—and the public—on the treaty, and many observers have suggested it will be difficult to convince the Senate to ratify the treaty before the end of President Obama’s second term. “I’m not going to tell you exactly when I think it’s going to happen. I do want to tell you that I’m looking at the next two years and saying, ‘Hey, we’ve got a real opportunity here. Let’s go for it,’” Gottemoeller said at the Carnegie Nuclear Policy Conference March 23.
Gottemoeller and National Nuclear Security Administration chief Frank Klotz emphasized this week that the dynamics surrounding the treaty have changed since it was defeated in the Senate in 1999. Not only is the treaty’s monitoring and verification system more mature, Klotz noted that the Stockpile Stewardship Program gives the NNSA the confidence that the nation’s nuclear arsenal can be maintained without nuclear testing. “The reality is the United States is going to have to step up to ratify this treaty” to help propel other remaining countries to do the same, Klotz said. “That won’t happen until 67 Senators are convinced that it is not only in our national interest but in the interest of international stability that this treaty enters into force. It should’ve come to that decision a long time ago. Hopefully with the education effort we can take and as others show good examples, they’ll come around to that.”
Stockpile Stewardship a ‘Spectacular Success’
Signed by 183 states and ratified by 164 nations, the CTBT awaits ratification of eight “Annex 2” states—the United States, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, India, China, Israel and Egypt—to enter into force. Lassina Zerbo, the executive secretary of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Organization, said 90 percent of the 337 total planned international monitoring systems to monitor CTBT compliance are operational. Previously, U.S. officials said 35 of 37 planned U.S. stations have been set up.
Klotz said there is nothing from a technical standpoint that should prevent the United States from ratifying the treaty. The Stockpile Stewardship Program has been a “spectacular success,” Klotz said. “Now we have put in place the tools that allow us as long as we have nuclear weapons and want to maintain them in a safe, secure and effective state that we can do that through those means.” He added, however, that the weapons complex needs to be continually funded. “One of the parts of our budget, particularly in periods of budget constraints that tends to be cut is research and development and science and technology. … The stockpile is getting smaller and smaller but also older and older, and we need to invest in the human capital, the facilities and the science and technical equipment we need to carry out that task.”
Gottemoeller: Grassroots Education Effort Key
As she has in the past, Gottemoeller declined to put a timetable on a push for ratifying the treaty, instead suggesting that the Administration would continue an education campaign, and not just in the Senate. “I’m talking about a lot more than that,” she said. “I’m talking about a grassroots effort now in train to really develop the support we need from the public to them come back to the Senate and say this is a matter of support among the people in the United States of America.”
Gottemoeller said 85 percent of the public supported the treaty in 1999 when it failed in the Senate, but she said the issue had slipped from public consciousness since then. “Today I think if you went out and asked the public about the treaty they’d say, ‘Huh?’ because they don’t remember what it is. That’s what we need to do. We need to bring it back before the American public.” Gottemoeller said the legacy of nuclear testing remains strong in some states, especially those most impacted by nuclear testing, and she said the public outreach effort could tap into those memories. “There is enough of a vivid picture there that we can develop grassroots support on that basis,” she said. “That is the set of building blocks that we are working on right now.”
Zerbo said he was comfortable with the current pace in pushing for the treaty. “If you rush and then we fail it will put the treaty 60 years back and we don’t want that,” he said. “We want to be sure we’re getting it and then we put all means to that effect.”
