U.S. lawmakers, Obama administration officials, and international organization leaders made the case this week that the United States would reap benefits for its national security if it ratifies the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).
The National Nuclear Security Administration and the State Department hosted an event on Capitol Hill on scientific innovation in nuclear explosion monitoring, where Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said in his remarks, “I think it’s time to re-examine the question of CTBT ratification.”
The United States is one of eight nations that must ratify the global treaty banning nuclear explosive tests for it to enter into force, along with China, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, North Korea, and Pakistan. The U.S. has maintained an informal moratorium on nuclear testing since the early 1990s. The U.S. Senate rejected CTBT ratification in 1999, with opponents arguing that existing technology might not ensure treaty verifiability. Speakers at the event argued this is no longer the case.
Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said scientific capabilities have improved significantly since 1999. “For example,” he said, “the supercomputer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has 15,000 times the performance of our top supercomputer in 1999 and it is roughly 300,000 times more powerful than the supercomputers available when the U.S. first adopted a moratorium on nuclear tests in 1992.” These systems are part of the current stockpile stewardship program, which certifies the reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile without full-scale testing.
The CTBTO is establishing a global verification regime, the International Monitoring System, which is over 85 percent complete and consists of hundreds of monitoring stations worldwide to detect nuclear explosive tests. The U.S. contributes roughly $32 million per year to the CTBTO budget and hosts the greatest number of IMS facilities.
Randy Bell, director of the treaty organization’s International Data Center, said that the international partnership aspect of the CTBTO – which relies on the research establishments of member states – already works in the benefit of the United States.
“The U.S. is gaining technical insight from other research institutions just as the international community is gaining technical insights from the research of U.S. national laboratories,” Bell said. Although the functioning of the International Monitoring System would not change much from current operations in the event the treaty enters into force, Bell said, “we can’t live with just unilateral moratoriums.” One of the most significant benefits of entry into force, he said, would be that on-site inspections could then be invoked to verify state parties’ compliance with the accord. Entry into force “makes on-site inspection a reality” instead of a “tool under development,” Bell said.
Lassina Zerbo, executive secretary of the CTBTO Preparatory Commission, said during a Tuesday event at the George Washington University that continued U.S. funding for the organization is necessary to ensure the functioning of the IMS. The United States is the largest contributor of funding to the CTBTO, providing over 20 percent of the organization’s budget of roughly $120 million per year.
Zerbo said that if Washington were to withhold the contribution, other countries might start to close IMS stations on their territory. He said representatives of developing countries have argued in conversations with him, “why should we contribute with [an IMS] station to serve only the purpose of one, two, or three countries, and those countries don’t want to ratify the treaty?”
