Brian Bradley
NS&D Monitor
9/19/2014
The Obama Administration continues to plan to for U.S. ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty, although getting enough Republican support for ratification remains an uphill battle, senior Administration officials said this week. In remarks at a conference hosted by the U.S. Institute of Peace, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Rose Gottemoeller said ratification of the pact continues to be essential to decreasing U.S. nuclear reliance and improving nuclear security around the world. “It is in our interest to close the door on nuclear explosive testing forever,” Gottemoeller said, adding, “We have a lot of work to do, but the goal is worthy. An in-force CTBT will benefit the United States and indeed, the whole world.”
Since the U.S. became the first signatory in 1996, the accord has garnered 182 other signatories and 163 total ratifications. The Senate last took up the 18-year-old CTBT in 1999, but failed to ratify the measure. To enter into force, all 44 countries which housed nuclear facilities in 1996 must ratify CTBT. Of those, 36 have done so, leaving the U.S., China, Israel, Egypt, India, Pakistan, Iran and North Korea.
‘No Intention of Rushing This’
President Obama made Senate ratification of the CTBT one of the pillars of his nuclear security agenda when he took office in 2008, but with only two years left in his second term, Gottemoeller declined to put a timetable on when the Administration might resubmit the treaty to the Senate. She said the Administration is continuing to try to educate the Senate—and the public—on the merits of the treaty, and said the education effort will be modeled after the New START Treaty ratification process. “I want to make one thing very clear: this Administration has no intention of rushing this or demanding premature action before we have had a thorough and rigorous discussion and debate,” Gottemoeller said.
During the ratification process for New START, the Administration held countless briefings with lawmakers, nearly 20 hearings, and answered more than 1,000 questions for the record. “I know that it is the official sport in Washington, but I would ask people to refrain from counting votes right now,” she said. “Our first priority is education, and our focus should be on the hard work that goes into any Senate consideration of the treaty.”
In his remarks at the conference, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said the U.S. is committed to building bipartisan support for the CTBT, as well as a monitoring and verification regime in conjunction with the treaty. The Obama Administration is also reintroducing the topic to the broader American public, Gottemoeller said. “We are reintroducing this treaty to the American public, since it has been quite some time it has been discussed outside the Capital Beltway,” she said. “We are and will continue to outline the clear and convincing facts about our ability to maintain the nuclear stockpile without explosive testing and our ability to effectively monitor and verify treaty compliance.”
Admin. Officials: Case for No More Testing Stronger Than Ever
Republican opposition and insufficient planning from the Clinton Administration caused ratification to fail 15 years ago in the Senate, but Gottemoeller, Moniz and other Administration officials emphasized this week that previous rationales for nuclear explosive testing have become obsolete. “I’ve been attending NWC [Nuclear Weapons Council] meetings for over five years, and not once has there been a conversation about the resumption of nuclear weapons testing,” said Andrew Weber, the outgoing Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Defense Programs. “We’re not even considering it.”
A large part of that confidence stems from the maturity of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Stockpile Stewardship Program, which has made traditional testing unnecessary, officials said. “Today, we can say with even greater certainty that we can meet the challenges of maintaining our stockpile with continued scientific leadership, not nuclear testing,” Moniz said. “Our lab directors believe that they actually understand more about our nuclear weapons work now than during the period of nuclear testing.”
Almost 90 percent of CTBT-outlined monitoring systems are certifiably installed across the globe, and 89 countries are part of the system, Moniz said, noting that along with a certified radionuclide laboratory, 35 of 37 IMS systems planned for the U.S. are fully functional and certified by the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization. When the treaty was last considered by the Senate, none of the stations were operational, Weber said. The global network is “extremely sensitive and would make it very, very difficult for any country to conduct even small-scale nuclear tests without being found out,” Weber said.
Expert Not Confident Admin. Will Move on Treaty Before End of Term
With about two years left in the Obama Administration, some experts are not confident that the treaty will be sent to the Senate. Thomas Graham, a leading expert on nuclear non-proliferation and former special representative of the president of the United States for arms control, non-proliferation and disarmament, expressed doubts about the prospect of a Senate-based U.S. CTBT ratification in the near future. “The president is strongly for ratification and entry into force of the test ban, but his administration has never done anything about it, not because people in the administration don’t want to, but because the president himself has never been willing to lead on it,” Graham said during a Sept. 12 talk at George Washington University in Washington. “This is not intended as a criticism. He had a few other things to deal with over the years.”
Graham said he expects the treaty to continue to stagnate in the U.S. for the next few years unless Hillary Clinton or a comparable candidate is elected president in 2016 and prioritizes pushing the legislation through the Senate during the first year of their administration while offering concessions to several Republican senators. “Then, yes, it could happen,” Graham said. “But that’s a big reach.”
More likely, Graham said, would be the declaration of a U.N. Security Council resolution declaring any nuclear weapon tests to be threats to international peace and security. The declaration would establish such tests as contrary to international law and bring forth a “sense” that an overarching nuclear test ban applied to everyone, even non-state actors.
No Plans to Shutter Test Facilities Anytime Soon
Weber said he expects that portions of the Nevada National Security Site purposed for explosive nuclear testing would be closed after the CTBT activates, but he and Gottemoeller cited a current temporary need to maintain “readiness” safeguards provided by the site until CTBT becomes binding. Disarmament activists have suggested that the U.S. close the facilities now—more than two decades after the last nuclear weapons test—to save money. “There is a desire to keep at least a minimal readiness until the treaty enters into force, so let’s hope we can get it ratified and educate publics and our representatives about the progress that has been made since it was defeated in the Senate in 1999, in terms of the monitoring capability and stockpile stewardship,” Weber said.
