The logic for US ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

ABSTRACT

The United States has accepted increasingly stringent limits on nuclear testing, culminating in the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. However, the US Senate in 1999 failed to consent to ratification, given concerns about verifying the treaty and maintaining safe and reliable US nuclear weapons without testing. Since then, the US Stockpile Stewardship Program has matured and allowed certification that US nuclear weapons remain safe and reliable without nuclear explosive testing. Likewise, advances in the US Nuclear Detonation Detection System and the International Monitoring System make virtually all tests detectable. Bringing the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty into force is in the US interest, as it would lock in an American advantage in nuclear knowledge and expertise and hinder other states from developing more sophisticated nuclear arms. Unfortunately, however, American domestic politics and the difficult international environment make it unlikely that the treaty will enter into force in the near term.

KEYWORDS:

• Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty
• CTBT
• nuclear tests
• nuclear weapons
• United States

Acknowledgments

The author is grateful for comments on the draft provided by Daryl Kimball and Michael O’Hanlon. Of course, he remains responsible for the contents.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Notes

1 Author’s discussions with senior officials at Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories, June 2013.

2 Author’s conversation with officials at CTBT Organization in Vienna, April 2011.

3 Author’s conversation with Nevada Test Site official, January 1988.

Additional information

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Notes on contributors

Steven Pifer

Steven Pifer, a retired career foreign service officer with the US Department of State and former US ambassador to Ukraine, is an affiliate of Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation and a nonresident senior fellow with the Brookings Institution. While at the US Department of State, he helped negotiate the Trilateral Statement and Budapest Memorandum in 1993-1994.