A little while back, I wrote about a renewed Obama Administration push to get the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty ratified by a recalcitrant Senate. I noted that, with the retirement of anti-CTBT stalwart Jon Kyl, the treaty MAY have a chance at getting done.
However, his intent to retire has clearly not softened Senator Kyl on the CTBT. Speaking at the biennial Carnegie International Nuclear Policy Conference in March, he reiterated his opposition to the treaty, casting doubts on whether or not the existing International Monitoring System could detect cheaters. You have to give the guy props for going right into the proverbial lions den of nonproliferation wonks and making these pronouncements, wrong as they may be.
To my mind, this little tango between Senator Kyl and, well, the rest of the CTBT technical and policy community, boils down to two issues: folks who believe treaties are useful and those who do not; and those who believe nuclear weapons have a place in the U.S. arsenal, and those who do not.
On the first count, why, say treaty naysayers, have ANY treaty since a signatory can always cheat? To me, this is like saying, “Why get married since one of you will likely cheat on the other one?” In this regard, the statistics tell the story, and it ain’t pretty. But, still, lots of folks STILL get married, don’t they? Yes, there are those countries who put national interest in front of the global community and cheat on their international commitments. Is it a regular occurrence? Not, in my opinion, enough to obviate the need for treaties, to establish international norms of behavior.
On the second count, I will not geek out on whether or not one can ensure reliable nuclear weapons while they remain in the U.S. arsenal without testing. I believe you can do so. So do the folks over at the Stockpile Stewardship Program. And, well, the National Academy of Sciences do too. Not to mention the JASONs. These are not scientific lightweights, people. Check out Arms Control Wonk and the Arms Control Association for scads more on this front. Others, who believe nuclear weapons should ALWAYS be a part of the U.S. arsenal and that the whole Global Zero movement is for wimps, believe you cannot assure that existing nuclear weapons will go bang when you want them to unless you test, and by the way, testing is a nifty way to permit new weapons to creep into the arsenal as well. How convenient!
Chris Schneidmiller over at Global Security Newswire has done a two-parter on this very subject. It provides some concise history on testing and what we might face in revisiting the ratification issue. Unfortunately, I think this will have to wait until Senator Kyl makes his exit at the end of next year and hope that there are no pretenders to the throne.
