Image: MATT COLLINS
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Among the many sea changes in policy President Barack Obama is bringing to Washington is his support for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). Ever since the U.S. Senate rejected the CTBT in 1999, the treaty has languished in parliamentary purgatory. Yet during last fall's presidential campaign, Obama told the journal Arms Control Today, "As president, I will reach out to the Senate to secure the ratification of the CTBT at the earliest practical date." We urge the president to make good on his promise.
The CTBT would prohibit the U.S. and every other signatory from conducting test explosions, no matter how small, of nuclear weapons underground, in space or anywhere else. If ratified, the ban would affect existing stockpiles as well as any future weapons. We addressed the issues of managing an aging stockpile without testing in 2007 [see "A Need for New Warheads?"; Scientific American, November]. In brief, the weapons scientists interviewed by staff editor David Biello concurred with the conclusion of a 2002 report by a committee of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS): that the ongoing stockpile stewardship program can maintain and verify the reliability of U.S. nuclear weapons without explosive testing. Indeed, the National Nuclear Security Administration recently announced that an eight-year program to refurbish B61 nuclear bombs and ensure their reliability was completed without explosive testing a year ahead of schedule. As for future nuclear weapons, since their capability and reliability could not be tested, parties to the treaty would be unlikely to risk deploying them in their own military arsenals.
But wouldn't a ratified treaty that goes into force leave the U.S. and other countries that abided by it vulnerable to cheaters that clandestinely develop and test their nuclear capabilities? Isn't that reason to enough to reject the treaty? The answer may seem counterintuitive, but the CTBT would make the world a safer, more secure place for the U.S. than a world without the treaty.
An essential element of the CTBT is a monitoring system intended to support compliance and deter cheating by ensuring that cheaters are unmasked [see "Monitoring for Nuclear Explosions," by Paul G. Richards and Won-Young Kim, on page 70]. Of course, no policing system is perfect. But the NAS report concluded that once the planned International Monitoring System of the CTBT is fully operational (it is about two-thirds complete today), no underground test with an explosive yield of more than one kiloton could "be confidently hidden." Moreover, even if a test smaller than a kiloton were somehow concealed, it would do little to harm the strategic interests of the U.S. Because of their prior experience with nuclear testing, Russia and China could learn the most from a low-yield test but the NAS report concludes that such a test could only marginally increase the great threat they already pose. New, aspiring nuclear powers would be less likely to derive technical benefits from a test small enough to hide, and they would be far less skilled at keeping it hidden.
Still, successful cheating could be harmful to U.S. interests. But compared with what? The only realistic alternative to living with the risk that parties to the CTBT will cheat at a low, undetectable yield is living in a world without the treaty the world we inhabit today. In that world, India, Pakistan and North Korea can test at whatever explosive yield they like, as they have done. Iran's nuclear ambitions deeply threaten the stability of the Middle East, but with the CTBT in force an Iranian nuclear explosion would risk even greater international condemnation than it does today. And testing begets testing: the anxiety among the nonnuclear neighbors of a testing state makes the pressure for the neighbors to "go nuclear" almost irresistible. Such proliferation is far more dangerous to the U.S. not to mention the countries directly involved than the worst-case risk of putting the CTBT in force.
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4 Comments
Add CommentWe need to stop nuclear testing. Read some of Sciam's past articles. Some forensics & biology articles informing us that C14 levels are 900 times higher after the 1950s nuclear testing. One claims nuclear testing helps to identify bodies post 1950s and is particularly revealing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDoes no-body make any connection between higher background radiation and the cancer epidemic we are living through now?
C14 is just nitrogen and reverts to nitrogen. Nuclear power plants can not exclude nitrogen form their atmosphere. How much C14 is generated during nuclear power generation? See <How C14 dating works> from How stuff works for the Nitrogen C14 cycle.
"Nuclear Testing Is NOT an Acceptable Risk for Arms Control", surely?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe editors, by including one sentence in "Acceptable Risks for Arms Control March 09", lost all credibility as scientists. Scientists, real scientists, look at evidence and draw conclusions based on the evidence. Yet the article includes "Iran's nuclear ambitions deeply threaten the stability of the Middle East..". Pots and Kettles. The U.S. effectively set up and supported a Jewish state surrounded by Muslims. What could be more de-stabilizing? Then Afghanistan, then Iraq. Iran threatens to de-stabilize. The U.S. has de-stabilized. Which is the bigger threat to stability, Iran, which threatens to attack, or the U.S. which has attacked numerous countries from Vietnam to Iraq, and supports a Jewish state among Muslims? Scientific American editors choose Iran!!!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisArt Campbell
Nepean, Ontario, Canada
Words are so slippery. The editorial title implies the editors support nuclear testing. The content of the editorial argues the opposite position. I can see references made to the article (using the title only) by those in the U.S. who want to develop and test new nuclear weapons. You are left wide open for misquoting. I hope this was not by design.
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