To date 30 of the 44 states required for CTBT entry into force have
ratified. (See
Obtaining additional ratifications will be increasingly difficult in the
absence of U.S. ratification.
Meanwhile, the the U.S. and Russian President's reiterated their commitment
to the CTBT (and NPT) in their July 21, 2000, Joint Statement on
Cooperation on Strategic Stability. The statement, prepared at the G-8
Economic Summit in Okinawa reads, in part:
"The United States and Russia reaffirm their commitment to the Treaty on
the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons as the foundation of the
international nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament regime.
They will work to ensure early entry into force of the Comprehensive
Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), and seek to expand cooperation related to
the CTBT to promote mutually beneficial technical exchanges that will
facilitate implementation of the CTBT after its entry into force."
Whether President Clinton will put the force of action behind those words
to increase the prospects for the CTBT is another matter.
The CTBT Task Force:
General Shalikashvili, Special Advisor to the President and Sec. of State
on the CTBT, has reported that his "quiet" dialogue with key Senators and
experts on the Treaty is moving ahead and into the next major phase.
After having met with dozens of key Senators to canvass them on their views,
concerns, and questions regarding the Treaty, he and his staff are, over the
next 30-45 days, preparing a draft of his report to the President and
Secretary of State. Following the August Congressional recess, Shalikashvili
will conduct a second round of meetings with Senators to discuss some
of his preliminary findings and recommendations and then will finalize
and release all or part of the report sometime this fall.
Nuclear Weapons R & D -- NIF and the "Stockpile Stewardship" Budget:
One of the tough issues that Shalikashvili will likely try to tackle in his
report is how the remaining U.S. nuclear arsenal can be maintained in the
absence of nuclear weapons test explosions. The Livermore, CA-based
Tri-Valley Cares has made an important contribution to our understanding of
this issue with a new report, Managing the U.S. Nuclear Stockpile, by
former Office of Management and Budget examiner Robert Civiak.
The report describes and rates 5 strategies, including the DOE's preferred
"science-based stockpile stewardship" program, for accomplishing this task.
Among the key points that emerge are that the existing nuclear weapons
arsenal can be maintained in a "safe and reliable" fashion with existing
facilities and programs and that some of the DOE's expensive and
problem-riddled experimental facilities, such as the National Ignition
Facility (NIF), are largely irrelevant to the core function of maintaining the
existing nuclear stockpile in a safe and reliable condition.
The executive summary of the report is attached below in text form and
available on-line from http://www.igc.org/tvc/
Also this month, the House and Senate have approved an ever growing amount
of funds for the DOE's nuclear weapons activities (a.k.a. "science-based
stockpile stewardship"). The Senate Appropriations Committee
approved a nuclear weapons activities budget of $4.88 billion -- $250
million above the Clinton administration's request for fiscal year 2001.
The House approved a budget of $4.625 billion.
As Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) told the Albuquerque Journal:
"Our labs will be in great shape."
(See http://www.igc.org/tvc/budget2001.htm for a detailed analysis of the FY 2001 Clinton Administration request.)
Even as larger budgets for the program are authorized, members of the House
and the Senate continue to struggle to understand what stockpile
stewardship is, and which of its components are actually useful to maintain
the existing arsenal and which are not. As a result, some Senators remain
uncertain about whether "stockpile stewardship" can maintain the arsenal
without reverting to nuclear testing, and are therefore, uncertain about the CTBT.
Congress Considers NIF: A new General Accounting Office report critical of
DOE's management of the NIF project (see July 20 WSJ article below)
has fueled a growing Congressional skepticism about the cost and utility
of NIF. Nevertheless, both the House and the Senate appropropriations bills
include $74.1 million for construction of NIF. The Senate also approved by a
voice vote an amendment to the defense authorization bill from Senator Jon Kyl
(R-AZ) to authorize additional funding on NIF if the DOE completes its
"re-baselining" report to Congress.
These results are partly due to pork-barrel politics and the ongoing lack
of Congressional understanding about the role of NIF and other stockpile
stewardship projects in maintaining the existing arsenal. For example, when
two House members (Ryan R-WI and Kucinich D-OH) sought to cut funding for NIF
through a floor amendment to the House E&W Appropriations bill on June 27,
two other Democrats spoke in opposition to the amendment on the basis of
inaccuracies and misperceptions about the relationship between NIF and the
CTBT. Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-CA) made the preposterous claim that "... the
NIF is the cornerstone of [the science-based stockpile stewardship]
program. The NIF is the best way to ensure the safety and reliability of
our nuclear weapons and to promote arms control and non-proliferation."
John Spratt (D-SC) made the highly misinformed claim that: "... NIF ... is
essential to the quest for reliability of nuclear weapons."
The Ryan/Kucinich amendment to cut $74.1 million in National Ignition
Facility construction funds failed on a voice vote. Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) may
attempt to cut or limit spending on NIF through a floor
amendment to the upcoming Senate Energy and Water Appropriations bill
(which will not likely be considered by the full Senate until September).
NIF may be useful for keeping weapons scientists busy and Livermore open,
but it is not essential to weapons reliability. In reality, maintaining the
arsenal without testing can continue to be achieved without nuclear
explosive tests (and without the NIF) primarily through existing stockpile
surveillance and remanufacturing facilities and processes. See
http://www.psr.org/nifsheet.pdf for a short analysis on NIF from
Physicians for Social Responsibility, or see
http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/nif/nifinx.asp for a more detailed critique
of the NIF program from the Natural Resources Defense Council.
NNSA Leadership in Place: the new head of the National
Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), John Gordon, has been sworn in. His
deputy, Madelyn Creedon (formerly of the Minority Staff of the Senate Armed
Services Committee) has also been confirmed. The NNSA was created by
Congress as a semi-autonomous agency within the DOE responsible for the
nuclear weapons-releated responsibilities of the Department of Energy,
including: "maintenance of a safe, secure and reliable stockpile of nuclear
weapons and associated materials capabilities and technologies; promotion
of international nuclear safety and nonproliferation; and administration
and management of the naval nuclear propulsion program." This new
bureacracy-within-a-bureaucracy will likely become a powerful player in
future U.S. nuclear weapons policy and may add to the nuclear weapons
laboratories' strong influence on Capitol Hill. Gordon will likely be
preoccupied with the controversy about nuclear laboratory security in his
first few months.
South Asian Nuclear Developments:
New reports suggest that the situation between Pakistan and India remains
volatile, with the use of nuclear weapons a seriously-considered option.
Indian P.M. Vajpayee has announced that he will visit the U.S. for three
days in September (apparently in connection with the UN's Millenium Summit)
and will commence a debate on the CTBT in the Indian parliament this
session.
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