[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 119 (Wednesday, September 10, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9059-S9062]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
COMPREHENSIVE TEST BAN TREATY
Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, a generation ago, President John F. Kennedy
called for a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. President Kennedy's
visionary appeal met with modest but important success: the treaty
banning nuclear tests in the atmosphere, in outer space, and
underwater.
One year ago today, the world community took a major step toward
fulfilling President Kennedy's vision.
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With the United States once again in the lead, the U.N. General
Assembly voted 158 to 3, with 5 abstentions, to endorse the so-called
CTBT, drafted by the U.N. Conference On Disarmament. Two weeks later,
all the declared nuclear powers signed that treaty.
Soon this treaty will be submitted to the U.S. Senate for our advice
and our consent to ratification. Much work is needed to educate this
body and to assure us that the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty will be
effectively verifiable and will not undermine nuclear deterrence. But
it is time to begin that effort, and I welcome the administration's
commitment to do so.
The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty will not enter into force for some
time. This is because all nuclear-capable States must ratify this
treaty before it can enter into force, at least during the next 3
years, and India has refused to do that--although I am given to
understand that the President will be traveling there, to try to change
that view on the part of the Indian Government.
Timely U.S. ratification is still needed, however, to prevent the
CTBT from becoming a dead letter and to maintain the pressure on all
states not to test a nuclear device. The 144 states that signed the
CTBT are largely bound not to undermine it, even before it enters into
force. But nonnuclear states will feel little obligation to ratify or
obey a test ban if the powers with admitted nuclear weapons programs
fail to ratify it themselves.
A comprehensive ban on nuclear testing is no minor matter. This is
not your father's arms control agreement, Mr. President. You remember
that old commercial--I know, the old automobile man that my father
was--``this isn't your father's Oldsmobile.'' This is not your standard
arms control agreement, merely codifying actions already planned by the
two superpowers, which most of our arms control agreements were. This
treaty will pinch, it will hurt; but the CTBT will pinch other
countries far more than it pinches us, and the world will be a safer
place for that.
There is always a risk, of course, that a State Party--a fancy
foreign policy phrase for another country--will violate this test ban
treaty rather than do without nuclear testing. Last month's so-called--
it's amazing the phrases we use--``seismic event'' at or near the
Russian nuclear test site of Novaya Zemlya is a timely reminder that
arms control compliance can be assured only through effective
verification.
Article 4 of the test ban treaty and the treaty's accompanying
protocol do include, in fact, some very welcome verification
provisions. An international monitoring system will combine seismic,
radionuclide, hydroacoustic and infrasound monitoring. This monitoring
system will provide States Parties with both raw and processed data, as
well as with analyses of those data.
Article 4 requires prompt clarification by States Parties in ``any
matter which may cause concern about possible noncompliance with the
basic obligations of the treaty.''
In addition, the United States, if supported by 29 of the 50 other
members of the Organization's Executive Council, will be able to force
a truly extensive onsite inspection by the CTBT Organization's
Technical Secretariat. We would be in a much stronger position to
investigate last month's possible Russian explosion if the CTBT were in
effect and Russia were required, as a consequence of that, to accept
onsite inspections.
Verification of this treaty will not be cheap, and the United States
will be expected to help other countries participate in seismic
monitoring, in particular. We have provided such assistance for many
years, for a simple reason: not out of our generosity and our
charitable instinct, but because it is in our naked self-interest, it
is in our national interest, both to monitor nuclear tests by other
countries and to obtain timely and accurate data on earthquakes.
It is important to keep up this effort, whether we eventually ratify
the CTBT or not, and I urge my colleagues, as an afterthought here, to
support full funding of the international monitoring systems that I am
talking about.
How will this treaty really pinch--I mentioned that at the outset--
assuming that the verification provisions deter any violations? For the
five countries with a history of nuclear testing, among which we are
one, the CTBT will mean an end to that testing. We, and other declared
nuclear powers, will need to use other means in order to ensure that
our nuclear weapons are safe and are in working order, or to modify
those weapons in any way.
Let me explain the meaning of that. Most people say, ``Why don't you
have to worry about testing anymore? A nation like ours wouldn't want
to test in any circumstance.'' To raise a legitimate point raised by
others who don't support this treaty, however, in order to ensure that
our nuclear arsenal is accurate and working and functioning, you
occasionally have to test it, you occasionally have to know what you
have. You can't just let it sit there and let the components of it sit
there for 20, 30, 40, 50 years and not test it, and still have
confidence in its deterrent capacity. That is the reason why even
nations like ours that do not have any desire to increase their nuclear
capacity, that want to reduce nuclear weapons, might still want to be
able to test.
In our country, the Department of Energy plans to use tests that do
not actually cause a nuclear explosion, known as subcritical
experiments, as well as computer analyses and simulations to assure the
safety, reliability, and effectiveness of U.S. nuclear weapons. Ground
was broken just last month for a billion-dollar National Ignition
Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California to
do some of that very work. One hoped-for side benefit is further
progress toward controlled fusion, an important potential power source
for the next century.
Many of my colleagues question whether this Stockpile Stewardship and
Management Program, as it is referred to, will suffice in the absence
of nuclear testing. The Energy Department, where the scientists and
experts are, says ``yes,'' while opponents of arms control say ``no.''
I say nobody knows for sure. We can't guarantee that stockpile
stewardship will work because this is a new scientific frontier. But
the executive branch must take stockpile stewardship--that is, those
tests other than actually exploding nuclear devices--seriously, and we
must--we must--fund it appropriately, in my view. Senator Domenici has
warned that the current funding plan is insufficient for that job. I
hope and expect that the administration will take that concern to heart
and not just blow smoke at it.
Mr. President, even if we were not going to sign a test ban treaty,
it should be very much in America's interest for us not to test nuclear
weapons if we have an alternative that can guarantee the safety,
stability, security, and usability of our nuclear stockpile. So, for
whatever the reasons, even unrelated to this treaty, it makes sense to
follow the admonition of Senator Domenici and give the Energy
Department the resources it needs to maximize the chances that the
Stockpile Stewardship and Management Program will suffice in the
absence of nuclear testing.
Stockpile stewardship, Mr. President, is an opportunity, however, not
just a challenge. It is precisely this sort of high-technology activity
at which the United States excels. Recent press stories on our improved
earth-penetrating nuclear bomb make clear that the United States is
capable of maintaining nuclear capabilities, even without nuclear
testing, that other countries can only dream of. The truth is that we
may well extend our nuclear advantage in a test-free world.
So let me be clear about this. I do not think we are seeking any
greater advantage in nuclear weapons, over other countries in the
world, but if we, in fact, move all the acknowledged nations and those
we think have nuclear capacity and nuclear weapons to enter into this
treaty, then there will be no more testing.
You hear opponents say, ``Well, that will put us at a competitive
disadvantage in terms of our nuclear capacity.'' My argument would be
if the verification is real, which it is in this treaty, we are
potentially at a competitive advantage because we would be able to
continue to develop and assure the capacity of our nuclear stockpiles
and capabilities--thanks to our testing capacity, our ability to
measure their utility absent an actual nuclear explosion.
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So this is an argument that I know we will engage in, but I would
just like to lay a marker down now. I think our security is enhanced
and our capability can be enhanced with this treaty in place.
But we will not be so likely to develop a whole new generation of
nuclear weapons, and that is important. Why? Because there is a deal
here between the nuclear weapons ``haves'' and the nuclear weapons
``have-not'' states. For the vast majority of countries, those that
have never tested nuclear weapons, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
will greatly impede any efforts on their part to develop nuclear
weapons, but it will also reassure those countries that the nuclear
powers will be much more limited in their development of still newer
weapon designs.
Mr. President, think about it. If you are a developing country and
you are late into the game of nuclear weapons, you are asked to say,
``OK, these other guys got theirs, we don't have ours yet, but let's
make sure no one can test any more so that we, in fact, can never
develop nuclear weapons.'' Well, you sit there and say, ``Wait a
minute, the other guys have these things, they have these weapons and
the only way they developed them is they tested them. Now you are
telling us we can never test them, which is synonymous to saying we can
never have them.''
OK, in order for them to give up that, because they then are locked
into this inferior status in terms of nuclear capability, we have to
give something to them. What they get in return for this is that,
although we will maintain that capacity and be able to maintain it
without testing, none of the nations of the world will be able to move
to whole new generations of those nuclear weapons, which is some
reassurance to a nation that knows the argument that I made to such
countries and their leaders, which is, ``Look, you can never catch up,
you can never get ahead of the curve; you may get nuclear weapons, but
you're never going to get to the point in your lifetime or the lifetime
of your children where you are going to be able to match the capacity
of the nuclear powers. So isn't it better for us to freeze or to
builddown, in effect, to use an expression that Bill Cohen used to push
years ago during the arms control debates of the late seventies and
early eighties?''
How will this test ban impede other countries' nuclear weapons
programs? We hope to maintain our nuclear weapons without further
testing and non-nuclear powers might hope similarly to develop or
obtain nuclear weapons without ever testing them. But developing a new
weapon without testing is risky, especially for a country with no
experience in nuclear weapons; after all, even the advanced nuclear
powers have test failures.
Military leaders are hardly eager to go into battle with untested
weapons, Mr. President. In fact, they get downright cranky about that,
and once they start questioning the reliability of their weapons, they
begin to think more about the dangers that come with war than about the
glory of it all. The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty thus may limit the
progress that we and other nuclear powers can make in further
developments of nuclear weapons, but its greatest benefit will be in
nonproliferation by foreclosing nuclear weapons from many countries and
making it difficult for new entrants even to approach the
sophistication of our existing nuclear weapons.
The power of the CTBT as a nonproliferation tool explains why
Pakistan was unwilling to sign the CTBT if it could enter into force
without India's ratification. If their nuclear weapons program is going
to be hobbled, they want India to be hobbled as well. And the CTBT's
likely effectiveness is probably also a real reason why India has been
unwilling to sign the treaty at all. Both of those countries have
rudimentary nuclear weapons capabilities, but they know that a ban on
testing, which may eventually come into force despite India's
objections, will severely hamper their ability to develop those devices
into a stable of weapons that they can count on in a real war.
Just as India and Pakistan appreciate CTBT's power to hamper the
development of nuclear weapons, so should we. We rightly value the
stability that mutual deterrence has brought us over the last 50 years.
That is why we want reassurance that ``stockpile stewardship'' will be
adequately funded and that the experts expect it to succeed.
But the gravest threat to security of our Nation, Mr. President, may
not be from Russian or Chinese missiles, but rather from nuclear
weapons in the hands of others--Iraq, Iran, Libya, or North Korea, just
to name a few, or even terrorist groups that a rogue state might
befriend.
The biggest risk of nuclear weapons actually being used may not be
against us, against Russia or even against Taiwan, but rather by India
and Pakistan against innocent civilians in the teeming cities which are
within range of each country's bombers or shorter range missiles.
With U.S. leadership in ratifying this treaty, the CTBT will gain
near unanimous international support and keep pressure on India and any
like-minded countries to ratify it--or at least to refrain from
testing. A comprehensive test ban, once in force, will reduce
substantially the threats of regional nuclear wars or terrorist
acquisition of nuclear weapons. And that is reason enough, Mr.
President, in my view, to support ratification.
But, Mr. President, as I have said, serious observers are sincerely
divided over whether the United States will be able to maintain nuclear
deterrence without nuclear testing. Achieving the Senate's advice and
consent to ratification depends, therefore, in my opinion, upon careful
and intensive education both of the public and of this body, myself
included. It is time for the administration to begin the sustained
effort that will be required to assure that 67 U.S. Senators will feel
that this CTBT is in our national interest.
The world in which we live today, Mr. President, is, as I said
before, not your father's cold war. But there has been no end of
history as has been prophesied. Neither will there be any end of arms
control. Already this year the Senate has acted on the Chemical Weapons
Convention and the ``Flank Document'' to the Treaty on Conventional
Forces in Europe, referred to as CFE. Measures awaiting Senate action
include: the Convention on Nuclear Safety; protocols to the Convention
on Conventional Weapons on undetectable landmines, blinding lasers, and
incendiaries; and two treaties to establish nuclear-free zones.
Over the next 2 years, the executive branch will likely submit to the
Senate a START III treaty, an extension of the START II weapons
destruction deadlines, an amendment or protocol making START I a
permanent treaty, a CFE adaptation agreement, a succession memorandum
and demarcation agreement regarding the ABM treaty, a new safeguards
protocol between the United States and the International Atomic Energy
Agency, a nuclear liability convention, a nuclear waste convention, and
a verification protocol to the Biological Weapons Convention.
Given that lengthy agenda, Mr. President, I am not in a position to
say that the CTBT must be taken up as the next item for the Senate's
attention. Indeed, I hope we will approve some of these less
controversial measures--such as the Convention on Nuclear Safety, the
protocols to the Convention on Conventional Weapons, and a new
safeguards protocol with the International Atomic Energy Agency--before
we bring this issue to the floor.
But that need not stop the administration from submitting this treaty
and beginning the work of educating us as to its merits. Chairman Helms
and I have shown that the Foreign Relations Committee can get things
done, and I am confident that we will secure agreement on many more
issues, hard ones as well as the easier ones.
The time has come, Mr. President, to move ahead on the Comprehensive
Test Ban Treaty, as well as other arms control initiatives and NATO
enlargement. The end of the cold war has made all these both possible
and--I would emphasize--also necessary. This is an ambitious agenda for
the Senate in the field of foreign relations, and the issues will be
difficult.
But we represent the citizens of the world's greatest country. Or,
the best phrase I have heard in my 25 years here to describe us is
President Clinton's phrase. He said, we are the ``essential nation.''
We are the ``essential nation.'' We represent the citizens of the
essential nation. We are charged with the
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historic task of making the world a safer place for coming
generations--not through war, but through fashioning of durable
agreements and institutions. We must not--and I am sure we will not--
flinch at that challenge.
This is a rare opportunity that you and I have, to serve at a time
when we are setting down a whole new institutional framework for the
conduct of world affairs. It has not happened in 50 years; it is
happening now. I pray we are as wise as our fathers and grandfathers
and grandmothers and mothers were when they did the job at the end of
World War II.
I thank the Chair for its indulgence and for listening to me. I
appreciate it very much.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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