[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.

[[Page S9061]]

  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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