[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 118 (Wednesday, September 9, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10112-S10113]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     COMPREHENSIVE TEST BAN TREATY

  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I want to commend to my colleagues the 
exceptionally thoughtful lead editorial in yesterday morning's 
Washington Post. It is entitled ``The Test Ban and Arms Control,'' and 
it makes some cogent points about the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty and 
a Senate where few objections are raised to the Treaty itself, but most 
Republicans still cast symbolic votes against it.
  The Post notes correctly that leading Senate Republicans seem to 
assume that a national missile defense is the only answer to the 
problems of nuclear proliferation and the risk of nuclear war.
  As the Post concludes, however, treaties like the Chemical Weapons 
Convention and the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty ``are capable of 
serving American requirements well.'' Whatever one's views on national 
missile defense, those treaties ``would strengthen the American 
position in the world.''
  I would note two areas in which I disagree with the Post editorial. 
First of all, the Test-Ban Treaty was signed 2 years ago, rather than 
``earlier this year.'' The Treaty was submitted to the Senate nearly a 
full year ago, and has languished because the Republican leadership is 
afraid to let it come up.
  I do not accept the Post's pessimistic view, moreover, of the Test-
Ban Treaty's chances on the floor. In last week's vote, moderate 
Republicans could support their Leader without doing any tangible harm.
  When the Test-Ban Treaty finally comes up for a vote on ratification, 
however, I am confident that at least 67 members will support it, just 
as they supported the Chemical Weapons Convention last year.
  With those two caveats, I strongly urge my colleagues to read 
Tuesday's Post editorial and I ask unanimous consent that it be printed 
in the Record.

[[Page S10113]]

  There being no objection, the editorial ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

               [From the Washington Post, Sept. 8, 1998]

                     The Test Ban and Arms Control

       An early Senate vote on funds for implementation of the 
     comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty indicates that the two-
     thirds majority needed to ratify the test ban may be lacking. 
     There would be some votes from the Republican majority for a 
     treaty, but at this moment the dominant blocking position of 
     the party leadership looks strong. The evident resistance to 
     ratification is attributed not simply to dissatisfaction with 
     some of the treaty's terms--there isn't all that much 
     dissatisfaction--but to a fundamental and wrongheaded quarrel 
     with the premises of arms control itself.
       Modern arms control was invented during the Cold War to 
     restrict the nuclear armories of the then-two great powers 
     and, if not to bring something deserving of the name of peace 
     between them, then to lessen the risks and costs of their 
     preparing for nuclear war. There were ups and downs, and 
     their ultimate worth can be argued, but there is no denying 
     that at a certain point Ronald Reagan demolished arms control 
     as everyone had known it.
       From being a policy aimed at producing nuclear parity or 
     stalemate in a condition of reduced but continuing political 
     hostility, arms control became under President Reagan a bold 
     program to end Soviet-American nuclear competition and beyond 
     that, to close out the Cold War itself by seeing to the 
     transformation of the Soviet Union. Many other hands, 
     especially Mikhail Gorbachev's, shared in this task. But 
     Ronald Reagan was a leading contributor to the different 
     state of affairs we enjoy with Russia to this day.
       Since the Cold War's demise, the urgency has gone out of 
     classical arms control. The United States, far from deterring 
     Russia and preserving a balance of terror, is helping Russia 
     dismantle its excessive and expensive nuclear capability, 
     concentrating on the specter of ``loose nukes''--weapons 
     under uncertain official control and vulnerable to private 
     theft and misuse. Still, the weapons that most trouble the 
     United States and Russia are those in the hands, or in the 
     aspirations, of third countries. Nonproliferation or counter-
     proliferation is at the heart of post-Cold War arms control.
       This is the context in which the comprehensive test ban 
     treaty, which was decades in the making, finally was signed 
     earlier this year. This arms-control perennial had changed 
     from being a check on Russian and American arms programs into 
     a restraint on the spread of weapons of mass destruction 
     among assorted regimes around the world. This is the test 
     ban's 21st century mission: to give the multitude of nations 
     an additional lever with which to press Iran and Iraq, North 
     Korea, India, Pakistan and Israel--and rogues elsewhere--to 
     abandon or slow their nuclear urges.
       Leading Senate Republicans perversely persist in blaming 
     the test ban, and by extension the whole updated post-Cold 
     War framework of arms control, for nuclear and chemical and 
     other programs being pursued by various countries. These 
     naive senators seem to believe that arms-control measures are 
     magically self-enforcing. They fail to understand that the 
     signatories of arms-control agreements must take upon 
     themselves the burdens of observing their terms and of 
     enforcing compliance to others' formal pledges of self-
     denial. If the signatories fall short, the responsibility 
     falls on them, not on the agreements.
       The senators also profess to rely on American power and 
     American technology alone--especially on a new national 
     missile defense--to ensure the security of the United States. 
     Such a missile defense is in the works, but questions remain 
     about its strategic purpose, efficacy and cost. The pace of 
     pondering these questions has itself become a sharp political 
     issue. Meanwhile, some senators carelessly would throw away 
     the increments to American security that could be added by 
     cooperation with other friendly countries in matters such as 
     the chemical weapons treaty, the nuclear nonproliferation 
     treaty and the test ban.
       These are imperfect instruments, but they are capable of 
     serving American requirements well. Even if a missile defense 
     of minimal cost, deadly accuracy and reliability were ready 
     today, which it is not, those instruments would strengthen 
     the American position in the world.

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