Nuclear Hawks and the Upcoming Battle over the CTBT

By Kelley Sayler

The Obama administration is likely to face an uphill battle in its upcoming bid to win ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT.)  While the administration has timed its push for ratification to coincide with the release of the new National Intelligence Estimate, as well as with the new National Academy of Sciences’(NAS) report on stockpile stewardship under the CTBT, these documents are unlikely to affect the positions of hard-line critics.    

The predictable voices of dissent, including Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ), have already registered their opposition to ratification and are likely to become increasingly vocal as the vote nears.  Indeed, Kyl provided a taste of what’s to come in a 2009 op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, in which the senator unleashed a litany of criticisms against the CTBT, going so far as to argue that ratification would be a “profound mistake” that would “jeopardize American national security.”  The op-ed, which reads like a list of future talking points for opponents of CTBT ratification, additionally highlights concerns regarding the application of testing provisions and the reliability of the nuclear stockpile.   

This latter point is likely to remain a source of contention regardless of the recommendations provided by the forthcoming NAS report, as Kyl and other opponents of the CTBT have traditionally favored the reliability assessments produced by the national nuclear laboratories over those produced by other sources.

In particular, opponents of the CTBT were unmoved by the 2009 release of the JASON report – conducted by a group of independent scientists – assessing the reliability of the Lifetime Extension Program.  The report found

no evidence that  accumulation of changes incurred from aging and LEPs have increased risk to certification of today's deployed nuclear warheads…[and that] lifetimes of today's nuclear warheads could be extended for decades, with no anticipated loss in confidence, by using approaches similar to those employed in LEPs to date.

Far from accepting the report’s findings, opponents of the CTBT seized upon letters written by three directors of national laboratories – and solicited by member of the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee Michael Turner (R-OH) – that took issue with aspects of the report’s unclassified Executive Summary.  One director, George Miller of Lawrence Livermore, argued that the unclassified version of the report understated the “the challenges and risks encountered in ensuring a safe and reliable nuclear force.”  Miller further cautioned that there will be “increasing risk in our ability to certify the safety and reliability of our Cold War stockpile into the indefinite future.”  These sentiments were echoed in letters submitted by the directors of Los Alamos and Sandia.   

While the directors agreed with the broad findings of the JASON report, their statements provided sufficient political cover to opponents of the CTBT intent on portraying a lack of scientific consensus on the efficacy of stockpile stewardship programs.  Thus, in the absence of a wholesale endorsement of the NAS’s findings by the nuclear laboratory heads, opposition to the CTBT among nuclear hawks is unlikely to change.