On September 29, the State Department released a fact sheet that unequivocally asserts that the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) is a “zero-yield” treaty. Under this assertion, the CTBT, once it enters into force, would bar all experiments on nuclear weapons that produce a self-sustaining fission chain reaction. At the same time, the State Department released an accompanying fact sheet that provides past quotes from diplomats and political leaders from all five of the de jure nuclear weapons states (the U.S., China, France, Russia, and the United Kingdom) that it …
The recent op-ed by James Woolsey and Keith Payne “Reconsidering the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty” (CTBT) describes the treaty as “an ineffectual gesture that could do more harm than good.” It is hard to disagree with this conclusion. There are many persistent problems with the treaty, which the U.S. Senate wisely rejected in 1999. Nevertheless, the Obama Administration chose to rejuvenate the treaty and try to get the Senate to ratify it—unchanged. The Administration hopes that the U.S. ratification of the treaty would prevent proliferation and bring about a change …
Secretary Clinton indicated in a speech at the U.S. Institute of Peace on Wednesday that the Administration’s efforts have been increasingly directed toward an arms control and non-proliferation agenda. The Administration is hastily pursuing the ratification of a START follow-on treaty with Russia and, in addition, Secretary Clinton announced on Wednesday that the U.S. will reaffirm the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), strengthen the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and commit to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and negotiate a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT). Clinton criticized the view held …
