06 October 1999
(Says treaty plays vital role in nuclear security) (3230) Defense Secretary William Cohen told the Senate Armed Services Committee October 6 that the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) "by banning nuclear explosive testing...removes a key tool that a proliferator would need in order to acquire high confidence in its nuclear weapon designs." Cohen urged the Senate to ratify the treaty, which President Clinton was the first head of state to sign and which the Senate had advised in favor of negotiating. "It is now the Senate's opportunity to advise and consent to the ratification of this important treaty," Cohen said, adding that in this constitutional ratification process "it is the role of the secretary of defense to testify whether a proposed treaty is in the national security interests of the United States. In the case of the CTBT, I believe that it is." He said a "sea change in the international environment" since the end of the Cold War has made it possible for the United States to reduce its nuclear forces and dismantle nuclear weapons. Scientists at the Department of Energy have also made "significant breakthroughs in their abilities to use simulations to model nuclear explosions and otherwise ensure the reliability of the stockpile," Cohen said. The increased threat from rogue nations seeking weapons of mass destruction countered this positive change, he said, requiring adoption of the CTBT "as an important element of our approach to nuclear security in the post-Cold War world." Following is the text of Cohen's remarks as prepared for delivery: (begin text) Testimony of the Honorable William S. Cohen to the Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing on the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, 6 October 1999 Mr. Chairman, distinguished members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, I am pleased to appear before you today to testify on the national security implications of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty or, as it has been long referred to, the CTBT. The CTBT has been a goal of the United States for over 40 years, beginning with President Eisenhower who first opened negotiations on a test ban in 1958. However, neither President Eisenhower, nor President Kennedy in 1963, nor President Carter in 1977-1980 were able to conclude such a treaty largely due to the then-indispensable role of nuclear testing in ensuring a safe, reliable, and effective nuclear deterrent and to the inability to verify compliance with a prohibition on nuclear testing. As President Reagan put it in 1982; "U.S. policy continues to endorse a Comprehensive Test Ban as a long-term objective. This is to be achieved in the context of broad, deep, and verifiable arms reductions, expanded confidence building measures, improved verification capabilities that would justify confidence in Soviet compliance with a Comprehensive Test Ban; and at a time when a nuclear deterrent is no longer as essential an element, as currently, for international security and stability." As we are all aware, a sea change in the international environment has occurred since 1982. The Warsaw Pact dissolved. The Soviet Union fragmented. The Cold War ended. These changes in the strategic environment made it possible for the United States to undertake large reductions in the numbers of strategic and theater nuclear forces. Thousands of nuclear weapons have been dismantled; thousands more are slated for dismantlement. Moreover, U.S. conventional capabilities are unequalled. Clearly, the United States is entering the new millennium as the sole superpower. Additionally, our scientists at DOE have made significant breakthroughs in their abilities to use simulations to model nuclear explosions and otherwise ensure the reliability of the stockpile. At the same time that nuclear competition with another superpower subsided, the threat has grown of rogue and other countries seeking weapons of mass destruction (WMD), including nuclear weapons, as a means either to offset our overwhelming conventional superiority or because of regional rivalries. In short, new circumstances required further consideration of a CTBT and the Administration adopted the Treaty as an important element of our approach to nuclear security in the post-Cold War world. The U.S. took a lead role in the creation of this treaty. President Clinton was the first head of state to sign it. Our lead was followed by 153 nations that have since become signatories. Having given its advice in favor of negotiating a CTBT in the form of legislation in previous years, it is now the Senate's opportunity to advise and consent to the ratification of this important treaty. In this constitutional ratification process, it is the role of the Secretary of Defense to testify whether a proposed treaty is in the national security interests of the United States. In the case of the CTBT, I believe that it is. National Security Benefits of the CTBT To understand why, Mr. Chairman, we need only ask the question what kind of world do we want -- one with more nuclear weapons or fewer. If one believes the world is better if there are more nuclear weapons, then a CTBT is not in our interest. But, if you believe, as I do, that we will be safer in a world in which there are fewer nuclear weapons, then we have to ask how we are going to restrain other states from creating and building nuclear arsenals. The CTBT provides a compelling answer. By banning nuclear explosive testing, the CTBT removes a key tool that a proliferator would need in order to acquire high confidence in its nuclear weapon designs. Furthermore, the CTBT helps make it more difficult for Russia, China, India, and Pakistan to improve existing types of nuclear weapons and to develop advanced new types of nuclear weapons. In this way, the CTBT contributes to the reduction of the global nuclear threat. Thus while the CTBT cannot prevent proliferation or reduce the current nuclear threat, it can make more difficult the development of advanced new types of nuclear weapons, and thereby help cap the nuclear threat. Similarly, the CTBT alone will not prevent emergence of new nuclear threats to U.S. forces deployed overseas, because potential proliferators can develop and stockpile simple fission weapons without testing. However, the CTBT can keep the nuclear threat from becoming greater than it otherwise could become. Proliferators, for example, could not develop with confidence small, high yield strategic warheads suitable for delivery by ballistic missiles. The CTBT also establishes a mechanism that will allow us to have greater confidence that its provisions are not being violated. The International Monitoring System created by the Treaty will create 230 data gathering stations around the world beyond those possessed by the United States. The information collected by these sensor-stations would not normally be available to the U.S. intelligence community. The CTBT also provides for possible on-site inspections should technical evidence indicate a possible violation of the Treaty. CTBT and Non-Proliferation Finally, I must note that CTBT would promote U.S. non-proliferation efforts. Strengthening international norms against the spread of nuclear weapons, to the extent they can help prevent new nuclear weapons states from emerging, is critically important to our national security. In 1995, the 186 states parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty extended the duration of the NPT indefinitely and unconditionally, but many did so because they viewed the commitment of the declared nuclear weapon states to conclude a CTBT as furthering the goals of nonproliferation. Hence, CTBT will help to ensure a high level of international commitment to nonproliferation, which includes not only the NPT itself but also associated safeguards, administered by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which monitors nuclear fuel and technology intended for peaceful purposes against diversion to clandestine nuclear weapon programs, and nuclear export controls. The CTBT thus is an important element of a mutually reinforcing set of tools to prevent and counter proliferation, which also includes the NPT, MTCR, the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, targeted and effective export controls, and diplomatic efforts and military programs to counter and defend against WMD and their means of delivery. Sustaining a Reliable, Effective Nuclear Deterrent I could not recommend Senate advice and consent to this Treaty if, notwithstanding the benefits I have just described, the Treaty would prevent us from maintaining confidence in our own nuclear deterrent. As the Committee knows well, although the United States does not depend upon nuclear weapons to the same degree as it did during the Cold War, nuclear weapons and the deterrence they provide will continue to be an essential element of our defense strategy for the foreseeable future. A key conclusion of the President's national security strategy is that the United States must retain nuclear forces sufficient to deter any hostile foreign leadership with access to nuclear forces and to convince it that seeking a nuclear advantage would be futile. Accordingly, the President has stated that he considers the maintenance of a safe and reliable nuclear stockpile to be a supreme national interest of the United States. Today, we have high confidence in the safety and reliability of the nuclear weapons stockpile. Our confidence is based on an extensive database from previous nuclear tests. As time passes and the stockpile ages, however, we must anticipate that problems will arise. There are three pillars that provide the foundation maintaining a safe, reliable, and effective nuclear stockpile: the program for nuclear weapons stockpile stewardship, the process of annual certification of the stockpile, and CTBT Safeguards. All are key elements of the Administration's strategy for assuring the continued safety and reliability of the nuclear stockpile. Let me elaborate further on each pillar. Stockpile Stewardship Under the President's direction, the Department of Energy has established an aggressive, well-funded program that includes four interrelated elements that will address the types of problems that inevitably will arise in an aging stockpile: -- First, enhanced scientific means for stockpile surveillance to forewarn us of potential problems in the nuclear weapons stockpile. -- Second, a vigorous scientific and technical base, including sophisticated experimental facilities, computer simulations and, most importantly, highly-trained scientists and engineers at our nuclear weapon laboratories, to assess the impact of problems, and develop and certify "fixes." -- Third, facilities and trained personnel to implement fixes via warhead repair, refurbishment or re-manufacture. -- Finally, an assured supply of tritium. The Administration together with Congress has made important strides in all four of these areas in recent years. Today, we are confident that we are fielding the tools we will need in the future to ensure that the U.S. nuclear stockpile, as it ages, will remain safe and reliable under CTBT. But it is absolutely essential that we press ahead with putting all of the elements of the stockpile stewardship program in place, because, until we do so, as the stockpile ages year by year, our confidence in it inevitably declines. This is neither new nor surprising; in fact, it is what we predicted and what then STRATCOM Commander in Chief Habiger told the SASC in March 1997. What we are seeing today in the stockpile is essentially what we expected to see. And we are also seeing that the new tools of the stewardship program arc coming on-line. But, most importantly, our diagnostic tests and analysis of the individual warheads in the stockpile continue to confirm that our nuclear arsenal is healthy, safe, sound, and reliable. Annual Certification We have institutionalized an annual process for certifying nuclear warhead safety and reliability that serves as an important supplement to stockpile stewardship. Indeed, for the past three years, the Secretary of Energy and the Secretary of Defense have certified to the President that we have high confidence in the nuclear stockpile and that there are no safety or reliability concerns that require an underground nuclear test. We are now completing this year's assessment of the health of the nuclear stockpile. As you will hear from our laboratory experts, there are problems which need to be solved; but fixes to all of these are in progress, and none require nuclear testing. Such certifications to the President entail a rigorous and independent review of the stockpile by experts both inside and outside government. This process begins with the project officers, those individuals from the Air Force and the Navy who are responsible for each type of nuclear weapon in our arsenal. These officers constantly review the diagnostic work performed by the DoE laboratories and the Services on actual weapons drawn from the national stockpile. This work is then shared with Strategic Command's Advisory Group, a panel of distinguished nuclear weapons experts, which devotes several weeks each year to a thorough "scrub" of the entire stockpile, drawing upon AU of the relevant information from the weapons labs and production plants. The Advisory Group then presents its own independent evaluation of the data it has received to the Commander in Chief of Strategic Command, and, in turn, the CINC informs me of its results. In addition, both my staff and DOE, in consultation with nuclear weapons labs, also carefully review the stockpile under the auspices of the joint DOD/DoE Nuclear Weapons Council. Likewise, the three DoE laboratory directors submit their own evaluations. The joint DoD/DoE recommendation to the President regarding certification is based on all of this work. I am confident that this process keeps me informed about both the health of the stockpile and whatever problems might arise. CTBT Safeguards Given the critical role that nuclear deterrence continues to play in national security strategy, we must contemplate the possibility that stockpile stewardship and annual certification would uncover a problem in the nuclear stockpile that cannot be fixed without nuclear testing. We have a hedge for such an event, unlikely though it may be. In the event the Secretary of Energy and I, based on the advice of experts, determine that a high level of confidence in the safety and reliability of a nuclear weapon critical to our deterrent could no longer be certified, we would so inform the President and Congress. In turn, the President has said that he would be prepared, in consultation with the Congress, to exercise our "supreme national interests" right of withdrawal under the CTBT in order to conduct whatever testing might be required. In order to be ready to implement this safeguard, the Department of Energy maintains a viable infrastructure and staff at our nuclear test site in Nevada. We would be able to conduct a nuclear test within eighteen months to two years of a decision to do so. I will be working with Secretary Richardson to reduce this interval to the smallest amount of time practical. Monitoring and Verifying the CTBT Is it possible for states to cheat on the CTBT without being detected? The answer is "yes." We would not be able to detect every evasively conducted nuclear test and from a national security perspective do not need to. But, I believe that the U.S. will be able to detect a level of testing -- the yield and number of tests -- by which a state could undermine the U.S. nuclear deterrent. This is what we mean by "effective verification," which is the same standard for compliance applied to treaties in the 1980's. Of key concern, if Russia or China were to conduct an occasional -- even one -- clandestine nuclear explosion below our threshold for detection, this would be a serious political problem. But the military significance of such tests likely would be low; the intent, in all probability, would be to validate a fix to a problem which had been found in one of their existing warheads. Developing new advanced warheads which potentially could affect the strategic balance would have great military significance, but this would require a much more intensive and more, detectable testing program. CTBT evasion is not easy, it would require significant efforts in terms of expertise, preparations, and resources. In the end, the testing party has no guarantees that its preparations or its nuclear test will escape detection, and possible on-site inspection, despite its best efforts. In addition, detection capability varies according to the location of the clandestine test and the evasion measures employed; a potential evader may not understand the full U.S. monitoring capability, thus adding to his uncertainty. Further, detection of a nuclear explosion conducted in violation of the CTBT would be a very serious matter with significant political consequences. Hence, the technical challenges, uncertainties, and potential political costs will have a deterring effect on potential cheaters. Under CTBT, I believe the U.S. will have available sufficient resources to deter or detect, with confidence, the level of clandestine nuclear testing that could undermine the U.S. nuclear deterrent and take timely and effective counteraction to redress the effects of any such testing. These resources include monitoring data and other information provided by its National Technical Means, the CTBT international monitoring system and on-site inspections, the mechanisms established by the Treaty for addressing compliance concerns and imposition of sanctions, and the U.S. stockpile stewardship program, the process for annual stockpile recertification, and CTBT safeguards, Summary Mr. Chairman, these members of the Committee who were here in 1992 will recall that this Secretary, as a Senator, had considerable doubts about the wisdom of prematurely halting nuclear testing because at the time we had many weapons in the stockpile that lacked modem safety features. But more has changed in the past seven years than simply my moving my desk across the Potomac. Many of the older weapons in the stockpile are no longer there; since then the W-33, W-48, and W-79 artillery shells, W-70 (LANCE warhead), B-53 (bomb), and W-56 (Minuteman II warhead), all of which had safety deficiencies have been retired, easing my concerns. The threat of nuclear and missile proliferation is far more acute today than it was in 1992, and accordingly the importance of strengthening non-proliferation has increased. There was no CTBT in 1992, today there is, and 154 nations have signed it and 47 have ratified it (including a majority of the 44 whose ratification is necessary to bring the Treaty into force). Finally, all five nuclear powers were testing in 1992; today, all five have declared testing moratoriums. Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee, in considering this treaty I believe we face two important issues: How do we discourage other nations from obtaining nuclear weapons?, and How do we protect the reliability of our existing nuclear capabilities? The CTBT offers an answer to both. If the Senate rejects the treaty, the proliferation of nuclear weapons is more likely, posing serious challenges to our nonproliferation and arms reduction goals. If the Senate lacks confidence in our scientific means of verifying the reliability of our nuclear weapons, does it follow then that we should return to a policy of nuclear testing? If the answer is "yes", it will be difficult to demand that other nuclear powers or aspirants refrain from engaging in similar conduct. If more nuclear weapons are developed by more nations, it may well force the United States to review our own deterrent requirements; if more nuclear weapons states emerge, it could well cause us to move to a much more technologically demanding architecture for defense. I do not suggest that such a proliferation scenario is inevitable. It is however a possibility that I believe can and should be avoided. It is for these reasons that I urge the Senate to support the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. (end text)