Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation

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U.S. Draft Resolution Commits All States to CTBT

Last Friday, the United States circulated a draft resolution on nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament to the UN Security Council. The draft was submitted in anticipation of the September 24 special meeting of the Security Council to be chaired by President Obama.

The draft resolution strongly endorses the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), calling “upon all States to refrain from conducting a nuclear test explosion and to join the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), thereby bringing the treaty into force” (emphasis mine).

If finalized in its draft form, the resolution will be only the second Security Council resolution to call on all states to join the CTBT. The first was Resolution 1172, which the Security Council adopted in the wake of India’s and Pakistan’s 1998 nuclear tests.  The new draft resolution is Obama’s first official action to encourage those nations that have not yet ratified the Treaty to do so.

The United States and China are the only Security Council members to have not ratified the CTBT; thus, only China would seem to stand in the way of the draft resolution’s adoption. Yet China signed off on Resolution 1172 and has indicated that it would likely ratify the Treaty following U.S. ratification.

Obama’s draft resolution is a bold move and a clear sign of progress. Not surprisingly, U.S.-proposed Security Council resolutions during the Bush administration never mentioned the CTBT.  Together with the decision to send Secretary Clinton to lead a U.S. delegation and deliver a statement to the biennial CTBT “Entry Into Force” conference occurring at the same time as the Security Council’s special meeting, the new draft resolution sends yet another signal to the international community and the U.S. Senate that the Treaty is a key administration priority.

Nonetheless, Obama will not achieve his goal simply through atmospherics in the Security Council. Although the Treaty has strong support on the international stage – 149 states have ratified it – Obama must also mount a major diplomatic effort to convince additional states to ratify.  Besides the United States and China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, North Korea, and Pakistan are the remaining hold-out countries whose ratification is necessary for the agreement to enter into force.

An encouraging sign came in October 2008, when China, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, and Pakistan all voted in favor of a UN General Assembly draft resolution supporting the CTBT. The United States was the only country to vote against the resolution. India abstained and North Korea did not participate.

Getting the U.S. Senate to approve the CTBT, of course, is a completely different beast that will require a completely different political strategy. Yet if these initial forays into international diplomacy show that the CTBT will both improve America’s global political position (aka leverage on other issues) and reduce the threat of nuclear weapons, the Obama administration will gain compelling evidence that can be used to convince Republicans that they should support the Treaty because it makes the United States safer.

2009-2010 College Debate Topic on Nuclear Weapons: A Guide to Background Materials, Publications, &Organizations

by Travis Sharp and Kingston Reif Updated December 3, 2009 DEBATE TOPIC Resolved: The United States Federal Government should substantially reduce the size of its nuclear weapons arsenal, and/or substantially reduce and restrict the role and/or missions of its nuclear weapons arsenal. BACKGROUND MATERIALS BY TOPIC 1. Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) START Resource Center (Center […]

Iranian "long-range" missiles?

In an otherwise interesting look at the state of Iran’s nuclear program and disputes among American and Israeli intelligence officials about how close Iran is to the bomb, The New York Times’ David Sanger gets away with a big whopper:

It is unclear how many months — or even years — it would take Iran to complete that final [nuclear weapon] design work, and then build a warhead that could fit atop its long-range missiles. [emphasis mine].

Now perhaps Sanger meant to say something along the lines of “and then build a warhead that could fit atop a future or yet to be developed long-range missile.”  But that is not what the above sentence suggests.  What it suggests is that Iran currently possesses long-range missiles, which, as NoH readers know, is, ummm, not true.  

According to a recent Congressional Research Service (CRS) report on Iran’s ballistic missile programs,

traditionally, the United States has defined long-range or Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) as those ballistic missiles capable of ranges greater than 5,500 kilometers (about 3,400 miles).  To date, five countries have deployed operational ICBMs (all with nuclear weapons): the United States, Russia, China, France, and Britain.  Other countries such as Iran, are believed by some observers to have ICBM programs in varying stages of development.

In other words, Iran does not now have any long-range missiles.  Iran does possess medium-range missiles that “may have range capabilities of 1,500-2,500 kilometers.”  While such missiles could reach targets in Israel, Turkey, and portions of southeastern Europe, they could not threaten the rest of Europe or the United States.  And while Iran may be seeking to develop long-range missiles, without substantial foreign assistance, Iran is not likely to possess a ballistic missile capable of threatening all of Europe and/or the United States within the next ten to fifteen years.

Better fact-checking, please.

"New START" update

Find yourself lying awake last night wondering about the status of the “New START” treaty talks?  Ask and you shall receive: Russia set to hold 4-5 rounds of arms talks with U.S. by December MOSCOW, September 8 (RIA Novosti) – Russia hopes to hold…

START and Future Postures of 1700 or 1000 Warheads

In the latest JFQ, Stephen Cimbala offers “SORT-ing out START: Options for U.S.-Russian Strategic Arms Reductions.”

Besides a good summation of what is at stake for U.S.-Russian relations and for the global nonproliferation regime, Cimbala incorporates an assessment of hypothetical future strategic force postures. Under scenarios of 1,700 or 1,000 deployed warheads per side, he evaluates American and Russian posture configurations in the current triad, a hypothetical dyad, or a hypothetical monad.

Examining alternative mixes of launch systems is important, Cimbala writes, because “it may turn out that triads are redundant for the accomplishment of retaliatory missions under some conditions.” In addition, he notes that “alternative mixes of launch systems provide a perspective on the question of distributing conventional and nuclear forces together.” By cutting specific delivery options out of the nuclear picture, the United States might be able to utilize specific delivery vehicles for conventional strike options without Russia saying that “the mixing of conventional and nuclear strike options on the same launch systems [are] potentially provocative.”  

Based on his analysis of the various alternative launch system arrangements at different states of readiness and retaliatory capability, Cimballa offers the following important conclusions:

1. In the context of bilateral U.S.-Russian deterrence: “A post-START and post-SORT arms reduction with an upper bound of 1,000 deployed strategic warheads would suffice to provide for deterrence. More important, it would provide for additional reassurance, as between Washington and Moscow, permitting them to get on with other mutually beneficial agendas, including the agenda of nonproliferation. The common interest of the United States and Russia is to move forward with this win-win agenda of controlling the spread of nuclear weapons before it becomes a lose-lose for them and for the entire nonproliferation regime.”

2. In the context of global deterrence between all nuclear-armed nations: “As one might expect, the larger deployed forces offer more survivable retaliatory power than do the smaller ones. But the difference is not as meaningful as one might suppose.”

3. And in consideration of the viability of smaller arsenals amongst all nuclear-armed nations: “smaller forces are not necessarily less crisis-stable than larger ones under all conditions…the attributes of launchers or delivery systems, and the mix of launch systems deployed by each state, are important contributors to the state’s degree of crisis stability.”