The New York Times

Tuesday, January 9, 2001

Reviving the Test Ban Treaty

By refusing to ratify the nuclear test ban treaty 15 months ago, the Republican-led Senate set back American efforts to discourage additional countries from developing nuclear weapons. The incoming Bush administration has now been offered a timely opportunity to revisit the treaty issue. Last week, at the request of President Clinton, Gen. John Shalikashvili, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, proposed a set of practical steps that the next administration could take to address the Senate's concerns about the treaty and make it possible for George W. Bush to resubmit it for a successful ratification vote in the near future.

During the presidential campaign, Mr. Bush opposed the treaty, but pledged to continue America's eight-and-a-half-year-old moratorium on nuclear testing. He should now reassess his position, taking into account the Shalikashvili recommendations and the support for ratification previously expressed by his own designee for secretary of state, Gen. Colin Powell, also a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs. With Mr. Bush's endorsement, the test ban treaty could probably win Senate ratification. Though ratifying treaties requires a two-thirds majority, the newly elected Senate is more moderate than the one that rejected the accord.

The treaty serves American interests by committing other countries to follow Washington's example and forgo nuclear tests. Without tests, countries that lack nuclear weapons cannot develop reliable ones and nations that already have the bomb cannot significantly upgrade their arsenals. The treaty also establishes new international verification procedures for detecting nuclear explosions that would supplement those Washington already uses. Senate opponents feared that even with this additional monitoring, some illegal tests might still go undetected. They also worried that a permanent test ban might make it impossible to ensure that warheads in America's nuclear stockpile had not deteriorated.

General Shalikashvili's recommendations respond to these legitimate concerns. He calls for increased American investment in verification tools, including satellites, seismic monitors and instruments for detecting radiation releases and nuclear electromagnetic pulses. With these in place, American political and military leaders could be fully confident that any remaining undetected explosions would be too small to be militarily significant. The recommendations also call for improving the periodic evaluation of aging warheads for signs of deterioration. Continued production of replacement parts, including the warheads' plutonium cores, would allow for necessary maintenance.

As a further safeguard, General Shalikashvili asks the Senate to specify that 10 years following ratification, a review will be carried out to determine if the treaty continues to be in the best interest of the United States. If not, the White House would be encouraged to give six months' notice of withdrawal. Withdrawal could be initiated by the president even sooner if changed conditions warranted it. Mr. Bush has said that he wants his administration to take strong measures to halt the spread of nuclear weapons. Adopting these recommendations and resubmitting the test ban treaty to the Senate would be a good place to start.