U.S. rejection of CTBT spurs free for all

By Ian Black

LONDON: The U.S. senate vote rejecting ratification of the comprehensive test ban treaty (CTBT) could turn decades of efforts to halt the spread of nuclear weapons into a free for all and unravel other key arms control agreements. "Rogue" states may feel emboldened to pursue their own plans as scientists from India to Iran and from Pakistan to North Korea ponder exciting, and dangerous, new projects.

Few analysts were prepared to declare the treaty dead; most promised to continue working to overcome what all agreed was a disastrous setback for Washington. It is now highly unlikely that Russia and China will join Britain and France -- the other two of the five "official" nuclear powers -- in ratifying it, and that will make it easier for "unofficial" and aspiring nuclear states to resist pressure to refrain from testing or developing bombs.

It was not supposed to end like this: three years ago, in September 1996, the world seemed on the threshold of a safer era when the UN general assembly voted to outlaw all nuclear explosions and consigned those awesome mushroom clouds to the history books.

President Bill Clinton signed the CTBT shortly afterwards, using a pen owned by President John F. Kennedy as a deliberately symbolic reminder of the terrifying brinkmanship of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, the closest the cold war ever came to turning hot.

But Republican opposition to ratification has now dealt the laboriously negotiated treaty a heavy blow, since it cannot enter into force until signed and ratified by all 44 nuclear-capable states.

No one is predicting an immediate rash of nuclear tests, but the damage to international confidence in non-proliferation efforts, already bruised by U.S. calls for the renegotiation of the 1972 anti-ballistic missile treaty, cannot be exaggerated.

"Backing out in this way signals a kind of free for all," warned Rebecca Johnson of the Acronym Institute, a London body dealing with disarmament issues. "In making this important treaty a victim of playground partisan politics, the United States has in a sense betrayed its own allies and signaled an end to the commitment to collective efforts at preventing the spread of nuclear weapons."

"The negative impact it will have on global nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation efforts is immeasurable and therefore is very regrettable," the Japanese foreign minister, Yohei Kono, said.

"The fear is that there will be political drift and despair that the treaty can ever be brought into force," a well-placed western diplomat said. "That would erode confidence in forward progress in arms control and non-proliferation and send the wrong psychological message to would-be proliferators. It's very bad news, even if not the end of the treaty."

Efforts to ban nuclear tests have been going on since 1963. In 1968 the Big Five agreed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT), giving them the right to retain weapons and an unfulfilled duty to work towards disarmament. The rest of the world promised not to acquire weapons in return for getting nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

Contrary to many pessimistic predictions, that bargain held: in 1995 the NPT was extended indefinitely, with a strong commitment to a comprehensive test ban written into it. France caused outrage with a final nuclear fling when it conducted underwater tests at Mururoa atoll in the Pacific.

But last year's tit-for-tat tests by India and Pakistan were a grave blow, though intense international pressure prevented the build up of weapons many feared would rapidly follow. Those efforts will be even less effective now.

"On what basis will anyone come here and ask us to sign the Ctbt?" said Vijai Nair, executive director of the Forum for Strategic and Security Studies in New Delhi. "The treaty is dead, it has been rendered a museum item," said Brahma Chellaney of New Delhi's Center for Policy Research. "The United States is the most powerful nuclear state, and if it has not approved the treaty. Where is the point in others pushing ahead?"

What next?

The possible consequences are not hard to sketch: China, nervously watching the sub-continent going nuclear, may be tempted to ignore its own moratorium and resume testing, as may Russia. Both already fear that a planned U.S. anti-ballistic shield will make their nuclear weapons obsolete. Other disarmament objectives, such as banning the production of fissile materials, are likely to be more difficult, as is next year's NPT review conference.

Some experts even fear that stalwarts of non-proliferation like South Africa (which uniquely abandoned its nuclear arsenal) and Brazil (which decided not to develop one) may withdraw from the treaties in protest at the way American party politics have damaged the cause. Egypt, always worried by Israel's big but undeclared nuclear arsenal, will feel less secure.

Iran, Iraq and North Korea, widely believed to have at least one or two warheads, are more likely to feel they can pursue their ambitions with impunity.

UN weapons inspectors were shocked to discover the extent of Saddam Hussein's nuclear capability after the Gulf war in 1991. Now, there are no inspectors and Russian experts are selling their skills to the highest bidder.

-- Guardian News Service