March 17, 2014

EXPERTS: TEST BAN TREATY DEBATE SHOULD NOT BE LINKED TO MODERNIZATION

By ExchangeMonitor

If and when the Obama Administration ramps up its push for Senate ratification of the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty, its plan for modernization of the nation’s weapons complex and arsenal is almost certain to play a central role in the debate. But several nuclear weapons experts and supporters of the treaty suggested yesterday that the two issues should not be linked and that potential issues with the stockpile would not be solved by a return to nuclear testing. “From a technical point of view, they’re completely separate, the CTBT whether it’s ratified or not, and what it takes to do stockpile stewardship,” Texas A&M professor Marvin Adams, a member of the JASON Defense Advisory Group and a National Academy of Science panel that analyzed technical issues regarding the treaty, said on the sidelines of a CTBT-themed event at the Carnegie Endowment yesterday. “Because we’re not going to test, whether we ratify the thing or not, and we have to steward the stockpile without testing either way.”

However, the difficulty the Administration has had this year in securing full funding for its modernization plan is likely to concern Senate Republicans, who conditioned their support of the New START Treaty last year on funding for the modernization plan. “I don’t think the connection is logical but the political connection may be there,” former NNSA Administrator Linton Brooks said, suggesting that those issues could be overcome. “The budget is going to go down,” he added. “It will depend on how we manage it.”

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