A Comprehensive Test Ban: Everybody or Nobody

Abstract

I n this paper I argue the following thesis: the United States should participate in a comprehensive ban on all tests of nuclear weapons if, and only if, all other nuclear-weapon states also accept such a ban; in advance of achieving it, we should espouse such a prohibition conditioned on acceptance by all pertinent states. If such a ban is once achieved, the agreement governing it should provide that if any state (signatory or not) begins testing weapons, the agreement is void, and all parties are free to resume the testing of weapons. (I shall call this provision an clause, which should not be confused with the withdrawal clause that has been incorporated in many recent arms control agreements.) I should emphasize at the outset that such a ban cannot, as a practical certainty, be achieved within, say, the next year. However, it may be feasible to achieve such an agreement by 1980 or 1985; government policies aimed at achieving it should be thought of as five-year or ten-year programs. I shall return to questions of political feasibility and time scales later. I shall argue that the main objective-virtually the only sensible objectiveof such an arrangement is to help inhibit the further proliferation of nuclear weapons. It will be useful to introduce some terminology and notation. A comprehensive ban on all tests of nuclear weapons that is adhered to by the United States and the Soviet Union and perhaps some (not necessarily all) other nuclear-weapon states will be denoted, as usual, as a comprehensive test ban (CTB); if I wish to focus on the treaty in which such an arrangement is embodied, I shall write of a comprehensive test ban treaty (CTBT). An agreement depending on adherence of all nuclear-weapon states, providing an escape clause as indicated above, will