Opponents of the CTBT believe that ultimately, absent some confirming nuclear test, the credibility of the U.S. stockpile for both U.S. leaders and adversaries will erode, and its deterrent value will wither away. It give the mistaken destabilizing impression to other nations that it is necessary or possible to develop their own nuclear arsenal.

Supporters of the CTBT split into two camps. The first camp believes the credibility of the deterrent can be maintained forever by pursuing an aggressive stockpile stewardship program and the accompanying annual certification process. The second supporter camp shares the opponent’s view, and sees the CTBT as a pathway to making the U.S. nuclear deterrent noncredible and therefore irrelevant over time.

The past twenty years demonstrate that the United States is not able to resolve this divide between the underlying views of proponents and opponents of the CTBT. There is another way. Several years ago, Arnold Kanter and Brent Scowcroft suggested a modification of the treaty designed to win Senate ratification. The modification is to make the treat renewable rather than of indefinite term and subject to Senate confirmation every five years. Since few believe that there is an urgency to test, it opens common ground for an agreement on a continuing U.S. test moratorium based on a five-year term, with extension dependent of Senate ratification at the end of each five-year period. Recall that the Non-Proliferation Treaty, originally ratified by 190 states, entered into force in 1970 with five-year review. In 1995, because of successful experience with the treaty’s operation, the parties agreed to extend the treaty indefinitely.

Any state party can propose an amendment to the CTBT, but the proposal to replace an indefinite term with a five-year term will certainly create an outcry among many of the 164 nations that negotiated and have ratified the CTBT. American arms-control experts and diplomats will doubt that agreement to such an amendment could be successfully renegotiated. It certainly would be difficult—each nation has its special combination of interests. However, the question is whether a CTBT with a five-year renewable term is preferable to no CTBT, which is the history of the past twenty years. Indeed a five-year term could well induce several of the nations (but not all) whose adherence is required for the treaty to enter into force to change their position (the United States, China, India, Israel, Pakistan and perhaps even Iran).

Diplomatic and domestic political progress on a nuclear test-ban regime requires a new approach. An end-of-term U.S. initiative by the outgoing president to have the UN Security Council declare nuclear tests against international law will continue the futile CTBT debate in this country, and not lead to its entry into force. The next administration should try a more pragmatic approach down a path that continues the testing moratorium without insisting on the final destination.

John Deutch was undersecretary of energy in the Carter administration and undersecretary of acquisition and technology, deputy secretary of defense, chair of the Nuclear Weapons Council, and Director of Central Intelligence during the first W. J. Clinton administration.

Image: Upshot-Knothole Grable nuclear test. Wikimedia Commons/Public domain