NATIONAL ACADEMY PRESS
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NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Council of the National Academy of Sciences. The members of the panel responsible for the report were chosen for their special competences and with regard for appropriate balance.
This study was supported by Contract No. DE-AM01–99PO90016, Task Order No. DE-AT01–01NN40245 between the National Academy of Sciences and the Department of Energy, Contract No. S-LMAQM-00-C-0125 between the National Academy of Sciences and the Department of State, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the John D. and Catherine T.MacArthur Foundation, and National Research Council Funds. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the organizations or agencies that provided support for the project.
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THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES
National Academy of Sciences
National Academy of Engineering
Institute of Medicine
National Research Council
The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit, self-perpetuating society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare. Upon the authority of the charter granted to it by the Congress in 1863, the Academy has a mandate that requires it to advise the federal government on scientific and technical matters. Dr. Bruce M.Alberts is president of the National Academy of Sciences.
The National Academy of Engineering was established in 1964, under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences, as a parallel organization of outstanding engineers. It is autonomous in its administration and in the selection of its members, sharing with the National Academy of Sciences the responsibility for advising the federal government. The National Academy of Engineering also sponsors engineering programs aimed at meeting national needs, encourages education and research, and recognizes the superior achievements of engineers. Dr. Wm. A.Wulf is president of the National Academy of Engineering.
The Institute of Medicine was established in 1970 by the National Academy of Sciences to secure the services of eminent members of appropriate professions in the examination of policy matters pertaining to the health of the public. The Institute acts under the responsibility given to the National Academy of Sciences by its congressional charter to be an adviser to the federal government and, upon its own initiative, to identify issues of medical care, research, and education. Dr. Harvey V.Fineberg is president of the Institute of Medicine.
The National Research Council was organized by the National Academy of Sciences in 1916 to associate the broad community of science and technology with the Academy’s purposes of furthering knowledge and advising the federal government. Functioning in accordance with general policies determined by the Academy, the Council has become the principal operating agency of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering in providing services to the government, the public, and the scientific and engineering communities. The Council is administered jointly by both Academies and the Institute of Medicine. Dr. Bruce M.Alberts and Dr. Wm. A.Wulf are chairman and vice chairman, respectively, of the National Research Council.
COMMITTEE ON TECHNICAL ISSUES RELATED TO RATIFICATION OF THE COMPREHENSIVE TEST BAN TREATY
JOHN P.HOLDREN (Chair), Director,
Program in Science, Technology & Public Policy, John F.Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and
Chair,
Committee on International Security and Arms Control, National Academy of Sciences
HAROLD AGNEW, President (retired),
General Atomics;
Director (retired),
Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico
RICHARD L.GARWIN, Senior Fellow for Science and Technology,
Council on Foreign Relations, New York, New York;
Emeritus Fellow,
Thomas J.Watson Research Center, IBM Corporation
RAYMOND JEANLOZ, Professor,
Department of Earth and Planetary Science, and
Professor,
Department of Astronomy, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California;
Member,
National Security Panel, University of California President’s Council
SPURGEON M.KEENY, JR., Senior Fellow,
National Academy of Sciences;
President (retired),
Arms Control Association, Washington D.C.; and
Deputy Director (retired)
U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency
CHARLES LARSON, Admiral (USN, Ret.); former Commander in Chief of the Unified Pacific Command; Superintendent,
U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland
ALBERT NARATH, Director, (retired),
Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico
WOLFGANG K.H.PANOFSKY, Professor and Director Emeritus,
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Stanford University, Stanford, California
PAUL G.RICHARDS, Mellon Professor of Natural Science,
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, Palisades, New York
SEYMOUR SACK, Laboratory Associate,
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California
ALVIN W.TRIVELPIECE, President (retired),
Lockheed Martin Energy Research Corporation;
Director (retired),
Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee
Study Staff
JO L.HUSBANDS, Study Director
DAVID HAFEMEISTER, Staff Officer
CHRISTOPHER ELDRIDGE, Staff Officer
LA’FAYE LEWIS-OLIVER, Financial Associate
AMY GIAMIS, Program Assistant
COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL SECURITY AND ARMS CONTROL
JOHN P.HOLDREN (Chair), Director,
Program in Science, Technology & Public Policy, John F.Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and
Chair,
Committee on International Security and Arms Control, National Academy of Sciences
CATHERINE KELLEHER (Vice-Chair), Visiting Professor,
Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island
JOHN D.STEINBRUNER (Vice-Chair), Professor and Director,
Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland, School of Public Affairs, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland
WILLIAM F.BURNS, Major General (USA, Ret.),
Carlisle, Pennsylvania
GEORGE LEE BUTLER, President,
Second Chance Foundation, Omaha, Nebraska*
STEPHEN COHEN, Senior Fellow,
Foreign Policy Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C.
SUSAN EISENHOWER,
The Eisenhower Institute, Washington D.C.
STEVE FETTER,
School of Public Affairs, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland
ALEXANDER H.FLAX, President Emeritus,
Institute for Defense Analyses, and Senior Fellow, National Academy of Engineering, Washington D.C.
RICHARD L.GARWIN, Senior Fellow for Science and Technology,
Council on Foreign Relations, New York, New York;
Emeritus Fellow,
Thomas J.Watson Research Center, IBM Corporation
SPURGEON M.KEENY, JR., Senior Fellow,
National Academy of Sciences;
President (retired),
Arms Control Association, Washington D.C.; and
Deputy Director (retired)
U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency
CHARLES LARSON, Admiral (USN, Ret.)
U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland**
JOSHUA LEDERBERG, University Professor,
The Rockefeller University, New York, New York
MATTHEW MESELSON, Thomas Dudley Cabot Professor of the Natural Sciences,
Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
ALBERT NARATH, Director, (retired),
Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico
WOLFGANG K.H.PANOFSKY, Professor and Director Emeritus,
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Stanford University, Stanford, California
C.KUMAR N.PATEL, Professor,
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Los Angeles
JONATHAN D.POLLACK, Professor of Asian and Pacific Studies and Director,
Strategic Research, Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island
F.SHERWOOD ROWLAND, ex officio, Foreign Secretary,
National Academy of Sciences, Washington D.C.
Committee Staff
JO L.HUSBANDS, Director
DAVID HAFEMEISTER, Staff Officer
PATRICIA STEIN WRIGHTSON, Staff Officer
EILEEN CHOFFNES, Staff Officer
CHRISTOPHER ELDRIDGE, Staff Officer
LA’FAYE LEWIS-OLIVER, Financial Associate
AMY GIAMIS, Program Assistant
PREFACE
Since the beginning of the nuclear era, the international community has debated proposals to reduce the risks posed by the existence of nuclear weapons and their proliferation. The environmental hazards of nuclear test explosions in the atmosphere, added to the dangers inherent in the nuclear arms competition, led to early initiatives designed to limit nuclear testing. In 1958 and 1959 groups of Soviet and American scientists met to discuss the technical issues raised by a potential ban on all nuclear tests. As a leading seismologist, Frank Press, my predecessor as President of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), was heavily engaged in the discussions within the U.S. scientific community over the desirability and technical feasibility of a comprehensive test ban, and he participated in the international dialogue. These issues have continued to engage U.S. scientists ever since.
The study that follows here resulted from a request to the NAS in April 2000 from General John Shalikashvili, (U.S. Army, ret.), then the Special Advisor to the President and the Secretary of State for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). General Shalikashvili had been asked, after the U.S. Senate voted against providing its advice and consent to the ratification of the CTBT, to examine the major technical and political concerns that had led to the Senate’s rejection of the treaty and to explore a possible basis for its reconsideration. To support his efforts, General Shalikashvili commissioned several studies, including this one from the Academy, to address the major technical issues that had arisen during the Senate debate.
The Academy study was not asked to provide an overall “net assessment” of whether the CTBT is in the national security interest of the United States, and it did not do so. Its mandate was confined, rather, to a specified set of important technical questions that, along with political questions and other technical ones we were not asked to address, are relevant to this larger issue.
The formal U.S. government sponsor of the NAS study was the Department of State, with funding provided by the Department of Energy. Additional support for the study was provided by the John D. and Catherine T.MacArthur Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and internal funds of The National Academies.
To organize the study, the NAS turned to its standing Committee on International Security and Arms Control (CISAC), which was created in 1980 to bring the scientific and technical resources of the NAS to bear on critical security issues. CISAC conducts policy studies and carries out a program of private, off-the-record dialogues with counterpart groups in Russia, China, and India. CISAC worked with the NAS leadership and government sponsors to define the scope of the study. The committee that I appointed to carry out the study—the Committee on Technical Issues Related to Ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (the CTBT Committee) contains a number of CISAC members, including CISAC chair John P.Holdren (Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy, John F.Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University) and CISAC chair emeritus Wolfgang K.H.Panofsky (Professor and Director Emeritus, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center), but has operated independently from CISAC. The report was written by the CTBT Committee and reviewed through the usual Academy process (see the Acknowledgments); those members of CISAC not on the CTBT Committee did not review the report and are not responsible for its contents.
The CTBT committee began its work on July 1, 2000 and undertook a demanding schedule of briefings and meetings in order to be able to provide a meaningful progress report to General Shalikashivili before completion of his report to the President and Secretary of State in January 2001.1 The committee had extensive access to classified reports and material and held all but its first meeting at the classified level. After the committee signed off on its draft report in December 2000, the report then entered what became an extended process of multi-agency classification review, Academy peer review, and classification re-review after modifications made in response to the Academy review. This long process, which was finally completed in June 2002, was necessary to meet the combined requirements of classification rules and Academy rigor. Although it delayed the final report beyond what anyone had expected, in both the committee’s judgment and mine the findings remain both current and highly relevant to the current policy context.
Several members of The National Academies staff contributed significantly to the preparation and production of the report. CISAC’s staff director, Jo Husbands, served skillfully as the study director for the project. Another senior staff officer, David Hafemeister, provided important technical expertise and collegial support to the effort. Once the report emerged from final classification review, staff officer Christopher Eldridge managed the production of the report, working with the relevant National Academies staff and with program assistant Amy Giamis, who prepared the manuscript. Their collective efforts are much appreciated.
As already mentioned, the issues surrounding the CTBT have a long history and a voluminous literature. In carrying out its study, the committee benefited greatly from this substantial body of prior work, both from classified and open sources; not all these could be cited in the report. The Committee is profoundly grateful for the assistance of the many scholars and government analysts previously and currently engaged in aspects of CTBT issues. It asked me to recognize especially its fruitful interactions with the other studies undertaken for General Shalikashvili by JASON and by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.
The CTBT committee was also fortunate to receive help from many parts of the Department of State, the Department of Energy, and the Intelligence Community. Staff members from these agencies—and the directors and staff members from the three DOE nuclear-weapon laboratories—were generous with their time in clarifying technical questions and ensuring that the committee had access to the most up-to-date information. The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory hosted several of the committee’s meetings, providing a gracious and productive working environment that was much appreciated.
Last but not least, I would like to thank the members of the CTBT committee. I believe that their report provides an indispensable input to the wider, on-going discussion of nuclear-weapons testing in general, as well as to the U.S. position on the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
Bruce Alberts
President, National Academy of Sciences
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This report has been reviewed in draft form by individuals chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise, in accordance with procedures approved by the NRC’s Report Review Committee. The purpose of this independent review is to provide candid and critical comments that will assist the institution in making its published report as sound as possible and to ensure that the report meets institutional standards for objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the study charge. The review comments and draft manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the deliberative process. We wish to thank the following individuals for their review of this report: Sidney D. Drell, Stanford University; John R.Filson, U.S. Geological Survey; John S.Foster, TRW Inc.; William Happer, Princeton University; John L.Kammerdiener, Los Alamos National Laboratory (Retired); Steven E.Koonin, California Institute of Technology; Hans M.Mark, University of Texas, Austin; Michael M.May, Stanford University; James B. Schlesinger, MITRE Corporation; Charles H.Townes, University of California, Berkeley; Karl K.Turekian, Yale University; Larry D.Welch, Institute for Defense Analyses; Peter D.Zimmerman, U.S. Senate.
Although the reviewers listed above have provided many constructive comments and suggestions, they were not asked to endorse the conclusions or recommendations, nor did they see the final draft of the report before its release. The review of this report was overseen by Sheila E.Widnall, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Gerald P. Dinneen, Honeywell Inc. (Retired). Appointed by the National Research Council, they were responsible for making certain that an independent examination of this report was carried out in accordance with institutional procedures and that all review comments were carefully considered. Responsibility for the final content of this report rests entirely with the authoring committee and the institution.
The Committee on Technical Issues Related to the Ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty operated under the auspices of the Committee on International Security and Arms Control (CISAC), a standing committee of the National Academy of Sciences. For purposes of administration, CISAC is part of the Policy and Global Affairs Division of the National Research Council.