The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Technical Issues for the United States (2012) / Chapter Skim
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SUMMARY
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. That report documented the status of technical issues at the time the Senate declined its advice and consent to ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT)
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In addition to the original LEP approach of refurbishment, sufficient technical progress has been made since the 2002 Report that re-use or replacement of nuclear components can be considered as options for improving safety and security of the warheads. Finding 1-4: Provided that sufficient resources and a national commitment to stockpile stewardship are in place, the committee judges that the United States has the technical capabilities to maintain a safe, secure, and reliable stockpile of nuclear weapons into the foreseeable future without nuclear-explosion testing.
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. 3 Under the CTBT, the international monitoring effort consists of the IMS, which generates data from its radionuclide, seismic, infrasound, and hydroacoustic networks; the International Data Centre, which collects and processes the IMS data; and a secure communications system, all managed by the CTBTO.
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Seismic monitoring for nuclear explosions is complicated by the great variety of geologic media and the variety and number of earthquakes, chemical explosions, and other non-nuclear phenomena generating seismic signals every day. Finding 2-4: Technical capabilities for seismic monitoring have improved substantially in the past decade, allowing much more sensitive detection, identification, and location of nuclear events.
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Air Force. A decade ago when the 2002 Report was written it was anticipated that there would continue to be an effective satellite nuclear detonation detection capability with improvements timed to coincide with Air Force plans to modernize GPS and DSP.
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Recommendation 2-8: Enhanced satellite nuclear detonation detection systems should be deployed in upgrades to GPS (GPS Block IIF and Block III) and the follow-on to DSP, the Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS)
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POTENTIAL TECHNICAL ADVANCES FROM NUCLEAR-EXPLOSION TESTING A critical technical issue is whether the risk of adversaries developing new or improved nuclear weapons capabilities is greater with a CTBT or without the CTBT. Finding 4-1: The Nuclear Weapon States have been able to maintain their nuclear weapons programs under a nuclear-explosion-test moratorium and are likely to be able to make nuclear weapons modifications that fall within the design range of their test experience without resorting to nuclear-explosion testing.
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In this report the committee distinguishes hydronuclear tests as a subset of nuclear-explosion tests, most of which have nuclear yield far greater than the energy released by the high explosive but all of which are banned under the CTBT. Finding 4-2: Hydronuclear tests would be of limited value in maintaining the United States nuclear weapon stockpile in comparison with the advanced tools of the Stockpile Stewardship Program.
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national technical means and a completed IMS network. Finding 4-13: Other States intent on acquiring and deploying modern, two-stage thermonuclear weapons would not be able to have confidence in their performance without multi-kiloton testing.
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As a result, the CTBT would not prevent the United States from responding effectively if military and political decisions required development of previously tested weapon types not now present in the stockpile. A technical need for a return to testing would be most plausible if the United States were to determine that adversarial nuclear activities required the United States to develop weapons that could not be confidently certified based on its nuclear-explosion testing experience.
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This conclusion is based on the best present understanding of nuclear weapons development. As long as the United States sustains its technical competency and actively engages its nuclear scientists and other expert analysts in monitoring, assessing and projecting possible adversarial activities, it will retain effective protection against technical surprises.
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