http://www.greenpeace.org/~comms/rw/ctbt26.html (Einblicke ins Internet, 10/1995)
A Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) has been the goal of the international community since atmospheric tests were banned in 1963. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, signed in 1970, called for a CTBT, and agreement of such a measure has been seen as an important litmus test of the Nuclear Weapon States (NWS) commitment to nuclear disarmament ever since.
Talks on a CTBT finally began in earnest in January 1994 at the Geneva Conference on Disarmament (CD), after the United States, Britain, France, Russia -- all at the time with testing moratoria in place -- and China, agreed to establish a formal negotiating committee. Only 36 states are currently members of the CD, (including all five official NWS) and 23 other states are allowed to participate in the discussions as observers.
It was hoped that the treaty would be concluded by April 1995, when a decision on the extension of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) was made. Unfortunately, because of a lack of political will on the part of the NWS, various obstacles blocked progress. These included China's advocacy of exceptions for so-called "peaceful nuclear explosions" (PNEs), Britain and France's desire to exempt tests "in exceptional circumstances", the United States' support until January 1995 of a ten-year "opt out" clause, and pressure from the military in the NWS for an exemption for low-yield and hydronuclear experiments (HNEs).
Such loopholes would make a test ban treaty largely meaningless in affecting greater steps for nuclear disarmament, because through more sophisticated technology, the NWS would be able to continue to test and develop new generations of nuclear bombs. A genuinely comprehensive test ban treaty must ban all tests, for all time, in all environments, including the informational environment (i.e. computer simulation).
Many non-nuclear countries opposed indefinite extension of the NPT in May, fearing that it would give carte blanche to the NWS to continue testing and block further disarmament measures. However, the NWS pledged to the international community that they were committed to the NPT's end goal of the abolition of nuclear weapons, and promised to pursue a CTBT with vigour and to "exercise utmost restraint" over nuclear testing until such time as the CTBT entered into force.
Unfortunately, this pledge was broken almost immediately. On May 15, three days after the NPT ended, China set off its 42nd nuclear test. On June 13, France announced that it would resume nuclear testing in the South Pacific. While both France and China have said they would agree to a CTBT in 1996, their actions raise serious questions about their commitment to either a CTBT or nuclear non-proliferation. This was underscored in July 1995 when the French Ambassador to New Zealand, M. Jacques Le Blanc said that France "reserved its right" to continue testing if the international community failed to conclude the CTBT in 1996.
France's proposed series of eight 10 - 100 kiloton nuclear tests from September 1995 to May 1996 may also be used to disguise the simultaneous detonation of low yield tests. France's eight tests are therefore likely to provide data not only for new nuclear weapon systems such as warheads for the new M45 and M5 submarine-launched ballistic missiles and a new air-launched cruise missile (ASLP), but also for future low yield, high powered laser experiments and computer simulation tests. Hydronuclear tests, favoured by the US testing establishment, have been described as "experiments" rather than tests by the United States. The Pentagon and US nuclear weapons scientists are currently lobbying to have such tests exempted from a CTBT.
Any and all of these tests are contrary to France's NPT obligations to halt and reverse the arms race and achieve nuclear disarmament.
At the CTBT talks in Geneva, Britain and France have reportedly sought exemptions for tests up to the equivalent of 500 tons of TNT, a position supported by the Pentagon. This explosive level is 200 times more powerful than the Oklahoma bomb. Critics say these tests would provide information to develop so-called micro- or mini-nukes (nuclear weapons with a yield of less than one kiloton) for tactical use in "conventional" wars. According to Ray Kidder, a US nuclear physicist who does not believe such tests should be permitted, the proposed 500 tons TNT threshold also happens to be the strength of the miniature nuclear weapons US nuclear weapons laboratories were investigating just before the US testing moratorium was declared in 1992. The United States has not yet resolved its official position on low-yield tests.
An HNE is the detonation of a nuclear weapon in which the chain reaction is prevented from progressing effectively, and thus the yield is very low (much less than the full weapon yield). The yield can be as low as 0.1 kg.
These tests have been used as "safety and reliability" checks in the past to make sure that the weapon does not detonate if the conventional detonators around the warhead are set off accidentally.
HNEs can also be used to study the first moments of criticality (ignition) in a nuclear explosion. A series of HNEs would be difficult to distinguish seismologically, from a series of low yield weapon tests, so these tests pose a grave problem for the verification credibility of a CTBT.
Sophisticated computer simulations, including the use of high-powered laser facilities and hydrodynamic testing (which involve no nuclear explosion), are proposed to refine existing design warheads, and may provide information for new weapons designs. However, the military in the NWS argue that actual tests are also needed to ensure new warheads are effective. Regardless, billion-dollar proposals such as France's proposed Bordeaux laser facility and the US National Ignition Facility clearly breach those countries' NPT obligations because they would facilitate the development of new nuclear weapons.
President Chirac told the French Senate on July 12 that two tests were to try out a new nuclear warhead, two were for safety and reliability tests, and the other four were to acquire the technology for computer simulation tests. The first test is thought to be to certify the TN-75 warhead for the new M45 submarine-launched missile, even though this warhead has already undergone 22 development tests in the South Pacific prior to the April 1992 moratorium. These tests must surely have established the performance of the warhead, and it is hardly necessary for a final test.
Nuclear tests often have multiple purposes, with only the primary purpose being given by the authorities. For example, it is possible that new warhead tests are labelled "safety" tests if the new warhead is safer than the old one. Thus the other tests may well be for development of new generation warheads for the M5 submarine launched ballistic missile and the air-launched cruise missile (ASLP).
This would ensure France had a new generation of nuclear weapons until well into the 21st century. None of these developments are necessary or justified, particularly given the end of the Cold War. Instead, they threaten European and global security by adding to already bloated nuclear arsenals, undermining the international norm of non-proliferation, and putting the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in jeopardy.
Until recently, many non-nuclear countries tacitly agreed to an exemption from the CTBT of very low yield tests (such as the US official position of tests with yields of up to 4 pounds), hoping that this would encourage the NWS to agree the CTBT as speedily as possible. However, with the NWS now advocating tests of up to 500 tons, many countries believe that a CTBT would effectively be meaningless and that the modernisation of nuclear weapons by the NWS would continue. These countries want a CTBT to mean zero tests, and argue that no CTBT is better than one which fails to halt nuclear proliferation.
In early July, both India -- on behalf of the Group of 21 (G21) of Non-Aligned countries -- and Indonesia put forward new draft texts for a CTBT aimed at explicitly prohibiting low yield tests.
Indonesia's text would ban all nuclear testing whether explosive or not; India's text seeks only to ensure that low yield tests, including hydronuclear experiments, are covered by the CTBT. In contrast, an Australian CTBT draft which does not specifically prohibit low yield tests is being supported by some non-nuclear Western countries. If the nuclear disarmament goal of the Non-Proliferation Treaty is to be honoured, it is time -- fifty years after the first bomb devastated Hiroshima -- to bring to an end all activities which lead to the development of new nuclear weapons, and a halt to improvements of existing systems. As an absolute minimum, a CTBT must be truly comprehensive and must ban all explosions of whatever yield in all environments for all time. Until it is agreed, all NWS should abide by a moratorium and indicate what further steps they will take toward the goal of the elimination of nuclear weapons.
-- 25 July 1995
Further information: Arnaud Apoteker (Greenpeace France) on +689 52 13 71 or Bunny McDiarmid (Greenpeace Pacific) at the Mandarin Hotel, +689 42 1633; or Stephanie Mills (Greenpeace International) on +64 25 790 817 or on board the SV Rainbow Warrior, ph +872 1300312; or Blair Palese, Greenpeace Communications, London, +44 171 833 0600.