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Categories: defense, technology, arms, treaty, proliferation

THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES

NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

Division on Policy and Global Affairs

Committee on International Security and Arms Control

Committee on Technical Issues Related to Ratification of the Comprehensive

Test Ban Treaty

*****

Congressional Briefings

Tuesday, July 30, 2002 -- 2:00 p.m.

HC-6 The Capitol Building

and

Wednesday, July 31, 2002 -- 2:30 p.m.

and

Thursday, August 1, 2002 -- 3:00 p.m.

228 Russell Senate Office Bldg.

on

Technical Issues Related to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty

by

John P. Holdren, Director, Program on Science, Technology, and Public Policy, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University and Chair, Committee on Technical Issues Related to Ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, Committee on International Security and Arms Control, Division on Policy and Global Affairs, The National Academies

This new report from the National Academies reviews and assesses the key technical issues that arose during the Senate debate over ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and whether those issues are manageable. In particular, these concerns include: (1) the capacity of the United States to maintain confidence in the safety and reliability of its nuclear stockpile in the absence of nuclear testing; (2) the nuclear-test detection capabilities of the international monitoring system (with and without augmentation by national systems and instrumentation in use for scientific purposes, and taking into account the possibilities for decoupling nuclear explosions from surrounding geologic media); and (3) the additions to their nuclear-weapons capabilies that other countries could acheive through nuclear testing at yield levels that might escape detection, and the effect of such additions on the security of the United States.

This report does not reach a conclusion on the overall question of whether the United States should ratify the treaty as that was beyond the Committee's charge and would involve taking into account a wider array of issues, both military and political.

These series of briefings were for members of Congress and congressional staff only. The report was publicly released on July 31, 2002 and can be found online, in its entirety, through the National Academy Press Web site.