New Tech Makes Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Verifiable

Harperdog writes "In 1999, Senate Republicans rejected the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty on the grounds that it wasn't verifiable. The National Academy of Sciences feels this is no longer true, due to new technology. Quoting: 'Technologies for detecting clandestine testing in four environments — underground, underwater, in the atmosphere, and in space — have improved significantly in the past decade. In particular, seismology, the most effective approach for monitoring underground nuclear explosion testing, can now detect underground explosions well below 1 kiloton in most regions. A kiloton is equivalent to 1,000 tons of chemical high explosive. The nuclear weapons that were used in Japan in World War II had yields in the range of 10 to 20 kilotons.'"

Subtext

[TheSpoom]

They rejected the treaty on the ground that they're the United States, and nobody's forcing them to give up their nukes. They just couldn't say that.

Re:Subtext

[SomePgmr]

I'd think we could maintain a working stockpile based on modeling and existing test results.

A test ban seems more like a non-proliferation strategy... which I'd think we would want.

Re:just a thought

[Anonymous Coward]

as the country with the greatest number of nuclear weapons, lead by example and scrap them. Its some much needed dreaming from an American whos lived his entire life never really knowing a time when we have not had a war in some permutation.

And what makes you think this period in history is any different from any other?

Re:just a thought

[vlm]

lead by example and scrap them

Lead towards what... I love nukes, they make total world war unthinkable, thats why we don't do it. At the rate of one world war per generation, we're a couple behind now, so we'd have to catch up. The more nukes, the more unthinkable war becomes. The opposite, the fewer nukes, the better idea total world war appears. Given a choice of world war, or nukes, I'd prefer the nukes.

Getting rid of them dooms my son to die overseas in WWIII... or even worse, die here in WWIII. Seem like a kinda nasty thing to do to a kid, when all you have to do to prevent it, is fill a couple bunkers with nukes.

Another way to put it is you can either set off non-nuke weapons in bulk about once a generation, or you can not set off nuke weapons. The latter seems preferable.

Re:just a thought

[couchslug]

Leading by example implies a reason to FOLLOW the example.

Power is useful, nukes are useful, and if you have them it is illogical to renounce them unless you embrace abject submission to those who have them.

We are in peaceful times right now. The wars, such as they are, are tiny. MAD kept the peace for decades and prevented a Third World War. Just because the thought of nukes causes you anguish is not logical reason for the US to be rid of them.

Re:just a thought

[TapeCutter]

Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite and Noble prizes thought that dynamite would end all wars because it was simply too horrific to contemplate it's use in war. Turns out people actually want to do horrible things to their percieved enemies. I lived through the cold war and I don't deny MAD has worked, but it's the diplomatic equivalent of a Mexican standoff, nobody has the faith required to lower their weapons and if one side sneezes were all fucked.