NUCLEAR TEST BAN TREATY
Can humanity get out from under the cloud?
By Fred
Goldstein
The struggle over the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty has
revealed in bold relief the ambitions of U.S. imperialism to
maintain and expand its nuclear-backed world domination.
The battle was over whether or not the Senate should ratify
or reject the CTBT, which calls for a ban on all underground
nuclear testing. Above-ground testing has been banned since
1963. The underground treaty was signed by the Clinton
administration back in September 1995 but still has not been
ratified by Congress.
The demand to set aside the treaty ratification process in
the Senate was an unexpected political defeat for the Clinton
administration. It was crafted by the Republican leadership
but, to Clinton's surprise, was backed by significant sections
of the ruling-class political and military establishment. It
was a temporary but definite victory for the most aggressive,
militaristic forces in the ruling class, who intervened with
considerable pressure.
This was not a struggle between war makers and peace lovers
in Washington. This administration carried out 78 days of
massive bombardments against the civilian population of
Yugoslavia and bombs the people of Iraq on a daily basis. By
championing the treaty, it was not carrying the torch for world
peace in the sense understood by the masses.
Why Clinton promotes treaty
On the contrary, the Clinton administration was promoting a
treaty under which the U.S. scientific-military complex could
set up a worldwide inspections regime and monitor all the
oppressed countries, the socialist countries and even its
imperialist "allies," using a vast array of devices. Meanwhile,
the Pentagon, with over 6,000 nuclear warheads, would retain
total and overwhelming nuclear domination of the world.
According to the New York Times of Oct. 2, Undersecretary of
State John Holum, a top arms control expert, argued that "a
test ban treaty would lock in American nuclear superiority and
curb the growth of nuclear states ... we have no need to test
and no plans to test." Holum said it would be "very difficult
for new countries to develop nuclear weapons."
This superiority, built up by over 1,000 U.S. nuclear tests
since 1945, is intended to freeze the world relationship of
nuclear and political forces permanently in Washington's favor.
In the name of "making the world a safer place," the Clinton
administration and its ruling class backers want a treaty that
would give the U.S. government the legal and political leverage
to keep China, the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, or any
other socialist or oppressed country from developing the means
of self-defense against U.S. nuclear extortion.
The treaty, which has been signed by over 150 countries, has
been ratified by only 23. In order to take effect, 44 countries
considered nuclear-capable have to ratify. Besides the U.S.,
China, Russia, India and Pakistan have not ratified.
"To police the globe," wrote the New York Times of Oct. 10,
"the treaty calls for 321 monitoring stations; 120 to detect
underground shock waves; 80 to sniff the air for telltale
radioactivity; 60 to listen for revealing sounds and 11 to
track undersea explosions." If any signs of an explosion were
suspected, imperialism could send its inspectors/spies right to
the site and start drilling for evidence.
The U.S. would be monitored. But the Pentagon scientists
have perfected the technique of maintaining their nuclear
arsenal through non-nuclear explosions, low-yielding explosions
and computer simulation--sufficient to maintain the massive
stockpile.
As favorable as such a treaty would be to U.S. military
domination, the prospect of signing a document legally
restricting the right of the Pentagon to test nuclear weapons
set off alarm bells in the establishment.
Opposition of militarists
Ratification of the treaty requires two-thirds of the
Senate. Trent Lott, the Republican Senate leader, campaigned
against the treaty after he was assured he had the votes to
stop it. Sen. John Warner of Virginia, a militarist who opposes
the treaty, took charge of the hearings as chair of the Senate
Armed Services Committee. Clinton, who wanted the treaty
debated and voted on, quickly saw that he could not win the
vote. There was no ruling-class steamroller.
But the effort was bolstered by an op-ed piece in the
Washington Post on Oct. 6 jointly written by John Deutch, who
was deputy secretary of defense and CIA director in the first
Clinton administration, Henry Kissinger, secretary of state
under Nixon and Ford, and Brent Scowcroft, national security
adviser to Ford and Bush.
In their piece, entitled "Test Ban Treaty: Let's Wait
Awhile," they argued that they were "no fans of the CTBT" but
that the Senate should "delay a vote on ratification, without
prejudice."
They added, "The fact is that the scientific case simply has
not been made that over the long term the United States can
ensure the nuclear stockpile without nuclear testing."
This is the subterfuge that opponents of the treaty have
advanced, together with the argument that China, India,
Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria and the DPRK can cheat, leaving the
U.S. "defenseless."
This is a smokescreen. The treaty allows the U.S. to pull
out if its own scientists certify that the nuclear stockpile is
not secure. But even if the treaty did not say so, U.S.
imperialism would simply override the treaty if it had to.
Washington has totally ignored the earlier Anti-Ballistic
Missile Treaty by starting both a continental ABM system and a
theatre missile defense system in the Pacific. The fact is that
nothing will stop an imperialist power from developing whatever
military forces it deems necessary to advance its exploitive
interests around the world. In the period between World Wars I
and II, the U.S., British and Japanese imperialists signed
treaties limiting the ratios of their naval forces--only to
revise and ultimately tear them up as they plunged into a world
conflagration.
Treaty weighted to protect
U.S. imperialist interests
The treaty has been carefully drawn to protect Washington's
interests. In an article written in the New York Times of Oct.
10, based on interviews with scientists and nuclear experts, it
was revealed that "almost all of the 4,000 components of a
nuclear weapon can be replaced" and upgraded. In fact, the U.S.
already modified one of its nuclear weapons, B 61-7, by
hardening it to be able to penetrate deep underground.
As regards needing nuclear testing for safety, the Times
wrote that "a 1996 study by the three weapons laboratories that
reviewed problems detected in the arsenal determined that of
830 specific defects found from 1958 to 1993, fewer than 1
percent were discovered through nuclear tests. And virtually
all of the problematic weapons have been phased out of the
stockpile."
Can other countries cheat? The American Geophysical Society
and the Seismological Society of America said in a joint
statement that when the arrays of sensors called for by the
treaty are switched on worldwide, "no nation could rely upon
successfully concealing a nuclear program of testing even at
low yields." The sensitivity allows the detection of a blast
the equivalent of 1,000 tons of explosives. The bomb dropped by
the U.S. on Hiroshima equaled 15,000 tons and the hydrogen bomb
was 700 times more powerful than that.
The article revealed the real deal. "Actual nuclear tests
have been more important for perfecting new types of weapons
than for correcting flaws in existing arms, nuclear weapons
experts say." The form of the argument is about safety and
cheating. But the essence of the dispute is about preserving
the right to continue nuclear testing whenever the Pentagon
deems it necessary. It is an argument about the best means to
maintain world domination.
`Soft' and `hard' tendencies
The same ruling-class tendencies have surfaced that have
always existed throughout the era of U.S. imperialism but were
accentuated in the extreme during the Cold War against the USSR
and the socialist camp. The so-called "soft" tendency wants to
supplement military force, subversion and sabotage with a
generous balance of diplomatic maneuver, treaties and image
polishing. The "hard-liners" want no restraint whatsoever,
diplomatic or legal, upon the development of militarism as the
fundamental lever of policy. Both were united on the goal of
destroying the USSR and the socialist camp, however, and both
made their contributions to its downfall.
The most important thing to grasp is that imperialism cannot
function without these two tendencies.
It must use maneuver and diplomacy as well as force to
sustain its rule. Each tendency serves the aggressive,
world-dominating interests of the bankers and bosses in its own
way.
The ruling class and its advisers, when confronted with the
CTBT, developed qualms about signing away their right to
unrestrained nuclear militarism. They may ultimately decide
that the inspections regime is preferable for their interests,
but for now they cannot bring themselves to sign.
They raise the issue of China, India, Pakistan and the DPRK
over and over to express their fear of the treaty. But this is
the height of imperialist arrogance. A handful of billionaires,
generals and bankers can wield enough firepower to blow up the
world several times over, but one fourth of humanity,
especially the oppressed and formerly oppressed peoples, are to
be denied the right of nuclear self-defense.
Self-defense of socialist countries
For a socialist country like China to have nuclear weapons
is an absolute necessity as long as imperialism exists. All the
workers and oppressed of Asia are actually a lot safer because
of China's military accomplishments.
It is a measure of how aggressive the so-called "soft" wing
is in this debate that the Union of Concerned Scientists sent a
letter to Washington backing the treaty. Among its nine signers
were Hans Bethe, who worked on the atomic bomb, and several
other scientists who have helped the Pentagon become the
nuclear terror of the world. And no less than Admiral Elmo
Zumwalt, a supreme war hawk and former chief of U.S. naval
operations, together with Stansfield Turner, former head of the
CIA. Their prime motivation for backing the treaty was that it
"would greatly help protect the United States against the
weaponization of stolen nuclear secrets." (New York Times, Aug.
1)
With regard to India and Pakistan, both have the right to
develop nuclear weapons without the permission of imperialism.
And both have the right to defend themselves against
imperialism by any means necessary. On the other hand, the
nuclear weapons in the hands of the decadent ruling classes of
India and Pakistan also pose a danger to the workers and the
oppressed of the region.
What the imperialists fear in the short run is a
destabilizing nuclear conflict between India and Pakistan. But
what they fear most is if a nuclear India or Pakistan were to
fall into the hands of an anti-imperialist or even a
revolutionary socialist government. That is why they want to
deny nuclear weapons to the oppressed, no matter how
subservient and reactionary the regime that acquires them.
Nuclear confrontations like those that took place during the
Cold War have a negative effect on the revolutionary class
struggle. They take the emphasis away from the mass struggle,
including the military struggle on the ground. While the
socialist countries need a nuclear defense against imperialism,
it is the willingness of the masses to do military battle with
capitalism and imperialism, such as they are doing today in
Colombia and did in the USSR, China, Korea, Vietnam, Cuba,
Angola and elsewhere, that will determine the fate of
humanity.
Many of the great revolutions in history, from the Paris
Commune to the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917 to the
Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese revolutions, arose out of wars
in which the rank-and-file soldiers--the workers and peasants
in uniform--took military initiative under revolutionary
leadership. History shows that the fighting spirit of the
people will overcome the technology of the ruling class.
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