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.'"

Comments

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:Subtext

[vlm]

I think it more reasonable they didn't want to explain we'll never have to use them in war if we know they work via testing, and the opposite is true, if no one knows if they'll work or not, they may as well risk an attack.

There really seems to be no reason to reduce the reliability of the arsenal other than to eliminate MAD, to make a nuclear war winnable. Its very dangerous to peace not to test.

Re:Subtext

[tsotha]

A test ban would make a nuclear weapons program far less useful for countries that don't already have working designs. You want nuclear weapons for two things: As a deterrent, and for a first strike capability.

Unproven deterrents aren't very useful. In what world do complicated devices work without ever being tested? A nuke you can't test isn't going to be very scary to your neighbors.

By the same token, the point of a nuclear first strike is your enemy isn't there to retaliate when you're done. But if you don't know whether or not your weapon works, you can't depend on avoiding payback. So again, an untested weapon isn't useful for a cold-cocking your sworn enemy. If it doesn't work you're going to find yourself without any friends or any way to defend yourself as the rest of the world decides your government is too crazy to be allowed to survive.

Which leaves... what? Why build one? The states that already have working designs will probably keep them, but if you're running a middle tier (in the economic and technical sense) country a test ban adds some weight to the "Oh, let's not bother" side of the scale.

Re:Subtext

[gelfling]

Rail/gun types of weapons were simple enough in 1945 to not need testing. Trinity was a test of the "Fat Man" plutonium design used on Nagasaki. The Hiroshima uranium design was rushed into deployment in case Trinity didn't work. Hiroshima's 'Little Boy' was never tested and no one seriously thought it NEEDED to be tested.

By comparison, South Africa built and then abandoned 6 - 9 gun type uranium warheads fully prepared to use them if need be w/o ever having tested them. In fact they never even tested the conventional explosives trigger design either. No need for that, the engineering, chemistry and physics were well understood.

Re:Subtext

[tsotha]

It would take time to determine the source of nuke but would the public be willing to retaliate 6 months later with a nuclear reprisal?

There's no doubt in my mind. In fact, I doubt they'd be willing to wait for absolute certainty.

Re:Subtext

[symbolset]

At this point the US designs and test data have probably been stolen so many times that even the Los Alamos crew finds it easier to find them on bittorrent than to locate the proper file in their own system.

Re:Subtext

[Kell Bengal]

It's perfectly possible to test a gun-type nuclear weapon without actually detonating it. It's simple: test-fire the gun mechanism. If the two non-nuclear test-masses strike each other with the right velocity, then the neutron denstity will instantenously rise far enough to start the critical reaction. Critical reactions have been extensively tested in the past and the operational geometry is well known - it's all about getting the two pieces of uranium close enough together, fast enough.

So ...

[JimCanuck]

Instead of "A kiloton is equivalent to 1,000 tons of chemical high explosive", it would have made more sense, and have been more accurate if instead it was said as "A kiloton is equivalent to 1,000 tons of TNT" which is what the comparison measures.

Specifics and straight facts makes something news and legitimate, generalizations and omissions make it a tabloid article and misleading.

just a thought

[nimbius]

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.

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

[buchner.johannes]

Russia: 4650 U.S.: 2468. Number of cities > 1Million people in the world: 302.

You can't possibly need to attack more than 20 cities with nuclear warheads in whatever the scenario. Place this number in 10 locations around the globe, and you're up to 200. That's the number you really need, max. Beyond that, it's just ridiculous.

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.

Re:just a thought

[FrankSchwab]

You don't need to attack 2500 or 4600 cities, but the premise behind the number of warheads is that you WOULD want to attack all of the enemies warheads, and vice-versa. You don't want to leave your enemy with the ability to strike back.

The goal might be to hit America's 20 largest cities, or Russia's 20 largest cities, but the fact of doing so means that the attacked country is going to be unhappy, and will fire back in anger at your 200 largest cities. So, the intiator fires weapons at their 20 largest cities, all of their strategic bomber bases, any large warships (missile subs, carriers, etc), and as many missile silos as they can to reduce the reprisal factor.

To prevent all of their offensive weapons from being wiped out, each side has at least a portion of their arsenal on a hair-trigger, capable of being launched in the 30 minute window from enemy launch to impact, to maximize the reprisal they could take. .

Re:just a thought

[ChrisMaple]

There are at least 2 arguments for not letting Iran & North Korea get nukes.

The US has a tolerable record of not threatening, taunting, and insulting other countries. Iran and North Korea do misbehave in that manner, and their current leaders are obvious psychopaths.

It is an advantage for any country to have nuclear weapons, a disadvantage to be without. The US should want to maintain an advantage over all other countries, particularly over the vile and dangerous ones. The US should not be in the business of caring what Iran and North Korea want.

.

As a further note, consider that the behavior of Iran and particularly North Korea can hardly be considered logical, as evidenced by widespread poverty.

All code, no QA?

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

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

Never worked in IT, have you? :)

Re:Slashdot, you disappoint me

[nedlohs]

And to get it wrong to boot.

1 kiloton is not equal to 1000 tons of C4, nor is 1 kiloton equal to 1000 tons of HMX.

It's a well known definition and somehow get it wrong.

Re:It's a test ban, not a weapons ban

[Virtucon]

At the Atomic museum (Bradbury Science Museum) in Los Alamos there's an old telephone sitting on a desk that acts as the metaphor for how they test the Nuclear Arsenal. "What if you couldn't use the phone but had to make sure it worked?"

"you could test the bell"
"you could test the wiring"

I haven't been there in awhile, but that's what they used to describe how LANL and the other labs insure that when the "phone" needed to be used, it could.

Frankly, I miss the days when we all worried about "fallout" from the latest Soviet or Chinese tests. Also, my Grandparents lived in Las Vegas and we used to get the "rumbles" when we visited. My Grandfather would say "They just dug another hole"

Re:Slashdot, you disappoint me

[Thing 1]

1 kiloton [...] It's a well known definition and somehow get it wrong.

I blame the hard drive manufacturers.

I worked IT on the verification system...

[jdbuz]

As an IT professional, I worked on the verification system for the Prototype International Data Centre during 1999 when the Senate Republicans (and Clinton) rejected the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty on the grounds that it wasn't verifiable. I was also working there in 1998 when within 15 minutes of it happening my pager went off when Pakistan and then India did their tests (thank goodness it wasn't data corruption!). While I'm no PhD and pretty much everyone else was (international group represented by all nations involved with the treaty - and a heck of a Wednesday night soccer practice) they know. Squiggly line slowly getting big: earthquake; flat line suddenly turning squiggly: bomb. Really smart people double check by hand before raising flags just as if you subscribe to USGS earthquake warnings (was that really a 4.2 at 2012-Apr-09 21:37:09 in Gulf of California?). They know pretty well what, how much, when and where. It's "just" physics and it's based on the sensitively of the monitoring instruments. And it turns out that the instruments are really sensitive and it takes incredibly advanced technology to make an under 1 kiloton bomb. It won't be a country's first test. Point is we should lead the way in signing this. Cold war mentality is to monitor Russia. If that's not our goal, if our real goal is the "non proliferation" of nuclear bombs then those seeking to acquire the technology must test (sound familiar?) and testing below current detectable levels means they already have the technology and have already tested it on a larger scale. Ban everyone from testing the big stuff and you'll make the small stuff much harder to come by. Politics - not science - is why unfortunately the US has not yet signed this treaty.