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

[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.

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: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: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. .