Originally published on the CGS blog on June 14, 2007.
I have little doubt that readers of this blog have noticed our more-than-occasional rants about insufficient U.S. funding for multilateral activities and institutions. Global poverty and U.N. peacekeeping have been the areas I’ve pushed for hardest, but there’s another that’s just as much in need and even less noticed.
The shortfall in U.S. funding for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) threatens to undermine global efforts to monitor nuclear tests, especially in areas where the U.S. lacks access, like China, North Korea, and Iran. It’s one more example of the Bush administration’s unfortunate tendency to cut off its nose to spite its face.
To date, the only coverage of this issue was a short article in the Washington Times. It desperately deserves some more attention.
The brief history is as follows: President Clinton signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which prohibits nuclear tests, in 1996. The Senate has never ratified it, but the U.S. has remained a member of the CTBTO, which is charged with implementing the agreement.
To do that, the CTBTO has begun construction of an international monitoring system to detect nuclear tests. For example, it was the CTBTO system that confirmed that North Korea’s missile test last October was nuclear.
The administration rejects the CTBT and is split over funding for the CTBTO. It has never requested funding from Congress, and last year, the U.S. lost its voting rights in the Organization.
Without U.S. funds, which make up roughly a quarter of the CTBTO budget, the monitoring system won’t be completed. Stations planned in strategically important locations – locations near China, Iran, and North Korea, where the U.S. has no nuclear “eyes and ears” of its own – won’t be built.
That would cripple one of the most critical nonproliferation tools available to the international community.
If the new leadership at State is really looking to heal some wounds with the international community, this is low-hanging fruit. Besides, do we really need fewer non-military tools to contain the proliferation of nuclear weapons?
Congress needs to right this wrong, pronto.
