 My name is Clark Murdoch. I'm a senior advisor here at CSIS. I'm the director of the Project on Nuclear Issues. This is our third session of Pony Debates the Issues. Topic is a very relevant one. Resolved, the United States should ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. It was the only issue on which the recently released report from the US Congressional Commission on the US Strategic Posture, otherwise known as the Perry Schlesinger Commission. It was the only topic on which they could not agree. And so in there, I'm sure that our debaters have been cribbing their lines from it already. There is a text box on why we should ratify, and a text box on why we shouldn't, and a long, careful argument on why it was they couldn't reach an agreement on this particular issue. So it's with great pleasure that I welcome our debaters tonight, Daryl Kimball, who will be speaking in the affirmative, Executive Director of the Arms Control Association, lead editor of Arms Control today, and a very familiar voice to us all who have followed these debates. And Steve Rademiker, who has been in many different positions in government. As I was reading his resume, I realized that there's somebody who's even more of a Washington hack than I am in terms of how many jobs he's lost here in Washington. But this vast experience is one that has done very well for me, and I know it's done very well for Steve as well. It's with great pleasure I welcome both Daryl and Steve tonight, and introduce you to the moderator, Chris Jones, research assistant here at CSIS. Thank you. I'm going to talk about the format really quickly. Before we begin, we've changed the format a little bit from the previous debates. Though it's close, what we're going to have each side is going to give an opening statement of seven minutes. We're going to try to enforce that. I'm going to knock on the table when there's a minute left, and then try as politely as possible to make sure we stay within time limits. After which, there will be a cross-examination period where the person cross-examining the other side will ask three one-minute questions, and the person will be given a one-minute response. Then there will be a moderator session where I ask each side one question, and they respond. And then there will be closing arguments. And after all that, which we're hoping we can get in in 45 minutes, we'll have some audience Q&A. So we're going to start with the affirmative. Mr. Kimball, this opening statement. Thank you very much, Chris. Clark, CSIS, and thanks, everyone, for being here on this beautiful night to talk about such an important topic. It's exciting to see so many people interested in the Conference of Test Ban Treaty, which has been a national objective of the United States for five decades. Today, we face new and old nuclear weapons dangers, and the CTBT is more important than ever for U.S. global security. In a nutshell, let me outline some of the reasons why. The CTBT's prohibition on all nuclear test explosions constrains the ability of nuclear arms states to perfect new and more sophisticated nuclear bombs. So without testing above several kilotons, sophisticated nuclear weapons states cannot gain confidence in performance or reliability of new thermonuclear weapon designs, nor new directed energy weapons, such as X-ray lasers. In China's case, for instance, a new round of nuclear weapon test explosions will allow it to miniaturize warhead designs and allow it to put multiple warheads on its relatively small strategic missile arsenal. That's the kind of move that could allow China to rapidly increase its nuclear strike capability and something that we should be doing everything we can to avoid. In the case of India and Pakistan, U.S. ratification of the CTBT would, of course, not prevent the expansion of the size of those two countries' nuclear arsenals, but it would prevent them from developing smaller, more sophisticated thermonuclear bombs in the years ahead, and it would help head off further Indo-Chinese arms competition. Without testing states like Iran would not be able to proof test the more advanced warheads that would be necessary to put on top of ballistic missiles. But it would prevent states like Iran from developing the smaller, more sophisticated warheads necessary to do that. U.S. ratification of the CTBT, I believe, would also put the spotlight on Iran's position on the CTBT. If it doesn't ratify, it will cast further doubt on Iran's claim that its nuclear program is peaceful and it will help the United States and others rally international pressure on Tehran to curtail its sensitive nuclear activities. Now, just as importantly, what does that mean? Five minutes, wonderful, all right. We'll be bombing in five minutes, yeah. Okay, U.S. ratification, of course, would re-establish our role as a world leader. It would give us the leverage that we desperately needed to call on others to take on unimpliferation obligations and pave the way for the kind of action we need in the 2010 NPT review conference to strengthen the beleaguered nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Without U.S. ratification at that conference or in the years ahead, we will be working with one, maybe two hands tied behind our back as we try to repair and revive the global non-proliferation system. So, as John McCain said in the 2008 presidential campaign in the speech in Los Angeles, it is time to take another look at the Conference of Test Gun Treaty. During the brief debate before the U.S. Senate in 1999, many senators who voted no, of course, expressed concerns about the ability of the United States to maintain its arsenal in the absence of testing and to verify compliance with the treaty. That was then, and this is now. In the past decade, the Stockpile Stewardship Program has matured. It's proven that it works extremely well. Advances with the program include great leaps forward in advanced computing, 3D x-ray radiography and studies to demonstrate that demonstrate that the plutonium pits that are part of all of the U.S. nuclear warhead types are not affected by aging for a century or more. That was one of the major concerns a decade ago about nuclear warheads. Critics of the CTB will have you believe, however, that maintaining the reliability of proven U.S. nuclear warhead designs still depends on a program of nuclear test explosions. That has never been true in the past. Only a handful of U.S. nuclear test explosions were ever conducted for warhead reliability purposes and it's certainly not the case today. Contrary to the assertions made by some, especially in the past three or four years, the Stockpile Stewardship Program is working. The U.S. nuclear arsenal has and will continue to be maintained through non-nuclear tests and evaluations combined with the replacement, remanufacture, reuse of key components to previous design specifications. And as many of you know, since 1994, each warhead type in the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal has been determined to be safe and reliable through a rigorous certification process conducted by the weapons labs. So, as a result of all this, of this experience over the past more than a decade, we know more today about the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal than we ever did during the nuclear testing days. Confidence and ability to maintain warheads is increasing at a faster rate than the uncertainties that the scientists may have. Now, with all that in mind, we have to keep a couple other things in mind. For better or worse, U.S. ratification does not mean that the testing option is forever closed off to the United States. As General John Shelley Coshvilly said in his very excellent 2001 report on the CTBT, the Senate might insist on a once every 10 years review of the treaty. And in the extremely unlikely event that the United States ever decides it needs to test, the CTBT Supreme National Interest Clause, of course, provides an out. And as we've seen during the Bush administration, the United States has indeed exercised its right to withdraw from major treaties, I'm thinking of the ABM treaty in particular. On verification, we now have layers and layers of national, international and civilian monitoring capabilities that provide high confidence that any militarily significant test by another country will be detected. Over the past decade, the international monitoring system that's part of the CTBT regime has been built up considerably. It was just beginning in 1999. Today, some 280 out of the total of 337 monitoring stations have been constructed and most of those are sending data back. That array includes highly capable noble gas monitoring stations. Darrell, what the hell are noble gas monitoring stations? Those are extremely sensitive stations that can detect the telltale radioactive gases that are emitted by underground nuclear explosions and have already proven their worth during the 2006 experience with North Korea's test. Now during the debate in 1999, some critics claim the IMS could only monitor for underground explosions at yields at or above one kiloton TNT equivalent and at US national capabilities were not much better. Well, maybe that was true in 1959. It wasn't true in 1999 and it certainly isn't true in 2009. In reality, actual nuclear test monitoring capabilities were much better in 1999 and have only improved since then. The evasion scenarios imagined by the critics were unrealistic and beyond the capabilities of the states that might benefit from them. We've heard about various cheating scenarios from CTD critics. We've been hearing about these claims for years, but we have to keep in mind are some key facts. China, Russia, India and Pakistan cannot conduct tests above about 10 tons TNT equivalent in yield at their test sites without a substantial risk of detection and lower yield tests are not a significant enough military value to outweigh the high risk of detection. So, all in all, we have to look at the issues again in fresh light, we have to look at the facts of fresh. As former Secretary of State George Schultz said last month speaking to his fellow Republicans, they might have been right in voting against the CTB some years ago, but they would be right voting for it now based upon these new facts. So, before I close, there are four bottom line conclusions that I want us to keep in mind as we go through the debate tonight. One, the United States can maintain a safe, secure and reliable nuclear weapons stockpile without additional testing. It is US policy not to test already. We've signed the treaty with a legal obligation not to violate the purpose or intent of the treaty. The CTBT ratification would not affect current or planned stockpile work. And whatever concerns we might hear tonight or in the months ahead about evasion scenarios, the United States capability to detect and respond to possible clandestine testing by other states will be significantly greater with the CTBT than without. Two, foreign nuclear weapons programs pose a far greater threat to US security without a CTB than with a CTB. Absence of the treaty, other states could develop and test newer improved weapons without constraints. Three, ratification of the CTB by the US will prompt other states, including China, to ratify. And it's going to put pressure on others like India, Iran, Israel, and Pakistan, producing what I believe and many others believe will be a domino type of effect. There are some states that might hold out longer still, in which case the US and others should explore, and they can, provisional entry into force down the line. Provisional entry into force of the treaty down the line. Four, and finally, there is neither the political support, the technical need, the military necessity for renewed US nuclear weapons testing. And of course, it's in our national security interests to prevent other countries from conducting nuclear test explosions. Though we have already assumed most responsibilities and obligations of a CTBT ratifying state, we simply cannot reap the full security benefits of the CTB until the Senate approves the treaty by a two-thirds majority. These are not just my judgments, these are some of the reasons why prominent Republicans, such as Secretary Schultz, Brent Scowcroft, Len Brooks, believe the time has come finally for the United States to reconsider and ratify the CTB, to do otherwise is self-defeating, it's damaging, and is not in our national security interests. Thank you. Evening, pleasure to be here. I'm going to make two threshold points about the debate this evening and then go on to point out what I consider to be three fatal flaws of the Comprehensive Testbed Treaty. The first threshold point I want to make is, and this may be the most important point of the whole evening, the burden of proof in this debate is on the Republicans. When you hear a public discourse on this, they try to turn it around. They often put the question, what's wrong with this? Please explain what's wrong with the CTB. I didn't marry my wife because I couldn't think of anything wrong with it. I married her because I thought there were things to write about her. And I think the same concept should apply to Congress when it considers legislation and when the Senate considers the approval of treaties. It needs to be persuaded not just that there's nothing wrong with them, but beyond that, that there's actually something to write about them. And so I'm going to go on and identify three fatal flaws that I believe exist, even if Darrell or others can absolutely, to your satisfaction, refute those concerns that I expressed. That still is not enough to lead to the conclusion that the United States should ratify, because beyond that, there's still the burden to establish that going forward to CTBT is in the interests of the United States. The second threshold point I want to make is there's a very serious question whether the United States can live under a permanent test ban and remain a credible nuclear weapons power over the long term. And by long term, I mean not three years, five years, I mean 20 years, 50 years. Darrell got into this issue a bit in his remarks, but the reality is neither Darrell nor I are experts on this issue. The best we can do is cite people, cite studies, cite authorities who are experts. And I'm sure Darrell has a pile of quotes there that he can read to you if you want to hear them. I have quotes too, and I can read them to you. I don't propose to do that, because I think your takeaway in the audience if you go through that process is your conclusion will be the experts are divided. They're experts that go both ways on this question of whether it's sustainable over the long term to rely solely on stockpile stewardship programs and maintain credibility, the credible belief that you have nuclear weapons that will work. For the rest of this evening, though, I'm going to proceed under the assumption that we can live under a permanent test ban. So I propose not to debate that. And I want to focus instead on the proposed test ban that's before us, not the concept of a permanent test ban, but the particular treaty that's been negotiated, certainly the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. And as I said, I believe there are three fatal flaws, fatal defects in this Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, any one of which by itself would warrant rejection of this treaty by the United States Senate. Those three fatal flaws are, first, it is unverifiable. Second, there's disagreement among the parties to this treaty about what the treaty prohibits. In other words, there's no actual meeting of the minds among the parties. And then third, the treaty has a defective entry into force provision, which guarantees that this treaty will never enter into force by its terms. First, unverifiability. Again, Darrell got into this in his remarks. There is a debate among the experts. And in this area, the experts are physicists, geologists, seismologists. There's a debate among these experts about the extent to which verification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty will be effective or can be effective. The National Academy of Sciences in 2002 issued what I think it intended to be a pro-CTBT report. But in this regard, its conclusion was not very reassuring. It basically said up to two kiloton tests, it said above two kilotons, absolutely we can detect. Below that, less clear. So Darrell asserts that capabilities are much greater in this area. But the National Academy of Sciences was not as confident. And as I said, they were trying to write a pro-CTBT report. There's a debate on whether it's one kiloton, whether it's less than one kiloton. But there is no debate on this point that there is no verification mechanism that can detect down to the minimum, or the bottom line level, that's prohibited under the CTBT. Because the US interpretation of CTBT anyway is that zero yield, there can be no nuclear weapons test of any device that generates a nuclear yield. You will find no expert who will contend that the international monitoring system or any other monitoring system can detect down to that threshold. The debate is, how close can you get to zero? But no one will say you get to zero. So when you pursue this, what you will find, and I suspect it will happen this evening, is the debate then morphs into a debate about, well, OK, maybe there can be testing at some low level that is undetectable, unverifiable. Is it militarily significant? And opponents of the treaty, what they will tell you, if you see it in the strategic posture of the report last week, they'll tell you, well, OK, maybe there's some testing that's not detectable, but it can't be militarily useful. And that's the assertion. I'll return to this point in a moment. The second fatal flaw is that there's disagreement among the parties of the CTBT about what it prohibits. The treaty says in Article 1, Paragraph 1, the following, each state undertakes not to carry out any nuclear weapon test explosion or any other nuclear explosion. So what is a nuclear weapon test explosion or a nuclear explosion? These terms are not defined in the treaty. I've already told you what the US interpretation is. The US interpretation is that means zero nuclear yield. You can do other types of tests, but if you do things that produce a nuclear yield, a yield of nuclear energy, that is what is prohibited under the treaty. Russia has a different interpretation. And consistent with Russia's interpretation, they believe that they legally can conduct nuclear tests that the United States considers illegal and that we would not conduct ourselves under our interpretation of the treaty. The upshot of these first two fatal flaws in the treaty is that the issue of compliance, I believe, will be a critical issue during Senate consideration of the CTBT. The Senate will want to hear what are the assessments, at least most important in our intelligence community, about compliance with the treaty. And I think the question lies to be twofold. The first level will be, is Russia or any other country conducting tests that are illegal under our interpretation of the treaty? But then there'll be a further question, and that is whether anyone is conducting any tests that are illegal under any interpretation of the treaty. In other words, even under the Russian interpretation, there are tests being conducted that would be illegal under that interpretation. I'm not here this evening to prejudge what our intelligence community will tell the Senate when it asks these questions. But if the answer to either one of those questions is yes, that either tests are being conducted, we consider it illegal, but other parties consider it illegal, or, well, actually tests are being conducted that under any definition, any party's definition are illegal, then I think there will be serious concern in the Senate. And to the degree someone wants to contend that, well, these tests are not militarily useful so we don't need to worry about them. I think senators will be entitled to ask if they're not militarily useful, why is any country going to the trouble spending the very considerable amounts of money it costs to conduct these tests and running the enormous political risk of being caught? All for tests that we are assured by proponents of the treaty are not militarily useful. Now something interesting happened last week. The Strategic Posture Commission issued its report, and there was a debate in that report and opponents set forth their view of the CTPT and opponents set forth their view. The opponents said something that I had not previously seen before in print. They said other countries with different interpretations of the treaty could conduct tests with hundreds of tons of nuclear yield. Apparently Russia and possibly China are conducting low yield tests. That was stated, I served on a commission like this recently, we had to submit, I didn't serve on this commission. We had to submit our report for declassification review and the intelligence community excised and the assertion that they thought we'd be able to classify information or they brought to our attention assertions that they thought were incorrect. You will note that the components who got to express their views in that report know where it took issue with this assertion. So if there is testing in the zone between the US interpretation of the treaty which is zero yield and the Russian interpretation which allows tests that apparently render a nuclear yield, I think it will raise the question in the center why we would consider entering a treaty that's going to apply unequally to the parties and where under which we will be subject to the more restrictive interpretation that we've adopted for ourselves. Obviously if there's the additional problem that the intelligence judgment is that there's currently nuclear testing going on above the interpretation of other parties, above the level of yield that they consider to be legal under the treaty, there will be the even more profound question of why we would consider ratifying a treaty that other countries are already cheating on by their own interpretations, their own definitions of what's prohibited. The third fatal flaw of the CTBT is its entry into force mechanism which as I say will guarantee that the treaty never enters into force. That mechanism set forth in the treaty requires the ratification of 44 specific countries. Nine of those countries have not yet ratified, the United States is one of them. The glib answer, and I think Daryl basically gave it to us this evening, is well that problem will be solved when the United States ratifies it. The US holding out on this treaty is a big pattern to enter into force. And once the United States sets an example, the other countries will follow along. I will concede that that may be true in two cases. I think China and Indonesia, which are also among the holdouts, may feel in the wake of US ratification that they should ratify as well. But there will still be six other holdouts. There will be India, Pakistan, Israel, Egypt, Iran, and North Korea. And I submit that they are not gonna be much persuaded and much influenced by the US decision to ratify or not ratify. I wanna make a further point in this connection. And that is this entry in force mechanism provided in the treaty makes absolutely no sense. I'm sure there was a perfectly good reason why the negotiators came up with it, but it is completely illogical. This treaty, the Comprehensive Tuscan Treaty, is only meaningful, legally meaningful, for countries that are not, let me reverse that. It is not legally meaningful for a country that is a non-nuclear weapons state under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In other words, if you are a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and you already promised to give up permanently nuclear weapons, your further promise never to test a nuclear weapon is superfluous. It's, I mean, how could you test a nuclear weapon without having one? If you had one, that means you already violated the legal obligation that you have today. I know there may be an argument that some countries would violate one legal obligation, but never think about, never consider violating two, but I think that's kind of silly. There are arguably nine countries today that are not non-nuclear weapons states, and the meaningful application of the CTBT is to those countries that either are allowed under the NPT to have nuclear weapons or that are not in the NPT, and therefore, because they're outside the treaty, they're allowed to have nuclear weapons too. So a sensible entry into force mechanism would require those countries for whom this treaty means something to ratify. It wouldn't have really asked other countries to expend, required them to ratify in order to bring them into force. So let's take Iran as an example. God forbid that eight of the nine remaining countries ratify in Iran is the ninth country, because the CTBT then hands them an enormous club. We better believe Iran will use it. They will go to the international community and say, we're prepared to ratify this treaty. We're already in the NPT and it doesn't really mean anything, but we would go along. You gotta let us alone on this in the tons then, and our nuclear enrichment, uranium enrichment. You've been trying to deny us our treaty rights under the NPT, and you let us alone. You give us a pass on enrichment and previous violations of our safeguards agreement, and then maybe we'll ratify the CTBT and bring it into force for you. But if you're not prepared to do that for us, then forget your comprehensive test ban treaty. This treaty gives us the right to block its entry into force and we intend to block it until you give us what we want. Why the international community would wanna hand Iran that kind of leverage is beyond me, but that's what this treaty does. Now, it's never gonna come to that because there are other countries that are not gonna ratify, and so Iran will never be in the position to single-handedly hold it up. Egypt is probably the single hardest case, and experts in this area will concede this. Egypt's position on the comprehensive test ban is very straightforward. They will ratify the comprehensive test ban treaty when Israel ratifies not the comprehensive test ban treaty. That goes without saying, but Israel will have to ratify the comprehensive test ban before Egypt will consider doing it. But in addition, they will not do it until Israel ratifies the NPT. And of course, Israel's position on that is, we're waiting for success in the Middle East peace process, and then we'll take a look at ratifying the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. So, the Egypt problem, best case, gets solved when we bring peace to the Middle East, and you know how long we've been working on that. So, just making the point, this entry into force is never gonna happen by the terms of the treaty, and I think Darryl basically conceded that a moment ago when he said, well, what we'll have to do is consider something which he termed provisional entry into force. You know, I guess that's the technically correct legal term for what's contemplated, but I have a different term for it, and that is amending the treaty. What they intend to do is amend the treaty, and I think you just heard one of the opponents say, we need to amend this treaty to bring you into force because the way it's actually currently structured is it's not gonna ever enter into force. So, I guess I'll leave with this thought that if the actual plan brings treaty into force, is to amend it down the road, why don't we, at the same time, fix the other fatal flaws in the treaty? We're not at the same time. Why don't we, if that's what we need to do, let's fix all the problems at the same time, starting with the fact that there is no agreement among the parties about what the treaty prohibits. Maybe that would be a good thing to fix, too, if we're serious about moving forward with this treaty. Okay, so now the affirmative cross-examination period, which essentially means Darryl is gonna ask Mr. Radamaker three questions. Each side is a minute to ask a question and then to respond. I'm going to set the alarmingly annoying timer for a minute and then silence it when it goes off so to try to keep some semblance of time. So hopefully within kind of the minute. Thank you. All right, well, first of all, I think what we need to do in this debate tonight and the debate months ahead is we've gotta be very careful not to cherry pick information coming out of NAS reports, intelligence assessments, et cetera. Let's just get one thing straight that Steve said before I ask the question I have for this in this round. What did the National Academy of Sciences say about detection levels? Bear with me because these are scientists they don't speak in plain English, but the National Academy of Sciences said, underground explosions can be reliably detected and identified as explosions using IMS data down to a yield of 0.1 kilotons, 100 tons in hard rock conducted anywhere in Europe, Asia, North Africa and North America. For some locations such as Russia's former nuclear test site in Novi Zemlya, the capability threshold is below 0.01 kilotons, 10 tons. Okay, that's a little different than one kiloton. Now, some of the people who talk about the one kiloton threshold are talking about some pretty fantastic evasion scenarios involving cavities known as decoupling, but these are the facts. And even with those evasion scenarios, the Russians would be extremely hard for us to hide any tests of military significance. So let's get back to one of the issues that you raised, Steve, which I think is an interesting one. You say that there's no agreed definition regarding permitted and prohibited activities under the CTB. And then you go on to say that the Russians have apparently deciding that permission reports engaged in low yields, weapon test explosions, perhaps hydro-nuclear explosions. So let's just get the facts straight here, and I wanna ask you about your interpretation of the negotiating record. All the CTB states' parties understand that the CTB bans all nuclear test explosions. It's in article one of the treaty. Furthermore, US Ambassador Steve Letigar testified to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1999. He said, I have heard some critics of the treaty seek to cast doubt on whether Russia in the negotiation of the treaty committed itself under treaty law to a truly comprehensive prohibition, including an explosion experiment event of even the slightest nuclear yield. Did Russia agree to ban all nuclear test explosions? The answer, he said, is a category, yes. The Russians as well as other states did commit themselves, all right? So there's other evidence from the Russians themselves in the debates of the CTB in the Russian Duma. The Russian negotiator has written in a 2006 article that hydro-nuclear experiments and all nuclear test explosions are prohibited by the treaty. So the bottom line is that Russia and other states' parties to the CTB understand clearly the CTB permits no explosions produced by sustained nuclear chain reactions. And I'm pretty incredulous about the insistence on this point and the posture commission was presented with contrary evidence. I think they failed miserably in taking into account that evidence, but that's another story. So in light of these facts, what is the basis for your claim that the state's parties don't agree on what the CTB prohibits, that the CTB prohibits all nuclear test explosions? And that's my question for now. Well, okay, if I only have one minute to respond, I'll respond only to the latter part. This format is off. You know, I will stipulate at the outset that Russia has signed and has ratified a treaty that says each state party undertakes not to carry out any nuclear weapon test explosion or any other nuclear explosion. And for Steve Letigard to testify that Russia has promised not to carry out a nuclear weapon test explosion, quoting the language of the treaty, yeah, of course, they've done that. The question is, am I wrong in asserting that they have a different definition of what is a nuclear weapon test explosion than we do? And for you to stand here and say that, well, the strategic posture review commission which had incredible access to available information in carrying out its work, and looked very, I mean, I know some of the commissioners, they worked very hard on this issue. They looked into it. And in the language of the proponents, you don't see them taking issue. The proponents of the CTBT, people like yourselves, who served on that commission, got to write a page and a half of arguments in favor of the treaty. And they could respond to what the opponents were saying. They know where it took issue with the assertion that Russia has a different interpretation. I think that's significant. I mean, really, I have a copy, right? They don't take issue with that. My question is, what is the basis for your claim that they don't agree? I mean, where does this claim come from? Or are we just citing the posture commission as the final? You know, I will stand on what's in the posture commission report. I think it is interesting to look at the unanimous recommendation of the posture commission which is that we get an agreed P5 statement on what is prohibited. In other words, provide the definition now that the negotiators failed to achieve in the CTBT negotiations. It was observed at one point, I've held a lot of jobs in Washington. Many of those jobs are on Capitol Hill. And I was always a lawyer on Capitol Hill and involved in drafting legislation. That was my responsibility. And, you know, a lot of times, parties to a negotiation disagree. And if there's a determination to achieve an outcome, there are ways of favoring over the disagreement. One of the most common ways is to come up with some term but then not agree on the definition of the term. And then just move forward on that basis, an agreement to disagree. Interested parties, they see some language, they interpret it differently, and they move on. When we're talking about domestic legislation, that's fine because the upside of that is that some court will get to interpret what the language means or an executive branch agency will get to interpret what the language means. In the international context, when you're negotiating a treaty and you have the negotiator's default to ambiguous language upon which there's no read definition, the upshot is each party is free to do what it wants. And I've already read the language out of the strategic posture commission report. There's the assertion there that Rush is doing what it wants. So, you know, the Senate will, in its consideration of this treaty, the Senate will have access to, I don't mean to be evasive, but what the United States knows about nuclear testing is extraordinarily highly classified. And I don't propose to sit here this evening as a former government official and talk about everything that I learned during my government service. That's why I quote documents that have been through the declassification review process. Okay, well, I would just suggest we go back and we look at the documents and it's pretty plain that there's agreement that no nuclear test explosions means no nuclear test explosions. Okay, my second question. Maybe, well, why would the commissioners unanimously have said before the administration asked the Senate to give its advice and consent to this treaty, it should get an agreed statement out of the P5 about what is prohibited under the treaty. What the definition is. I would not disagree that at this point. Why would the commissioners have recommended that if this was not an issue? Well, because they couldn't agree on these points. I would agree that at this point it would be useful to clarify this. But rather than stand here and not providing any evidence on your side, I mean, I think we need to go back to the facts if it helps the Russians to reiterate their position and Chinese, fine. But this is an issue that has been closed for a decade. And it's just an example of the kind of arguments that we're gonna hear that are simply designed to raise doubts rather than to advance the conversation. Okay, so I will be moving on to the second question here. So Steve has also made the suggestion citing the Posture Commission report that the Russians and the Chinese apparently are engaged in low yield nuclear test explosions. I've talked about the importance of looking at what is militarily significant, what is not. I won't go over that again. You've been in government, you've looked at the intelligence. We've been talking to people who are familiar with some of this intelligence too for years. We know how to talk about these issues and still respect the classification rules. It's clear that these reports that the Posture Commission is basing its assertions on are old, they're not definitive and they're technically flawed. So, we can't stand here and pull out the information and look at it that the intelligence community has. We need to have a definitive assessment, a new one about these issues. But my question, Steve, is that given that during the George W. Bush administration, there were these allegations floating around. Why the George W. Bush administration if these activities were militarily significant were really of such concern. Why the Bush administration did not publicly and apparently not even privately take action to either clarify with the Russians what they were doing or to protest what we believe they were doing. We just remind everybody this is not just based on what is in the classified realm but in the May 2002 edition of New York Times, there was a story that reported that the Bush administration secretly briefed members of Congress that Russia may be engaged in nuclear testing activities that violate the test ban. So, my question is, well, before I get to my question, if the Bush administration actually believed these were militarily significant, they apparently didn't take action. It seems to me that George W. Bush and his advisors have answered the question about whether this is militarily significant. It probably wasn't back then and it probably isn't now. So, my question is whether you still insist that Russia is conducting these tests. What is the basis for this allegation? How old is this allegation? And finally, are we in a better position to address this potential problem by rejecting the CTB or by ratifying the profits of the test ban tree given the tools that it gives us to follow up with confidence within the interests of non-scientists. First of all, I don't know why you would want to challenge the competence or intelligence of the members of the Strategic Posture Commission. They were pretty serious people and many of them actually agree with you about the CTB. And I gather from your comments you're not happy with their work product. But I think, I think when they went to work, they intended to produce what you just called for, which was a definitive look at these questions. And I remind you this is an unclassified report. And to stand there and say, I want to see the report. I want to see the document. I want to see the proof. I guess you've never worked in government, but you think I can just produce that stuff because you asked for it? I mean, look, these people looked at it. Answer my question. All right, rather than saying you can't. Well, I mean, I don't think it's very satisfactory. I'm going to rely on the conclusions of the Strategic Posture Commission. And again, I think they were diligent. I think they were serious people. They were William Perry. I mean, if we know where he stands on the CTBT, he signed on to the recommendation that we get an agreed statement out of the P5 about what is prohibited under this treaty. And he didn't take issue with the notion that that was just sort of a mindless exercise based on a faulty premise that there was a disagreement. Likewise, on this question of testing, I served in the Bush administration. I'm not aware that with regard to challenging other countries' compliance or lack thereof with the CTBT, that the Bush administration did anything differently than the Clinton administration before it. But I mean, let's just be clear about what this report says. You seem to be saying that Bill Perry is making the assertion that the Russians are conducting clonedestine activities and there's no definition. I'm saying he had a chance. He had a chance in expressing the views of the proponents to say, you know, the opponents are making a specious argument here that is absolutely unsupported by the information that we, the proponents of this treaty on this commission, have had a chance to see. You can read this report in vain to find an assertion in that regard. To me, that speaks pretty loudly. I mean, I agree with you. Perry did not sign on to the statement, and I'll quote it again, apparently Russia and possibly China are conducting low-yield tests. Perry did not sign on to that. But given the chance, and he had the chance, he didn't say, that's an inane, absurd, ill-founded assertion by the opponents. He passed by that. Well, what Bill Perry and the pro-CTB group in the Posture Commission said, fourth, the CTB is effectively verifiable. Concerns about militarily significant tests that might allude to detection are overstated. That is addressing in a polite fashion the counterpoint section of the report on CTB. So please don't suggest that Bill Perry or others, by not taking stronger issue in the report, don't have issue with that. Read the language again. It's number four in the pro section. The CTB is effectively verifiable. Concerns about militarily significant tests that might allude to detection are overstated. And it goes on. But this is the point that I made earlier, that what the proponents do when forced, as I think ultimately Gerald's going to be, when forced to concede that maybe tests are being conducted that are contrary to the US interpretation of the treaty, they will fall back to, they're not militarily significant. And the language you just quoted, if you read it carefully, if you parse it, what he's saying is concerns about militarily significant testing are overblown. In other words, yes, that's an answer, but it's not disputing the assertion, it's just characterizing in a way that they're more comfortable with. Just for the record, my question to you was, are we in a better position to deal with this kind of scenario with the treaty being ratified by the United States or by the United States rejecting the ratification of CTB? I think ratification by the United States will not help in any way in addressing these concerns because as of today, you have different peers, you have different interpretations. So why would one party say the interpretation we had at the time of negotiation and upon which we ratified this treaty, you don't like it, but you knew all along that we had that interpretation and you accepted it when you ratified and no, we're not changing it. I think, so I mean, I think by ratifying now with knowledge of this disagreement, we're essentially condoning it and perpetuating it. And again, why would we want to enter into a treaty that is going to apply differently among the parties and in our case, much more onerously than it will apply to the other parties? After we're done this evening, I would encourage folks to go back and look at the statement from 2001 at the Entry into Forest Commons in the CTB in New York, the statement from the Russians, where they offered to pursue with the United States first additional transparency measures to test sites as we move towards entering into force. That sounds like a very promising approach, but it requires the United States to ratify the treaty. Why are the Russians going to accept additional censor to the test sites if we haven't ratified the treaty? Okay. Well, I mean, yeah, great, okay, we go catch them testing in conformity with their interpretation of the treaty. What are you gonna do about it? Okay, third question. This is fine. You have not addressed one of the points that I made in my opening about the value of the CTBT even before entering into force, providing us with leadership credibility. As you know, from 2005 to the NPTB conference, this was an important issue for some states. It wasn't the only issue that divided countries fight. It was one of the issues. If you're not proposing the United States for new nuclear weapons testing, and I haven't heard you say that in the near term or the medium term, what tangible security benefits do we approve if the United States does not ratify the CTB? I agree that there need to be reasons to ratify a treaty, as you said in your opening. That was your threshold question, but we also need reasons not to do things, all right, that are clearly on the agenda, that are on the diplomatic agenda internationally. How do you propose the United States regains its leadership credibility and amplification and builds international support, absent CTB ratification at this very crucial juncture in the history of the nuclear and amplification effort? To reiterate what I said at the outset, I believe the United States seems to be satisfied with these treaties in our interest. I think the rest of the argument you've just made is maybe there's some flaws, maybe there's some problems, but we'll make the rest of the world happy if we ratify this treaty. They'll like us more if we ratify it, so that's the reason. That was your version of my argument. Right, but I'm boiling down what you said. No, no, you're not. You said it's on the diplomatic agenda, so we have to deal with it, and we won't be able to regain our leadership, and that's a remote agenda. To regain our leadership, what does that mean? We have to make them like us, and we'll make them like us by ratifying this treaty. There are lots of things we could do that'll make other countries happy. We can give them all a lot of money. I don't make them happy. We'll make a billion Chinese people happy by abandoning our defense commitment to Taiwan. We'll make a lot of Arabs happy by abandoning our commitments to Israel. We don't do things because they'll make us popular or because they'll be well-received in international lives. As I said at the outset, we do things when we judge that they advance our national interests, and this idea that diplomatic agenda and regaining leadership, it's not worth regaining our leadership if we're doing things that are contrary to our interests. All right, now cross-examination switches, three questions from the negative to the affirmative. I think we'll have a long timer and it's up to maintain counter-attempts. I'd like to see more comments on this. Okay, let me listen to what I intended. A lot of the debate, particularly in the Obama administration, is really on this point that Adele just raised, that America's lost its leadership in arms control and nonproliferation, and that's why we're having so much trouble with Iran and North Korea, and if we want to solve the problem of nuclear proliferation, and I think Joe and I may disagree about the street, but I think actually, we do not agree about the profound significance of dealing with the problem of nuclear proliferation. And we find ourselves in debates with lots of other people about how high a priority value is and what other interests of the US should be put forward to sacrifice the nuclear proliferation. So, I mean, there is actually a fundamental meaning in the minds, I think, between Gerald and me and on the more basic issue here. But time again, in the current debate, you see this contention that we need to ratify the CTBT as a token of our new commitment to the nuclear proliferation treaty, to the international summit in this area, and the whole world-free nuclear weapons concept is really tied into this concept. And the premise is that we'll make a greater headway against the nuclear victims, like ratify the CTBT. The, there are two ways that could be true. One way would be true, it would be true, is if countries like Iran and North Korea would be so impressed by our application of the CTBT and other, or started extension of it, and other things that we did in the nuclear disarmament area. They'd be so impressed by that that they would decide, you know, we're not really interested in nuclear weapons after all. We're abandoning their work. There may be some people who actually believe that. I don't know whether you do. I think it's ludicrous. I think Iran and North Korea don't really, what they're doing in the nuclear area. I don't, so we can move on to that. I mean, you don't think that, or? That's not the, that's not the argument that I've been making. Okay, then the second argument, the other argument would be that we'll be able to better put together an international coalition, build an international consensus, and bring pressure together on the outliers around the Iran and North Korea. And I take it, that's the view you used to have, too. If we provide leadership, what we have is a lack of followership, and we gain followership, but we show leadership on things that seem to be very well. Well, I'll describe it in my own words. The premise of that argument is, essentially, there are a bunch of countries out there that are prepared to do more. Front Iran and North Korea, to strengthen the Nuclear Enumeration Treaty, to come up with penalties for countries that violate the NPT, to come up with new international norms, banning further spread of sensitive nuclear technologies like enrichment and new processing. All those countries are sitting out there, they're waiting to do that, but they're holding back because they're mad the nuclear weapons policies of the United States and the other members, the other nuclear weapons states. So I guess my first question here is to test this on the public system. Specifically, which countries are sitting out there waiting to do more and prepared to do more? You mentioned the 2010 review conference. Which countries are going to do more at the 2010 conference with regards to penalties for violation of the treaty, penalties for withdrawal, restrictions on enrichment and new processing? And specifically, what things will they agree to that they're not prepared to agree to in the absence of U.S. radical portion of the CPC? All right. Well, that's a good question, but as you know, you've been a representative of the United States at the NPT RevCon. You can't answer this question in one minute. We're supposed to be doing this. But if the United States pursues and we've already begun pursuing reconsideration of application of the CTB, if we reaffirm the commitments that were made in 1995 when the treaty was extended indefinitely, very much on the basis of the commitments made by the weapons states on disarmament and nonproliferation and other issues. And at the 2000 review conference, we've got a chance to test whether this hypothesis works. And I think we have some evidence already. Last week, as you know, on the third day of the NPT.com, the state's parties agreed for the first time in a decade to an agenda for the 2010 review conference. Now, for most people on the street in Washington, D.C., or Peoria, that doesn't sound very exciting. But it is essential to doing the hard work that we need to do to limit the spread of enrichment technologies, to get universal support for the additional protocol, to win the supports of these other countries, the South Africa, the Brazils, the other states in the Middle East, Russia and China, to some extent, to put more pressure on the states that are not complying with their safeguards' responsibility. So we're going to be able to test this proposition. We now have a chance to strengthen the treaty at the 2010 review conference. You know, this is soft power. One cannot list off exactly what the Egyptians and the Mexicans are going to do. But now we have a chance to test that hypothesis. And the evidence is already in that this kind of approach produces results, the results came in last week. Okay, well, I guess what I haven't heard is you suggest in specific countries that are holding back on things that are important to the global nonprocursional agenda that they would be prepared to do specific things that specific countries would do following CTB by the United States if they're not prepared to do so. You want to be able to test this, right? But that, I mean, that's not exactly a green endorsement What were your priorities in 2005 that you didn't want you to see? Okay, the U.S. delegation. I mean, those are the same kinds of issues we're going to pursue. It's five years later, okay? I'm not in the delegation at the moment. It's the conference is still going on. The work will go on for months, okay? But as you know, I mean, the United States, Republican Democratic administrations have been seeking to get the additional protocol universalized. We need to build support for new measures to make sure that states can withdraw from the treaty and not continue to benefit from peaceful uses if they have violated safeguards. These are the kinds of things we need more support on. There are other things we need more support on outside of the context of the NPT, okay? Well, I'm here to predict as the head of the U.S. delegation in the 2005 review conference that no matter how many CTBTs ratifying no matter how low we go and deploy nuclear forces and start following agreement, you're not going to get these then at the NPT review conference. The 2005 NPT review conference was wrecked by Egypt. And contrary to all the suggestions that you have here in the public discourse, Egypt wrecked that conference not because of any unhappiness on their part with the nuclear policy of the United States or Russia or China or the nuclear weapons issue. The thing they're really upset about is Israel. And until Israel is, Egypt is among the countries that hasn't ratified the CTBT. I mean, they aren't that enthusiastic about this treaty. They're single-minded about the fact that Israel is not an operation treaty. And I will make this prediction. Any success achieved at the 2010 review conference will come at the place of breaking Israel down on the issues that Israel holds dear. And, you know, that's a separate discussion. But it really has nothing to do with the nuclear weapons policies of the United States. And if the Obama administration wants to go break Israel's arm on some of these issues, they can do that and probably achieve the same outcome at the review conference as they would be able to achieve in the absence of doing anything at this interview. Well, for us and Clark, if you're still here, I mean, the next topic for this debate ought to be what we need to do at the 2010 review conference. I'm making a simple point, which is that, you know, we are going to be in a position to test how much we can bring other countries along. But we can only do that if, you know, we are moving forward on a treaty that is in our own national security interest. We're not testing. It seems, as I said before, self-defeating to reject a treaty that bans something that we have decided we don't need to do. And our experts, there's no disagreements from our experts about the fact that we can maintain the arsenal without their weapons testing into the indefinite future. I've found this agreement among experts about whether we can do that into the indefinite future. Okay, so I think we've exhausted this topic. It's not one minute on this point. I know this question, so can I move on to my second question? The, in my remarks, I touched on the entry into force power in this treaty. And I made the assertion that this treaty will not enter into force by its terms. Because I'd like to draw Daryl out on this. Am I right about that? Or do you actually believe that countries like Egypt, Israel, India, Pakistan, Iran, or Korea can be persuaded to ratify? And if so, what's your strategy for getting them in? And by the way, this isn't just my question. That was another homework assignment that the Strategic Posture Commission gave the Obama administration. They said, don't send this treaty to the Senate without presenting a credible plan to achieve entry into force, i.e. persuade the six countries to ratify. So maybe I'll put that... What's your credible plan? The credible plan that you would suggest to the Obama administration for persuading this... All right, well, your question... First of all, I mean, your question assumes that, you know, entry into force of the treaty and ratification by the 44 states and annexed to the treaty are the only benefits for this treaty. The first thing that, you know, what I stated in my opening comments is that there is a value for the United States with respect to non-proliferation leadership, putting pressure on other states not to test, having the opportunity to pursue new kinds of transparency measures at test sites before entering the force. If the United States ratifies the CTP, there are benefits. U.S. ratification of the CTP is short of entering into force. That said, the Article 14 entry into force provision is extraordinarily difficult. There's a long set of reasons why it came out to be that way. I'm disappointed with it, too, but it is what it is. And I agree, we do need to have a diplomatic strategy. I've been working for some time to get the states who are supportive of the CTP to pursue a strategy more vigorously. One of the huge problems is that the United States has been on the sidelines, and not just on the sidelines, the United States has been working in the other direction. So, I mean, I think the thing that we've got to, you know, ask ourselves when we're talking about the CTP, the value of ratification is what kind of role does the United States play in the international security environment in a non-proliferation struggle? We are a leader, right? We are from the White House saying, we're not going to work with the CTP. We're going to have, all the time, convincing other countries, first of all, they shouldn't test. We're going to have a hard time making accusations of following up on them if we believe countries are testing. And we're leaving the door open for the renewal of testing by certain states and the pursuit of new capabilities by states that could harm us in the future. So, it seems to me that, now, despite the difficulties, the only way they were going to achieve entering the force in the greatest domino effect is with the U.S. ratification. China, I think, and the commission, the pro-side, says, I think the word is, you know, believes it will ratify the United States does. That is going to have a powerful effect on India and Pakistan. Yes, the Indians have an allergy about the conference of test and treaty not made any better by the fact that the Russian administration pursued the U.S.-Indian nuclear deal. Nonetheless, the Indians have said that they're not going to be the last states to block entering the force of the CTP. Pakistan will probably do what India does. In Indonesia, as you said, is probably one of the easier states to convince. Egypt will be difficult, but Egypt's decision is going to be linked to Israel's. The United States is known to have influence over Israel. And it used to be suggesting that the Obama administration is going to be breaking arms with Israel for some reason. I don't know where that's coming from, but I think the United States and Israel are going to continue to work closely on cooperation. I have had signals from Israel that they're rethinking the CTP in light of the fact that the United States is now rethinking the CTP. So, I mean, I think there is a path forward. It's going to take leadership, but leadership on this subject begins with ratification by the United States. I think the argument I just heard is the one that I predicted we would hear, which is the way to bring these countries in is for the United States to ratify an oil follow suit. My understanding from having worked this issue some is that it's not going to be that simple. Some of these members have found reservations about the U.S. Exhibition, and they're not going to be addressed just because the United States acts in many instances. In the case of Iran, yeah, I think we couldn't have price against Iran's ratification. It's not a price I'm prepared to pay. But let me just... Well, let me just... Steve, I am not making that point. That is a ridiculous point that you seem to be suggesting that proponents of the CTV, such as myself, are going to say, oh, Iran, please ratify the CTV. We'll let you go on all of your secret activities. That's ridiculous. My point was much different. I mean, I agree with you that Iran is pursuing activities that are going to give it the capability to make nuclear weapons if they are not curtailed or stopped their questions about this program. We should be looking for every single way we can to put the spotlight on what it's doing to highlight whether or not this program is peaceful or not. You disagree? I happen to think the CTV can have value in highlighting whether that program is peaceful or not and convincing the other countries we need to convince to put more pressure on Iran. With regard to Iran, I'm actually reassured to hear that Darryl would not be prepared to trade sessions to Iran on the nuclear weapons program or Iran on the replication of the CTV. Let me just say, given the high level of enthusiasm bordering on desperation in some quarters for progress in the CTV, I'm not sure that answer is the answer we've received from all components of the CTV. I'm speaking less about it in America than other places in the world. But I really do think that we should not forbid you to go down to just Iran and stand on the ground because you want to see divisions between us and our European allies about the sort of concessions we should be prepared to make to Iran to achieve a solution to the diplomatic standoff for the CTV to enter the mix and may well expand their strategies. We've got one more question. One more. Okay. Try to keep this in place. The... It's not possible. One of the recommendations, as we've noted, of the Strategic Posture Commission Report is that there should be an agreed statement. The Obama administration should be in the agreed statement on the P5 about how the treaties interpreted before they asked the Senate to approve it. And let me just say parenthetically, that recommendation doesn't make a lot of sense to me because as I explained earlier, it's all of the countries that allowed the nuclear weapons whose compliance with this treaty need to worry about, not just the P5. And so why they recommended getting the agreed statement among the P5 but allow other countries, not in the MP2 today, to adopt the Russian interpretation. And they ratified... In other words, I'm not sure why you'd want it to be a P5 agreement as opposed to an agreement among the P5 plus India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea. There must be some explanation for that. I don't know what it is, but I'm not persuaded. That's actually a sufficient solution. But it is what it is. And so my first question to you is, are you here to predict to us confidently that this is not a meaningful obstacle and it should be easy and short-order for the Obama administration to procure P5 agreement on this? And the follow-up question to that, should that prove impossible for whatever it is? Should we not do the P5 agreement on what is actually prohibited under the treaty? Would you personally advocate going forward with Senate ratification, even in the absence... I think at that point it would be manifest, the virgin interpretations of what's prohibited. Would you advocate going forward with the US ratification agreement? Well, first of all, I mean, you're clearly questioning the strategic process. Which I was doing before, too, so I'm glad we're both doing this. We should be critical thinkers here in Washington, and I accept everything we hear from the higher-ups. Your question assumes that there is a problem. We discussed this before. What I'm pointing out is that there is understanding that when the treaty says the stage shall not undertake activities involving nuclear test explosions, that means all nuclear test explosions. The negotiators in the 1994 to 1996 period, if you look at the negotiating records, if you read the history of the negotiations, which one of my colleagues here, Jennifer McPhee, was helped to write, there was a deliberate decision not to define prohibited and permitted activities. Why? Because the United States did not want to allow a loophole to be created by some creative, lawyerly interpretation of what permitted and prohibited activities were. So the decision was that we should ban all nuclear test explosions. Furthermore, in 1995, when the United States was trying to make up its decision about whether it should engage in a zero-yield nuclear test ban treaty, or it should pursue a limited threshold treaty, the Jason Group was asked to do a study on whether very low-yield nuclear test explosions were useful to the United States. We made the decision then that we did not need very low-yield hydrogen nuclear tests of four pounds or less, because the only use for those kinds of hydrogen nuclear experiments is for one point safety. All of our nuclear weapons are one point safe. A bullet can't be fired at it in the hole. It was also determined that tests below about 500 tons were also not militarily useful to the United States because it would not enable us to conduct boosted tests on the second stage of thermonuclear weapons. So we decided that it is not in our interest. We pursued a treaty and we got a treaty. That bans all nuclear weapons test explosions. The Russians, as I said before, have made it clear that this is their position, too. In 2000, in January of 2000, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs director of security affairs and disarmament issues, Yuri Eskapala, said, quote, qualitative modernization of nuclear weapons is the only possible, is only possible through full-scale and hydro-nuclear tests with the emission of this energy, the carrying out of which directly contradicts the CTP. So that's a Russian-speaking English. It's not elegant, but the meaning is clear. And hydro-nuclear tests are prohibited. So is a P5 statement necessary? No. Is that something that we might pursue in order to clarify the misconception that the skeptics continue to perpetuate? Sure. I'd be willing to see what we can achieve by having the Russians reiterate their position or the Chinese reiterate their position. But from my perspective, this issue was settled a decade ago, and I'm not sure why you or the foster commission continues to make this assertion in light of the facts we got. Great. I'm going to try to expedite this next section really quickly, and given how junior I am, perhaps the responses can be very quick. My question to Darrell briefly is just related to some of the, you know, a lot of the arguments as to how there's very, you know, the degree of verification might be unknown, things, you know, the strategic foster commission says there's a, quote, near zero chance that it enters into force, et cetera, et cetera. At what point is it possible that the CTBT becomes arms control for the sake of arms control and that it could give us credibility, but that it could become perhaps a diplomatic quagmire as, you know, we try to persuade other states when it becomes so locked up trying to deal with the CTBT that it ultimately does not yield as much value as the time invested in it? Well, I mean, we have capable diplomats in the State Department. Many of them are capable of multitasking. I mean, I think it is possible to pursue U.S. ratification, achieve it, and in the course of pursuing our nonproliferation diplomacy to try to win support for the other signatures in ratification. So as I said, there is value to the United States from a security standpoint, a diplomatic standpoint, a nonproliferation standpoint, if we ratify the treaty. Entry into force is going to be valuable, but there are benefits before we get to that point. So that would be my short answer. Cool. Trying to get back on time. Is there any other question for you? The sort of what I guess informed my thinking as a college debater is sort of this concept of what debaters like to call offense and defense, which is to say you have to have a reason why something is not necessarily not adequate but why it would be bad. And obviously you somewhat disagree with that in your characterization of how Senate, whether or not they should consider ratifying the treaty. My question is, given that the United States has a test moratorium, it seems like they will not be considering a testing option. What is the sort of, quote, offensive reason as to why the United States should not want to consider ratifying the treaty if there are perhaps these extraneous benefits or there's a chance that the treaty might do some good and be able to conduct tests, et cetera, even if it cannot completely do what it was set out to do? My first point in response to that is if we decide that we actually want a permanent comprehensive test ban treaty, it would be nice to have one. Unfortunately, the treaty that was negotiated and is presented to us appears to have some fundamental problems, including the fact that there's disagreements among the parties as to what is prohibited. So I think that by itself raises the question of why ratify a flawed one. Obviously, Darrell can say this one is flawed in its entry into force mechanisms so we have to amend it when we're going into the force because it's not going to enter into force by its terms. On the question of benefits of having this treaty, looking at the last 15 years, I see little evidence that this treaty has made much of a difference. The P5 have not tested nuclear weapons since France did in 1996. I think they've all later remained 10 war twins, not because the treaty is in force but because they reached an individual judgment, but politically it didn't make sense for them to test. India and Pakistan test it in 1998. I think actually maybe I should retract but these trees made no difference. I think there's a pretty decent case to be made that the reason India and Pakistan tested when they did had to do with the comprehensive test ban treaty. They were fearful at that point but it was actually going to enter into force since they went to race forward and test before entering into force. I think that's a notion that needs to at least be considered because the timing is interesting. We all know India was right kicking the screen to agree to this treaty and the Sun signed it but they didn't let it go forward and they were after testing nuclear weapons. North Korea, I defy anybody that's telling me that North Korea's test in 2006 happened differently with the CTBT in force or without. So I think setting aside India, setting aside North Korea, setting aside India and Pakistan for the P5, why are they all not testing? I think there may actually be a more persuasive explanation of what's going on is none of them want the other ones to test and you basically have a standoff and each one is deterred by the threat that if they test, the reaction of the other P5 will be the Velvuzim testing as well and that may actually be a more effective deterrent than having a treaty that additional countries have ratified but of course still hasn't entered into force because of its defective entry into force. Okay, we've got closing statements. Three minutes per side. Well, I think just in that last comment that Steve made, I think he made a very important point in favor of U.S. ratification of the CTB. Why isn't there nuclear testing today? The United States engaged in a nuclear test moratorium in 1992 after the Russians had declared a unilateral moratorium. The negotiations began a couple years later. There was pressure on the negotiators at the CD through the Nuclear and Appliferation Treaty review conference in 95. That was done by 1996. That is part of the deal for the extension of the NPT. There is an undeniable connection between those two and after that, the P5 all signed the conference of test entry. No one wants others to test. The Indians in the Pakistanis are not testing today probably because there is a global nuclear test norm that the CTBT is essential to reinforce. Over time, we're going to see some country and we're not talking about North Korea, because the North Koreans will do whatever they want right now, conduct nuclear test explosions if this treaty does not enter into force. Now, you've heard us talk back and forth about whether it is militarily significant, if militarily significant cheating on the CTB can be detected with high confidence. We've talked about whether the U.S. stockpile can be maintained into the future, whether a total ban on testing constraints, the nuclear weapons development activities of other states, and whether the CTB provides the United States not for fruition leadership and credibility. My answer, and I think we'll hear more about this in the months ahead, is an emphatic yes. There is a growing list of bipartisan experts and former government officials who agree with this assessment on the conference of test entry. We all in the coming months are going to have a responsibility to make sure that this debate is thorough, based on the facts that we have a good back and forth, and this has been a very good back and forth, and that we have open minds and that we're not clinging to talking points from a decade ago. But I think there's a more fundamental issue to consider as we go into this debate. By ratifying the CTBT, we are going to be pledging our support for international agreement that bans an activity that we unilaterally faulted 17 years ago. Testing is no longer technically or militarily useful to maintain a U.S. nuclear arsenal, nor is there any military requirement to conduct nuclear tests to develop new types of nuclear weapons. On the other hand, the absence of the CTB and the monitoring inspection regime that it would create could help other states, allow other states to approve new types of more sophisticated nuclear weapons. So, I mean, the choice here I think is clear. A world without nuclear testing is a safer world, and as President Obama said back in April, after five decades of talks, it is time for the testing of nuclear weapons to finally be banned. So, in my view, the United States stands to lose nothing and gains much in important constraint on the weapons capabilities of other countries that could pose a threat to our security in the decades ahead. And our failure to ratify denies us the leverage we need. Steve doesn't believe this is useful leverage, but I think it's valuable leverage that we need the broader nations to join the treaty in referring from testing. And by denying ratification, by not ratifying, we're denying ourselves the ability to persuade others to repair the battered-not-properation treaty. So, this issue, this treaty, is an important chance, not the only, it's not the bill and all, but it is an important chance to take the lead rather than stand in the way of progress towards reducing the nuclear threat. The argument we've just heard is that the Comprehensive Touch Spam imposes no costs in the United States and would provide benefits, so why not accept the benefits? Let me be very blunt to the rest of you. For a nuclear weapons state, that is a country that has nuclear weapons and intends to have a foreseeable future, and I'm not being hawkier when I say President Obama said that he thinks we're going to have nuclear weapons in the United States for the rest of his lifetime, and he wants to abolish them. But for a country that's going to have nuclear weapons for the rest of President Obama's lifetime and potentially well beyond that, the right, the ability to test those nuclear weapons for their safety and their reliability is an extremely valuable right. I'm going to draw an analogy here, and you can see it at the outside, it's a perfect analogy. I can't think of a perfect analogy, but I think it illustrates the point. Think of nuclear weapons as some other sophisticated man-made object, an automobile. What the Comprehensive Touch Spam says is put your car on blocks, don't ever start it up. You're allowed to do all that, we'll give you supercomputers to do modeling and tinker into the hood, all you want, you can't turn the ignition. Leave it on blocks. Oh, by the way, your national security, your national survival may depend on your ability to start that car at some point when you really need it to start. But rely on science, rely on testing and on maintenance and upkeep to assure yourself that that car, when you turn the key when you really need it, it'll start. And for other people to be persuaded that that's true too, because you're trying to assure allies that you have a nuclear deterrent that protects them against the risks that they face. If I had an automobile, and I was being asked to put it on blocks and spend a lot of money to maintain it, but never start it, we want you to be confident that if you ever had to start it, it would start. How many years am I prepared to do this? And be confident that because of all the testing and monitoring and modeling, that the car will really start when I turn the key. A year, two years, five years, ten years, seventeen years, that's what we are now. But I don't know how long President Obama will live, but at the end of his lifetime, if the CTB is in force, we will not have turned that ignition. And maybe for decades past that, we will not have turned that ignition. And maybe we can live with that. Our experts will tell us we can. But I'm telling you, giving up that right to be able to turn the key in a test to reassure yourself that it really does work. And that that car on which you depend potentially for your survival will be there for you when you need it. That right is of great value to you. And it is not cost-free to give it up. And at a minimum, if you are going to give it up, I think you're entitled to expect that everyone else in the world gives it up too. And as I said, that will be one of the questions. Has everyone else in the world actually given up this right? Or are there divergent interpretations in this treaty that we give up that right to test our car, but others haven't? I think that's an important consideration in this debate. It's not cost-free to nuclear weapons states, this is a valuable right, and this treaty has to stick it up. To make a further point, I'm going to continue my analogy of cars. I think this will contribute to the better. You heard Daryl say, low-yield nuclear testing is not militarily significant. Our experts looked at it, we don't need to test nuclear weapons down up to the level you said, but below the 500, for the United States, we don't need to test. And upon that basis, he concludes, that's part of the evidence that he would cite for the proposition that if there is testing going on, it's not militarily significant. In this regard, very little appreciated the fact there are enormous differences between the way the United States structured its nuclear weapons complex and the way Soviet Union structured it. We, our model, and I apologize for the car analogy, we built Mercedes-Benz. We built nuclear weapons, warheads, designed for last. And today we're not building it anymore. We're relying on the old ones at least 17 years old. Or at least 17 years old, much older in those cases. And we don't propose to rebuild it. Actually, there are proposals that come up with the warhead, but those proposals are being rejected. So it looks like we're going to continue to rely on the Mercedes-Benz that we built the last period in our time. Russia never built Mercedes-Benz. They built Ugo, Hyundai, or Volga. They don't report to rely on the same weapons for decades. They constantly recycle them. They have a shelf life. So Russia is continuing to re-manage country. And if you want to project to the end of President Obama's lifetime, there's no expectation in Moscow that at the end of President Obama's lifetime the nuclear weapons that they're deploying on their missiles are the same ones that have been there since 1980. That was never their approach to how they were to construct a nuclear weapons complex. And so, the fact that for the United States certain things are true with respect to nuclear testing, that's not necessarily true for other countries who have structured nuclear weapons complexes in their approach to the whole nuclear enterprise. Then we're going to have to cut things off substantially over time. There's an open bar. It shouldn't be utilized. We thank everyone for coming. We apologize that we didn't get the Q&A session. Perhaps if the guests are here for a second, you can ask them. We'll see. Big round of applause for our guests.