Nukes: Test Them or Lose Them

The Wall Street Journal, 19 November 1997

James Schlesinger, a former secretary of defense, secretary of energy and chairman of the
Atomic Energy Commission, testified before the Senate’s Subcommittee on International
Security, Proliferation and Federal Services on Oct. 27. Following are excerpts of his testimony:

As the Senate considers the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, it will be obliged to focus on one
dominant, ineluctable result of its ratification: Confidence in the reliability of our nuclear weapons
and in the U.S. nuclear deterrent would inevitably decline. The Stockpile Stewardship Program
will unquestionably mitigate that decline to some extent. But mitigation is, of course, not the same
as prevention. Over the decades, the erosion of confidence would inevitably be substantial.

A nuclear weapon is a complicated device. As it ages, its individual components are subject to the
effects of corrosion and deterioration, to unexpected as well as expected failure. In a decade or
so, we will be beyond the expected shelf-life of the weapons in our nuclear arsenal, which was
expected to be some 20 years. In the past, the constant process of replacement and testing of new
designs gave some assurance that weapons would not be subjected to the effects of aging. But
under the CTBT, we would be vulnerable to the effects of aging because we could not test new
weapons.

The Stockpile Stewardship Program will, among other things, disassemble nuclear weapons
selected from our nuclear arsenal and subject the components to careful individual scrutiny,
looking for signs of corrosion, decay, etc. Individual components will be replaced if they have
failed or are near failure. We will try to make those replacements as identical as possible to the
earlier component. Yet that approach raises significant problems: Individual components go out
of production, manufacturers go out of business, materials and production processes change,
certain chemicals previously used in production may now be forbidden under new environmental
regulations, and so on. The upshot is that we can never be quite certain that these replacement
components will work as their predecessors did.

It will be many years before the Stockpile Stewardship Program’s new facilities and new
capabilities are put in place. It will be more years before the projected experiments can be
completed. If the CTBT is ratified, the program would be subjected to the usual budget pressures
and to the possible erosion of administration or congressional support.

We should bear in mind that the Department of Energy and laboratory personnel were never
asked: What should we do to sustain or to maximize confidence in the reliability of our weapons?
The answer remains obvious: Periodic testing remains desirable. Instead they have been asked
another question: Given an international commitment to eliminate nuclear testing, how can you
best seek to sustain confidence in weapon reliability? To that rather different question the system
has responded with the Stockpile Stewardship Program. But no one now has either the experience
or the knowledge to judge the degree of success of the program.

When queried, Department of Energy or laboratory officials will indicate that there is a “good
chance” that through the program we shall be able to maintain “sufficient” confidence in our
nuclear arsenal. They also know that it will be more than a decade before we can judge how
successful the Stockpile Stewardship Program will have been, and they recognize that never
before have we depended on weapons as old as those steadily aging weapons in the stockpile.

None of us can fully comprehend what the permanent cessation of nuclear testing means. Some
36 years ago, President Kennedy decided to resume nuclear testing after the Soviet Union broke
the agreed-upon moratorium. Consider what it would mean to have an equal period in the future
without weapons testing. We would then be dependent upon the judgment of engineers who are
being hired today — that is, on the judgment of personnel who will have no personal experience
either in designing or in testing nuclear weapons. We are embarking on a voyage into the
unknown.

It is true that the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact has substantially reduced the
dependence of the U.S. and its allies on nuclear weapons. The challenge of holding a nuclear
umbrella over our allies in Western Europe and elsewhere has been substantially alleviated.
Moreover, the requirement to initiate the use of nuclear weapons in response to an overwhelming
conventional attack has been eliminated.

Given these altered circumstances, does a decline in confidence in our nuclear stockpile’s
reliability matter at all? The answer to that question starts with the important fact that the U.S. is
not just another country. It has both acquired and has had thrust upon it international
responsibilities. It is still pledged to hold a nuclear umbrella over its NATO allies and Japan, as
well as other states, possibly including those nonnuclear states that have signed the nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty. Though it has abandoned chemical and biological weapons, the U.S.
has threatened to retaliate with nuclear weapons to such an attack. In the Gulf War, such a threat
apparently was sufficient to intimidate Saddam Hussein from employing chemical weapons.

In addition, the U.S. has a very ambitious foreign policy agenda. Our most senior officials have
indicated that NATO membership should be open to any democratic country in Europe. If, for
example, NATO is expanded to include the Baltic states, no conventional defense would be
possible: If we were to fulfill a commitment to provide protection, we would be driven back to
threatening a nuclear response to a conventional attack, a commitment from which we have only
recently escaped. Given America’s unique geopolitical role, a decline in the confidence in U.S.
nuclear weapons is unacceptable.

Over the years, much of the pressure for a complete cessation of nuclear testing has been based
upon a belief that this would help to prevent nuclear proliferation. I believe that such a view is
exaggerated at best. The motivation for the so-called rogue nations — Iraq, Iran, Libya, North
Korea — to acquire nuclear weapons surely will not be affected by whether or not the U.S. tests.
Similarly, the possession of nuclear capabilities by the so-called nuclear threshold states — India,
Pakistan, Israel — depend upon regional circumstances that are scarcely affected by whether the
U.S. tests.

Indeed, the incentives might actually point in the opposite direction: If confidence in the U.S.
nuclear deterrent were to decline, other nations that have been content to rely on American
protection might be impelled to seek their own nuclear weapons.

The geopolitical role of the U.S. remains unique. Cessation of nuclear testing would have
consequences — and those consequences will grow as the decades pass.