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Nuclear Testing

  • The New NAS Report: The Case is Stronger Than Ever for the Test Ban Treaty
    Issue Briefs
    March 30, 2012

    Volume 3, Issue 5, March 30, 2012

    Today, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) released its long-awaited report on technical issues related to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). The independent panel of senior scientific and military experts was charged in 2009 with reviewing technical developments related to the U.S. nuclear stockpile and to nuclear explosion test monitoring that have occurred since the 2002 NAS report on the CTBT and the Senate's brief debate and rejection of the treaty in 1999.
  • Test Ban Treaty: Myths vs. Realities
    Issue Briefs
    March 30, 2012

    Volume 3, Issue 6, March 30, 2012

    The March 30 release of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) report, The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty--Technical Issues for the United States lays out the most compelling case to date, based on the latest classified and intelligence information, that the United States does not need nuclear tests to maintain its arsenal and that the Test Ban Treaty can be verified.
  • Op-Ed: U.S. should cut nuclear stockpile
    Press Room
    March 29, 2012

    This week at an international nuclear security summit in South Korea, President Barack Obama's private request to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev for "space" on his proposal for cooperation on missile defense was overheard from a live microphone and grabbed the headlines.
  • Experts Available to Comment on New Report on Test Ban Treaty
    Press Room
    March 28, 2012

    For Immediate Release: March 28, 2012

    (Washington, D.C.) The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) will release a major new technical report on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) this Friday March 30. The report will assess the U.S. ability to maintain its nuclear arsenal without nuclear test explosions and the ability of the international monitoring system to detect clandestine tests.
  • Test Ban Supporters Welcome Indonesian Ratification of the CTBT: New Momentum for Entry Into Force of 1996 Pact
    Press Room
    December 6, 2011

    (Washington, D. C.) Today,  the Indonesian parliament approved the ratification of the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which bans all nuclear weapons test explosions and establishes a global system for detecting and deterring clandestine test explosions.
  • The Test Ban and the 1956 Election
    Arms Control Today
    December 2, 2011

    Barry H. Steiner is a professor of political science at California State University, Long Beach, where he has taught since 1968. Specializing in war and peace studies, he has worked on nuclear strategy, preventive diplomacy, arms races, and arms control. He gratefully acknowledges the comments of Lawrence D. Weiler on an earlier version of this article.
  • Science Replaces Nuclear Tests
    Issue Briefs
    November 2, 2011

    Volume 2, Issue 14, November 3, 2011

    A front-page story in today’s Washington Post (“Supercomputers Offer Tools for Nuclear Testing--and Solving Nuclear Mysteries”) illustrates how far the U.S. Stockpile Stewardship Program has come since nuclear explosive tests ended in 1992. Scientists at the three U.S. national laboratories now have a deeper understanding of nuclear weapons than ever before.
  • The Reykjavik Summit 25 Years Later: Resources from Arms Control Today
    Press Room
    October 7, 2011

    (Washington, D.C.) – Twenty-five years ago this month, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev met in Reykjavik, Iceland and moved to the verge of an agreement to rid the world of nuclear weapons.

    In their article, “Reykjavik: When Abolition Was Within Reach,” in the October issue of Arms Control Today, Thomas Blanton and Svetlana Savranskaya of the National Security Archive at George Washington University delve into primary-source documents to fill out the historical picture of the October 11-12 summit.
  • In Memoriam: Mark O. Hatfield (1922–2011)
    Arms Control Today
    August 30, 2011

    Mark O. Hatfield, the former Republican senator from Oregon, died August 7 in Portland at the age of 89. He was a political maverick, a pragmatic idealist who worked across the aisle to take on big issues, including the long-running U.S. war in Vietnam, the insanity of the nuclear arms race, excessive military spending, and the global arms trade.
  • Sorting CTBT Fact From Fiction
    Issue Briefs
    June 20, 2011

    Volume 2, Issue 9, June 20, 2011

    After 1,030 U.S. nuclear test explosions, there is simply no technical or military rationale for the United States to resume nuclear explosive testing. At the same time, it is in the U.S. national security interest to prevent nuclear weapons testing by others.