Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Failure

An empirical research design is proposed to investigate why the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) failed the ratification vote in the United States on 13 October 1999 (Raum, 1999). For all those people who have been in a coma for the past several years, the CTBT is a broad-based treaty that was aggressively negotiated by the United States. The treaty is designed to halt nuclear weapons development by preventing the testing of nuclear explosive devices. The CTBT, thus, represents a companion strategy to attempts to stop nuclear weapons proliferation to those countries that have not already developed a nuclear weapons capacity.

A few important countries, notably among them China, have failed to sign the CTBT because the believe that it is simply a strategy designed by the United States to perpetuate its dominance among the very few nuclear powers that are known to exist. Hawkish members of the United States Senate who routinely advocate the use of massive retaliation against any country that fails to toe the party line advocated by the United States also opposed the CTBT. As usual, therefore, the ultra conservatives in both communist and western states have more in common with one another than they do with persons in either type of society who would like to rid the world of the scourge of nuclear weapons.

As the vote against the CTBT failed on a near exclusive partisan vote, the temptation is to conclude

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ues. The Importance of the Issue to Be Investigated The issue of the ratification of the CTBT is important in relation to both the safety of the world's population and the ability of the United States to influence world affairs (Kimball, 1999). The proposed research would yield important new information to explain why politicians frequently can afford to ignore strong voter support on a specific issue without suffering a loss of support among voters. A Review of Relevant Literature The CTBT was defeated in the ratification vote in the United States Senate of 18 October 1999. In the less than three months that have elapsed since that vote, no research studies have been published on the issue. Companion treaties such as the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty are relevant to the dispute over the CTBT. There are a number of treaties already in effect that govern activities related to nuclear weapons. These existing treaties are relevant to the CTBT. The most important of these existing treaties in relation to the CTBT is the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). The NPT became effective in March 1970 for a 25-year period following ratification by 178 nations. The NPT was re-negotiated and renewed at a conference attended by 175
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Approximate Word count = 3464
Approximate Pages = 14 (250 words per page)

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