NUCLEAR TEST BAN TREATY FAILURE: RESEARCH DESIGN
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 that it is just 1990s American politics as usual in Washington, DC, with the Republican-controlled Congress exploiting opportunities where they are available to pin a defeat on President Clinton to assuage their collective bruised ego for the many times they have ended up shooting themselves in their collective foot. If the issue were so easily assessed, this report could be ended at this point. Unfortunately, the issue of why the CTBT failed the ratification vote in th...