Western States Legal Foundation Information Bulletin Fall 1999 Reclaiming the Comprehensive Test Ban: A Step on the Road to Elimination of Nuclear Weapons

(CTBT). This vote marked a watershed moment in the history of arms control, strongly signaling to the world that the United States has little interest in elimination of nuclear weapons. The intention of the United States to pursue nuclear advantage rather than nuclear abolition was made manifest not only in the vote itself, but in the debate which preceded it. The Clinton administration, and its allies in the Senate, portrayed the CTBT not as a step along the road to nuclear disarmament but as a means to preserve the decisive technological advantage in nuclear weaponry held by the United States and as a means to prevent non-nuclear weapons states from acquiring nuclear weapons. But in the view of most of the peoples and nations of the world, the CTBT was supposed to be, first and foremost, a disarmament treaty. It was supposed to cut off the modernization and development of nuclear weapons and lead to their deterioration and eventual elimination. That is why people everywhere have worked tirelessly since the ‘Ban the Bomb ’ days in the 1950's to end nuclear testing. That is why most of the world’s countries have made the CTBT their top disarmament priority in international negotiating forums. And that is why the vast majority of Americans support the CTBT today. In international treaty forums, the United States has acknowledged that the CTBT is supposed to be a step along the road to elimination of nuclear weapons, rather than a means to preserve the nuclear oligopoly fo