You might think that physicists would tend to oppose the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. After all, physicists first brought the world nuclear weapons. And by banning underground nuclear weapons explosions, the treaty would forbid direct, empirical testing of the devices these scientists helped design: Nuclear explosions would be relegated to the virtual world of computer models in high-security laboratories.
Nevertheless, the American Physical Society and the American Geophysical Union, between them representing most of the country's practicing physicists, and an unprecedented group of 32 Nobel laureates in physics have come out in support of ratification.
The reason is simple: This is not a political issue, or at least it shouldn't be. It is a technical one. And the technical questions are: 1) Can this treaty be adequately verified? 2) Can we maintain the integrity of the U.S. nuclear arsenal without underground testing? 3) Can nonnuclear nations effectively develop thermonuclear weapons without testing?
If the answers are yes to the first two questions, and no to the last, then ratification of the treaty is the only logical alternative. That is, as long as we accept the proposition that we will be more secure if nuclear proliferation is minimized while our own nuclear defense remains vital.
This is precisely the reason that the messages coming from the scientific community are unambiguous.
It has become clear that verification of the type of explosions that might be useful to countries trying to develop substantial fissionable weapons is easily achieved using existing technology under the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty's International Monitoring System. Nonnuclear nations cannot produce a reliable thermonuclear device without testing a device in excess of 10 kilotons.
Since the early 1990s, physicists have been involved in leading the Department of Energy's Stockpile Stewardship Program, which is aimed at maintaining the safety, security and integrity of our nuclear arsenal in the absence of nuclear testing. The general conclusion arising from this program is that we can adequately ensure that our existing weapons remain reliable without continued underground tests.
Since the first nuclear explosion more than 50 years ago, the scientific community has comprised individuals with widely divergent beliefs about the moral legitimacy of building and maintaining a vast nuclear arsenal. Nevertheless, members of this community have continued to help to ensure that this arsenal functions properly, and that nuclear weapons technology does not proliferate. If the proposed test ban treaty posed a threat to the viability of our nuclear program, or enhanced the likelihood that weapons of mass destruction would be more widely accessible, the physics community would be strongly divided at the very least on the issue of its ratification. It is not.
Voters and legislators should wonder why those who are best equipped to assess the vital technical questions associated with the test ban treaty support it. Voters and legislators should also question the possible political motivations of those who object to ratification. Senators who plan to vote against the treaty must either reason that their technical expertise is superior to that of the advisory bodies of major scientific organizations such as the American Physical Society the very individuals who have helped develop and maintain our nuclear weapons program or that it is somehow not to our strategic advantage to limit the spread of nuclear weapons to new nations.
Neither position is tenable. Those who are playing party politics or who may feel that embarrassing a lame-duck president is more important than ensuring a safer future for generations to follow do a disservice to the institution of which they are members and to the voters they claim to represent.
Lawrence Krauss is the Ambrose Swasey Professor of Physics and chairman of the Physics Department at Case Western Reserve University.