The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty


Book Description

A brief historical and analytical understanding of the difficulties encountered in negotiating and implementing the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and their implications for efforts to halt the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Includes full text of the treaty and supplementary materials.




Research Required to Support Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Monitoring


Book Description

On September 24, 1996, President Clinton signed the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty at the United Nations Headquarters. Over the next five months, 141 nations, including the four other nuclear weapon statesâ€"Russia, China, France, and the United Kingdomâ€"added their signatures to this total ban on nuclear explosions. To help achieve verification of compliance with its provisions, the treaty specifies an extensive International Monitoring System of seismic, hydroacoustic, infrasonic, and radionuclide sensors. This volume identifies specific research activities that will be needed if the United States is to effectively monitor compliance with the treaty provisions.




The Nuclear Ban Treaty


Book Description

The contributors to this book describe, discuss, and evaluate the normative reframing brought about by the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (the Ban Treaty), taking you on a journey through its genesis and negotiation history to the shape of the emerging global nuclear order. Adopted by the United Nations on 7 July 2017, the Ban Treaty came into effect on 22 January 2021. For advocates and supporters, weapons that were always immoral are now also illegal. To critics, it represents a profound threat to the stability of the existing global nuclear order with the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty as the normative anchor. As the most significant leap in nuclear disarmament in fifty years and a rare case study of successful state-civil society partnership in multilateral diplomacy, the Ban Treaty challenges the established order. The book’s contributors are leading experts on the Ban Treaty, including senior scholars, policymakers and civil society activists. A vital guide to the Ban Treaty for students of nuclear disarmament, arms control and diplomacy as well as for policymakers in those fields.




Eisenhower, Science Advice, and the Nuclear Test-Ban Debate, 1945-1963


Book Description

Based on extensive research in government archives and private papers, this book analyzes the secret debate within the Eisenhower administration over the pursuit of a nuclear test-ban agreement. In contrast to much recent scholarship, this study concludes that Eisenhower strongly desired to reach an accord with the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom to cease nuclear weapons testing. For Eisenhower, a test ban would ease Cold War tensions, slow the nuclear arms race, and build confidence toward disarmament; however, he faced continual resistance from his early scientific advisers, most notably Lewis L. Strauss and Edward Teller. Extensive research into previously unavailable government archival sources and collections of private manuscripts reveals the manipulative acts of test-ban opponents and other factors that inhibited Eisenhower s actions throughout his presidency. Meticulously analyzed, these sources underscore Eisenhower's dependence on the counsel of his science advisors, such as Strauss, James R. Killian, and George B. Kistiakowsky, to determine the course he pursued in regard to several components of his national security strategy. In addition to its comprehensive analysis of the test-ban debate, this book makes important contributions to the scholarly literature assessing Eisenhower's leadership and his approach to arms control. "




Comprehensive Nuclear Test-ban Treaty [ctbt]


Book Description

There Has Been A Lively Debate, For The Last Three Years, On The Question Whether Or Nor India Should Sign The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty [Ctbt]. In Spite Of Great Importance Of The Subject For National Security, The Full Text Of Ctbt Is Not Easily Available. The Present Book Fulfills This Gap. This Will Enable The Experts And The Common Man To Have Better Understanding Of The On-Going Debate On The Subject. The Editor Contends That India Should Not Sign Such A Discriminatory And Inequitable Treaty. Signing Of Such A Treaty Would Hinder India S Efforts To Safeguard Its Security.It Is Hoped That The Book Would Be Of Great Value To The Researchers And Students Of Defence Studies, Parliamentarians, Senior Executives Concerned With Defence And The Common Readers.




Kennedy, Khrushchev and the Test Ban


Book Description

"This is one of the most important books to come from a university press within the last year . . . Seaberg, Nobel Prize laureate, was chairman of the old Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) when the treaty was negotiated. With a decent time interval now past, he has opened the detailed diary he kept during his AEC tenure. Together with auxiliary materials, including interviews with other participants, he has now written an incisive account of events leading up to the treaty and of the negotiations and their successful conclusion."--Christian Science Monitor "Drawn from [Seaberg's] personal journal, this book focuses on Kennedy's quest for a comprehensive test ban and on why, 'despite some near misses, this glittering prize, which carried with it the opportunity to arrest the viciously spiralling arms race, eluded our grasp.' More than a memoir, the book draws upon documents and observations of other key participants .. . It also provides insights into Kennedy and his Administration as well as giving us the substance of the nuclear test ban debate. Mr. Seaberg is refreshingly fair in his assessment of the merits and failures of the limited treaty that Kennedy achieved."--New York Times "A detailed and absorbing history of what seems, in retrospect, the innocent and halcyon days of nuclear arms control. Seaberg rightly lays claim to having been an 'insider' in the test ban negotiations, and his first-person account benefits from close friendship with other Kennedy insiders . . . As might be expected, the book is most interesting for the light it throws upon the thoughts and actions of Kennedy; a surprise is its insight, reflected through the eyes of Kennedy and Harriman, into the personality of Khrushchev. . . Implicit in Seaborg's portrait of Khrushchev is a view which perhaps had some currency in the Kennedy administration but more recently seems to have fallen out of vogue--that it is possible to deal with the Russians."--Washington Post




Forensic Seismology and Nuclear Test Bans


Book Description

With the signing in 1996 of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, interest has grown in forensic seismology: the application of seismology to nuclear test ban verification. This book, based on over 50 years of experience in forensic seismology research, charts the development of methods of seismic data analysis. Topics covered include: the estimation of seismic magnitudes, travel-time tables and epicentres; seismic signal processing; and the use of seismometer arrays. Fully illustrated with seismograms from explosions and earthquakes, the book demonstrates methods and problems of visual analysis. Each chapter provides exercises to help the reader familiarise themselves with practical issues in the field of forensic seismology, and figures and solutions to exercises are also available online. The book is a key reference work for academic researchers and specialists in the area of forensic seismology and Earth structure, and will also be valuable to postgraduates in seismology and solid earth geophysics.




Winning and Losing the Nuclear Peace


Book Description

The definitive guide to the history of nuclear arms control by a wise eavesdropper and masterful storyteller, Michael Krepon. The greatest unacknowledged diplomatic achievement of the Cold War was the absence of mushroom clouds. Deterrence alone was too dangerous to succeed; it needed arms control to prevent nuclear warfare. So, U.S. and Soviet leaders ventured into the unknown to devise guardrails for nuclear arms control and to treat the Bomb differently than other weapons. Against the odds, they succeeded. Nuclear weapons have not been used in warfare for three quarters of a century. This book is the first in-depth history of how the nuclear peace was won by complementing deterrence with reassurance, and then jeopardized by discarding arms control after the Cold War ended. Winning and Losing the Nuclear Peace tells a remarkable story of high-wire acts of diplomacy, close calls, dogged persistence, and extraordinary success. Michael Krepon brings to life the pitched battles between arms controllers and advocates of nuclear deterrence, the ironic twists and unexpected outcomes from Truman to Trump. What began with a ban on atmospheric testing and a nonproliferation treaty reached its apogee with treaties that mandated deep cuts and corralled "loose nukes" after the Soviet Union imploded. After the Cold War ended, much of this diplomatic accomplishment was cast aside in favor of freedom of action. The nuclear peace is now imperiled by no less than four nuclear-armed rivalries. Arms control needs to be revived and reimagined for Russia and China to prevent nuclear warfare. New guardrails have to be erected. Winning and Losing the Nuclear Peace is an engaging account of how the practice of arms control was built from scratch, how it was torn down, and how it can be rebuilt.




Nuclear Test Ban


Book Description

Nuclear tests have caused public concern ever since the first such test was conducted, more than six decades ago. During the Cold War, however, con- tions were not conducive to discussing a complete ban on nuclear testing. It was not until 1993 that negotiations on such a treaty finally got under way. From then on, things moved relatively quickly: in 1996, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT). To date, the Treaty has been signed by 178 states and ratified by 144, though it has yet to enter into force, as nine out of 44 ‘‘Annex 2 states’’, whose ratification is mandatory, have not heeded the call. Nevertheless, the CTBT verification system is already provisionally operational and has proven its effectiveness. We commend the CTBT organisation in Vienna for its successful efforts to build a verification network. This book is an excellent overview of the evolution of the CTBT and its verification regime. The authors are eminent scholars from the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden who have been intimately involved with the CTBT and its verification agency, the CTBTO Preparatory Commission, from their inc- tion to the present day. They have written a thorough and engaging narrative of the long road that led to the CTBT. Their story will appeal to both the layman and the expert and provide useful lessons for future negotiations on disarmament issues.




Monitoring Underground Nuclear Explosions


Book Description

Monitoring Underground Nuclear Explosions focuses on the checking of underground nuclear explosions, including the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTB), seismological stations, earthquake-source models, and seismicity. The publication first elaborates on test-ban negotiations, nuclear explosions, seismological background, and explosions and earthquakes as seismic sources. Concerns cover comparison between explosion-source and earthquake-source models, theoretical calculation of seismic waves, earth structure, seismicity, nuclear test activities, bomb designs, and disarmament treaties. The manuscript then tackles seismological stations, detection, event definition and location, depth estimation, and identification. Topics include multistation discriminants, statistical aspects, long-period and short-period signals, near distances, location by a network of stations, international data exchange, station detection capabilities, and station networks. The book examines the monitoring of a comprehensive test-ban treaty, nonseismological identification, evasion, peaceful nuclear explosions, and yield estimation. The text is a dependable reference for researchers interested in the monitoring of underground nuclear explosions.




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