October 18, 1999
Web posted at: 12:41 p.m. EDT (1641 GMT)

You would think the Senate had voted to launch a nuclear weapon. The foreign policy establishment reacted with horror last week when the Senate rejected the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which would ban nuclear tests. Editors were aghast at the "parochial Senators" (the New York Times) who were willing to pay "a risky price...for political points" (the Los Angeles Times). Headlines blared comparisons to the U.S. repudiation of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 and 1920, an isolationist mistake that arguably helped lead to World War II.

Allies were similarly upset. Britain's government was "deeply disappointed"; the Japanese Foreign Minister "extremely concerned." To be sure, there was some justification for the anxiety. It's difficult to dissuade India and Pakistan from testing nukes in each other's backyards if the U.S. won't promise to end testing. "There is a collective sigh of relief in Indian government circles," says Bharat Karnad of the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi. "Jesse Helms [who, as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, led the opposition] has taken India off the hook."

The Senate's action seemed almost cavalier. Debate over the treaty was short and, at times, crassly partisan. (Even G.O.P. arms-control expert Brent Scowcroft called it "pathetic.") And the vote came just a day after relations between India and Pakistan were further soured by the Islamabad coup.

The implications go beyond the subcontinent. "The perception more broadly [is] that we don't know what we're doing," says Bush Administration CIA chief Robert Gates, who opposed the treaty as written but--like many Senators, including many Republicans--favored a delay of the vote over a wholesale rejection. "When you're the only superpower, that's a very dangerous situation to be in, when people around the world... haven't got a clue what you're going to do next."

The treaty's failure could imperil the fate of other pacts. Says William Walker, professor of international relations at St. Andrews University: "If the central world power begins to question the validity of [such] treaties, everything shakes up." It also undermines U.S. credibility in diplomatic circles, leaving nations wondering how much faith they can put in the pledges of a President who pushed for--but couldn't get--treaty approval.

But if passage of the treaty would have been a symbol of the U.S.'s continued moral leadership in a hazardous world, it's important not to overstate the impact of it's defeat. "This thing wasn't going to affect rogue states," a U.S. Navy officer says, "or even nations that pretend to comply." It's a little naive to think a militaristic outsider like North Korea would abandon its mighty efforts to develop nuclear weapons simply because the Senate voted a certain way.

What's more, you don't have to be a Clinton hater to believe there are problems with how the test ban was constructed in the first place. For one thing, it had no cutoff date. Even some former Clinton Administration officials fear there is no way to ensure the effectiveness of U.S. weapons forever without testing them occasionally. A computer program that would monitor weapons in lieu of testing isn't ready, though treaty supporters argue that future Presidents could have pulled out of the treaty if the technology proved faulty.

Another valid point cited by opponents is that compliance with the test ban couldn't be guaranteed. Iraq was deemed to be in compliance with another accord, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, until the Gulf War revealed Baghdad's atomic program.

But saying there were reasons to fault the treaty isn't the same as saying it should have failed outright. In the future, another President--and a new Senate--may be able to dust off the treaty and push it along (it won't take effect until all 44 nuclear-capable states ratify it). But for now, the Clinton Administration must awkwardly try to convince the world that the U.S. will honor the terms of an agreement it just spurned--and hope that others will follow.

--Reported by Massimo Calabresi and Mark Thompson/Washington and Helen Gibson/London

Cover Date: October 25, 1999

• The empire strikes back
• Is It Trick or Treaty?
• Mutually assured destruction
• For McCain, Flak Becomes Fuel

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