At its recent first session, the Russian State Duma passed a bill to revoke the ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. 423 deputies voted unanimously to adopt the document. What does it mean to refuse to ratify it?
 |
There are not one but two Treaties.
The first treaty is called the “Treaty on the Ban of Nuclear Tests in the Atmosphere, in Space and Underwater” (also known as the “Moscow Treaty” after the place where it was signed). It was signed on August 5, 1963 in Moscow.
The parties to the agreement, that is, the initiators, were the Soviet Union, the United States, and Great Britain. The treaty entered into force on October 10, 1963, and today has 131 member states.
It is important to note that signing the Treaty is only half the story; the most important documents must be ratified, that is, approved at the highest legislative and executive levels of the signatory country. That is, the competent person of the State (President/Chairman, Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs) signs the document. But for the Treaty to come into force, it needs to be ratified by the National Assembly as a law.
The parliament votes to ratify the treaty and thereby confirms that the state is committed to complying with the provisions of this Treaty. Ratification is formalized by a special document called an instrument of ratification. In the Moscow Treaty, the Soviet Union, the United States and Great Britain are the depositaries. The countries that are parties to the Treaty respectively transmit their instruments of ratification to Moscow, Washington or London.
There is a point to note here. Accession to a treaty of this type is a two-stage process, so there may be countries that have signed but not ratified it. For example, the Moscow Treaty was not signed by China, France, North Korea, South Korea and Israel. The Treaty is flawed in principle, due to the fact that some countries intended to acquire nuclear weapons and did not sign it.
The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty was then born - a multilateral international treaty that prohibits nuclear weapons test explosions and any other nuclear explosions for civilian or military purposes anywhere.
This treaty was no longer initiated by a few countries but was adopted at the 50th session of the United Nations General Assembly on September 10, 1996 and signed on September 24, 1996. This treaty was prepared much more carefully, because one of its annexes clearly defined the list of 44 countries capable of manufacturing nuclear weapons and atomic energy.
By 2023, the Treaty had been signed by 187 countries and ratified by 178 of them.
But the question is not who signed, but who did not sign. It was stated above that one of the conditions for the Treaty to enter into force is that each of the 44 countries listed in Annex 2 must sign and ratify the Treaty.
This list did not come out of thin air. The list of 44 countries was compiled by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) based on the presence of countries operating nuclear power reactors on their territory at the time the Treaty was signed.
Everything is clear: if there is a nuclear reactor, there is a possibility of obtaining plutonium for making weapons, which means that it is theoretically possible to make nuclear weapons. In fact, many countries have done that.
 |
Of the 44 nuclear-powered states at the time the Treaty was drawn up, only three were not signatories: India, Pakistan and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. That is, the first requirement for the Treaty to enter into force was not met, with only 41 of the 44 states signing.
The number of countries that have ratified the Treaty is even lower, at 36 out of 44. The non-ratifiers include the United States, China, Israel, Iran and Egypt.
The United Nations did not give up. On December 6, 2006, the General Assembly adopted a resolution emphasizing the need for the rapid signing and ratification of the Treaty. 172 countries voted in favor of the resolution, with two countries voting against it: the DPRK and the United States.
So the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty is not in force, which means that it is still essentially a wish. But that is not entirely true, many countries have complied with the terms of the Treaty and have not conducted any tests. The United States has not conducted any tests since 1992. Russia has done the same. It does not matter whether it was a gentlemanly agreement or a sincere one, the important thing is that the parties have complied with the terms of the Treaty.
Russian nuclear tests
Withdrawal of signature is not possible, but what is possible is withdrawal of ratification. Russia will remain a signatory to the Treaty, but in essence, a party to an invalid Treaty.
Between 1949 and 1990, the Soviet Union conducted 715 nuclear tests, using 969 nuclear devices. Of these, 124 were conducted for peaceful purposes.
Most of the testing in the Soviet Union took place at the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site and the Novaya Zemlya archipelago.
On October 30, 1961, the most powerful hydrogen bomb in history - the Tsar Bomba, with a capacity of 58 megatons, exploded at the Novaya Zemlya test center.
The seismic waves created by the explosion traveled three times around the earth and the sound waves reached a distance of 800 km.
At the Semipalatinsk test site, on October 11, 1961, the first underground nuclear explosion was carried out.
 |
The Moscow Treaty “Banning Nuclear Weapons Tests in the Atmosphere, in Space, and Underwater” that came into force at the end of 1963 did not mention underground tests. However, one of the requirements of the Treaty was that radioactive fallout from nuclear explosions in the Earth’s interior must not be allowed to spread beyond the country where the tests were conducted.
Many other tests took place at the Semipalatinsk test site. From 1949 to 1989, 468 nuclear tests were conducted there, of which 616 were detonated by nuclear and thermonuclear devices: 125 atmospheric (26 ground, 91 airborne, 8 high altitude) and 343 underground.
The Semipalatinsk test site was closed on August 29, 1991. Russia was left with only one test site at Novaya Zemlya.
In Novaya Zemlya, from 1955 to 1990, 132 nuclear explosions were carried out, including atmospheric, ground, underwater and underground. In Novaya Zemlya, it was possible to test various nuclear devices.
 |
Nuclear testing in countries
In terms of the number of tests, Russia is not the leader, but the United States. From 1945 to 1992, the United States officially conducted 1054 tests of all types, atmospheric, underground, on the surface, underwater and in space.
Most of the tests were conducted at the Nevada Test Site (NTS), Marshall Islands in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. The last nuclear explosion in the United States occurred at the Nevada Test Site on September 23, 1992. The site has since been shut down but may be reopened.
China conducted 45 nuclear weapons tests (23 in the atmosphere and 22 underground) between 1964 and 1996. Testing stopped in 1996, when China signed the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. Since 2007, by decree of the Chinese government, the Lop Nur nuclear test site has been completely closed and has become a tourist attraction.
France conducted 210 nuclear tests between 1960 and 1996 but not on its own territory: 17 tests were carried out in the Sahara desert, in Algeria (formerly French territory), 46 atmospheric tests and 147 ground and underground tests on the Fangataufa and Mururoa atolls in French Polynesia.
 |
Britain conducted its first test on October 3, 1952, detonating a nuclear device on a ship anchored in the Monte Bello Islands (off the western tip of Australia). In total, Britain conducted 88 nuclear tests between 1952 and 1991.
North Korea has conducted six nuclear tests at the Punggye-ri nuclear test site.
India conducted its first test in 1974. By 1998, five underground nuclear explosions had been conducted at a test site in the Rajasthan desert, near the city of Pokhran. Since then, India was officially declared a nuclear power, but two days later Delhi announced its rejection of further tests.
Pakistan was not far behind its rival. On May 28, 1998, it detonated five underground bombs and another on May 30.
 |
What good would it do for Russia to withdraw ratification of the Treaty?
Nuclear weapons have very different properties from conventional weapons. A conventional bullet can sit quietly in a dry warehouse for decades without losing its lethality.
But in a nuclear device, complex radioactive decay processes are constantly occurring. That is, over time, the isotopic composition of the charge changes and it can degrade to some extent.
Nowadays, many media in unfriendly countries often say that Russia is a giant with feet of clay, and the army that has made everyone afraid for the past 30 years is far from perfect.
Accordingly, Russia's nuclear potential is also facing the same problems as the Russian military in general. The missiles were made in the Soviet era, the warheads were also made in the same era, so there is reason to suspect that Russia's nuclear capabilities are just potential, like the "Rustic Sword of the Soviet era". The plutonium is old and it is no longer possible to create new ammunition from it because it has changed its isotopic properties.
 |
Such an idea could undermine Russia's already low power. Russia used to be feared by the West, but now it is much less feared. Of course, nuclear power is not to blame here, but something else. But the nuclear shield should be something that threatens Russia's opponents.
Unilaterally waiving the ban is a viable option. The treaty has not yet entered into force, as many countries have not ratified it, so its legal value is low, even though all countries have not conducted tests in the past.
Russia’s unilateral withdrawal from the treaty to inspect its nuclear arsenal is a necessary step regardless of the United States and Europe. Whether the United States starts testing in response becomes irrelevant. And testing a few nuclear-tipped missiles at the Novaya Zemlya test site would do absolutely no harm.
In any case, such actions will of course cause another wave of indignation and condemnation from the world community, the key word here being simply “next” test. But it will allow drawing conclusions about the state of Russia’s nuclear shield.
Source
Comment (0)