Nuclear Reset - Program on Strategic Stability Evaluation (POSSE)

Chapter 20. <strong>Nuclear</strong> Testing381ification. On the one hand, the level of mutual mistrust betweenthe nuclear powers meant that verification of any agreement in thisregard had to be maximally intrusive. On the other hand, it raisedthe suspicion (natural for such a confrontational relationship) thatsuch measures would be used to obtain sensitive information unrelatedto nuclear detonations but having significance from a nationalsecurity standpoint. In particular, during the negotiations, the numberof automatic seismic monitoring stations to be installed withinthe borders of the nuclear powers to allow detection of undergroundnuclear detonations and the number of on-site inspections to be conductedin cases of suspected violations of the test ban ended up beinginsurmountable obstacles. The Soviet Union was prepared to allowa maximum of three stations and three inspections per year, whilethe United States insisted on seven stations and seven inspections.A separate problem was presented by the technical limitationsof such controls. Even the substantially enhanced monitoring systemsused today have a certain “threshold” limit that precludes credible detectionof small nuclear detonations and identification of the precisenature of each incident detected. On-site inspections offered an additionalmeans for detecting and thus deterring violations, but forthem to be effective, each suspicious event had to be registered andits location pinpointed with reasonable accuracy, which was limitedby the capabilities of the monitoring equipment.The third problem was the absence of any ability to reliably differentiatebetween test detonations of nuclear weapons and nucleardetonations conducted for peaceful purposes, the idea of whichat the time had quite broad support.Behind these three rather difficult issues underlay yet perhapsthe most important problem of all: the unwillingness of the nuclearpowers to halt their national nuclear weapon development programs,based both on suspicions that the other side had a hidden advantagein nuclear weapons that could only be eliminated through testing,and on the outright hope of gaining an advantage in the next lapof the nuclear arms race.These eventually forced the negotiations on full and universalprohibition of nuclear tests into a dead end. Doubtless, the flare-upsin tensions between the East and the West caused by such incidentsas violations of the Soviet air space by U.S. reconnaissanceaircraft, the Cuban Missile Crisis, etc., provided an additional negativeinfluence.