At an EastWest Institute roundtable in New York, Ambassador Thomas Graham, Jr. called for a concerted effort to ensure U.S. ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty as an essential step towards nuclear nonproliferation.

“The CTBT is essential to the long-term viability of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty,” said Graham, a former senior U.S. diplomat involved in every major arms control agreement of the last 30 years. “The NPT may not be able to survive as a viable regime without CTBT entry into force in the reasonably near future.”

Graham was speaking at an EastWest Institute policy roundtable, Prioritizing the Disarmament Agenda, that included discussion about a START follow-on treaty, a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty and security in a post-nuclear-weapon world. It highlighted the complexities of nuclear nonproliferation, especially the tensions between efforts to delegitimize nuclear weapons and recent calls to modernize nuclear arsenals.

Graham praised the Obama Administration’s stated commitment to nuclear nonproliferation. But he warned of a difficult road in the U.S. Senate.

“Passing the CTBT in the U.S. Senate has never been primarily a matter of the merits of the treaty; it largely has been about politics and views about nuclear weapon policy,” he said. “And without U.S. CTBT ratification, the treaty will never come into force.” Graham suggested that the worries about the economic downturn, competing foreign policy demands and polarization in the U.S. Senate would make CTBT ratification difficult. But, he argued, it is a challenge the Obama Administration must take on. “In the end, it is this treaty, if ratified, that will most dramatically affect the arms-control/nonproliferation policy process and the international security system,” he said.

“While the hour is growing late, it is not too late,” Graham said in his concluding remarks. “Success remains possible; all of us must remain committed to arms control and nonproliferation efforts, and we can still build that safer and more secure world that all of us want.”

Click here to read the full text of Graham’s remarks (126K PDF)