World Condemns U.S. Vote to Reject Test-Ban Treaty

The United States wants to enjoy all the might that comes from being the world’s only superpower without exercising any of the responsibility, governments around the globe complained Thursday, a day after the Senate voted against ratifying a nuclear test-ban treaty.

Russia and the United States’ strongest allies led the chorus of alarm and disapproval, warning that Wednesday’s vote could undermine the fragile structure of post-Cold War arms control and launch a new kind of nuclear weapons race in which developing nations and so-called rogue states seek to acquire the bomb.

“This decision delivers a serious blow to the entire system of agreements in the field of nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation,” said Vladimir O. Rakhmanin, spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry.

The U.S. vote is “absolutely wrong” and “highly regrettable,” said German Defense Minister Rudolf Scharping.

Outgoing NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana called it “very sad for the future, very sad for peace, very sad for proliferation.” And U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan voiced his regret over the decision, a spokesman said.

Senators rejected the treaty, which aims to reduce the development of nuclear weapons by banning testing, by a highly partisan vote of 51 to 48; under the Constitution, the treaty required 67 yes votes to be ratified. Opponents cited concerns about whether seismic tests and other forms of monitoring would be adequate to detect cheaters and warned that the United States would be unable to maintain and modernize its nuclear arsenal.

Three crucial U.S. allies--British Prime Minister Tony Blair, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and French President Jacques Chirac--had joined forces to plead in favor of the treaty, stressing that it includes a strict system of global surveillance.

“The perception here is one of disbelief,” said Andrew Brooks, a defense analyst at London’s International Institute for Strategic Studies. “This is the chance for the biggest superpower to freeze the nuclear mechanisms, and [it is] behaving like a small child.”

Pavel Felgenhauer, an influential military analyst for the Sevodnya newspaper in Moscow, warned that the Senate vote plays into the hands of “military hawks and advocates of reviving Russia’s nuclear might.” It gives nuclear wannabes such as Iraq, Iran and North Korea a “green light” to go ahead with weapons programs, he said.

“In a few more years, the number of nuclear powers will exceed a dozen,” Felgenhauer said. “If that happens, no one should have any doubt that the decision of the U.S. Senate was a direct cause.”

At the moment, the world has five major nuclear states: the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France. India and Pakistan have both conducted nuclear tests demonstrating that they have the ability to make weapons. Israel is widely suspected to possess nuclear arms.

Russia, China and India said Thursday that, for the time being, they will continue to abide by their public pledges to not conduct nuclear tests. But after the Senate vote, it was clear that such commitments have become provisional.

“A certain country is pursuing its nuclear deterrence policy based on first use of nuclear weapons while vigorously developing its missile defense systems to the detriment of the strategic balance,” complained Shen Guofang, China’s deputy permanent representative to the United Nations. “It also wantonly resorts to threats to use force in international relations.”

To take effect, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty needs to be ratified by legislatures in the 44 countries that have some degree of nuclear capability. So far 26 have ratified the treaty; others were waiting for the United States to act first.

Three worrisome nuclear-capable nations--India, Pakistan and North Korea--have refused to sign, apparently to avoid putting their programs under international scrutiny. Last year, India and Pakistan raised fears of an Asian nuclear confrontation by setting off a series of dueling underground tests. The United States has been working closely with North Korea to ensure that it does not use nuclear power plants to develop weapons-grade nuclear fuel.

“We will have to be especially watchful of the reactions in North Korea, India and Pakistan,” warned Goetz Neuneck, an analyst with the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy in Hamburg, Germany. “This is the harbinger for a new nuclear arms race.”

Marco Boni, a spokesman for the South African Foreign Ministry, said the timing of the Senate vote was particularly troubling, given this week’s coup in Pakistan.

“What has happened in Pakistan heightens the need for the world to consolidate the solidarity against the use of nuclear weapons,” said Boni, whose country has voluntarily given up its nuclear capability.

The Senate vote also was certain to further delay Russian action on three arms control measures eagerly sought by the United States: approval of a change to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty that would permit development of a missile defense shield, ratification of the 1993 START II strategic arms pact, and negotiations on deeper cuts in nuclear arsenals called for in a proposed START III treaty.

The speaker of Russia’s lower house of parliament, Gennady N. Seleznyov, accused the U.S. of operating by a double standard: “talking about cutting the number of nuclear warheads and banning nuclear tests and at the same time refusing to ratify the fundamental document.”

In Japan, which is the only nation to have experienced a nuclear attack and which now has a constitution banning war, citizens said they hoped the Senate would reconsider. “Rejection could lead the U.S. to develop nuclear weapons further,” said Hitoshi Hamasaki, 68, an atomic bomb survivors group leader in Nagasaki.

While the Senate vote dealt a severe blow to the test-ban treaty, it was not immediately clear whether it would sink the pact. The new secretary-general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, George Robertson of Britain, expressed hope that the Senate will change its mind.

“We’ve got to persuade the American Congress that this is in the interests not just of international security but also of the United States,” Robertson said as he was sworn in Thursday at NATO headquarters in Brussels.

In Washington, meanwhile, the political establishment was attempting to grasp the stunning conclusion that President Clinton may have lost more than a cornerstone of his foreign policy agenda.

The vote “shows President Clinton doesn’t have the ability to persuade the Senate on national security issues,” said Lee Hamilton, who was one of the most respected foreign policy voices in Congress before his retirement from the House last year.

Clinton made a spirited rhetorical counterattack at a news conference Thursday, describing himself as locked in “a battle with the new isolationists in the Congress” and vowing that the test-ban treaty will eventually pass.

But such rhetoric is unlikely to polish the United States’ reputation, now tarnished among allies and enemies alike.

“In a real sense, this vote places the United States in the position of becoming a rogue state,” said Joseph Cirincione, who tracks arms control issues at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

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Times staff writers Richard Boudreaux in Rome, Henry Chu in Beijing, John-Thor Dahlburg in Paris, Sonni Efron in Tokyo, Tyler Marshall in Washington, Dean E. Murphy in Johannesburg, Carol J. Williams in Berlin and John J. Goldman at the United Nations and Times researcher Janet Stobart in London contributed to this report.