Nuclear Test Ban Treaty - Essay Example

As the first nation to develop and use nuclear weapons, the United s is in something of a unique position concerning the decisions it makes concerning nuclear weapons proliferation and other nuclear questions in an international sense. For decades, the United States urged fellow countries to sign the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty as a means of discouraging further environmental degradation and arms races throughout the world. However, the fact of the matter is that the emphasis for the United States to encourage banning the testing of nuclear weapons was not ultimately a desire to protect the environment.

Instead, the United States was uniquely interested in maintaining a level of hegemony during the period in question. As a function of this, it is the understanding of this particular analyst that it is incumbent upon the United States to sign the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty as a function of not only preserving the peace of ensuring that more destruction to the global environment is not affected.

Ultimately, the desire not to sign the treaty is based upon the understanding that the United States can withhold this action as potential leverage in the face of an international crisis. What is meant by this is that during a time in which great powers might conflict, the United States might very well choose this particular period to test particular new and devastating nuclear weapons. This would likely be done as a means of sending a signal and not necessarily concerning seeking to understand the scientific properties behind the physics which allows the weapon to work.

Another rationale for why the United States should sign the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty has to do with the fact that the physical path of nuclear weapons is no longer required in an era in which supercomputers can provide extraordinarily salient and effective projections for the healed and megaton power they nuclear weapon can deliver. Whereas a fledgling nation that has only recently developed nuclear weapons might wish not to sign the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the United States should; because every nation on earth is fully cognizant of the United States' nuclear weapons potential and the fact that it could destroy the earth many times over with its nuclear weapons stockpile (Graham, 2014).