The Foreign Service Journal, December 2009

D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 9 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 43 global halt to nuclear weapons testing has been a central, bipartisan national objective of the United States since the late 1950s, when President Dwight Eisenhower sought a comprehensive test ban. Follow- ing the end of the ColdWar, Russia declared a moratorium on testing, followed by France, and then, in 1992, by the United States. The world’s nations finally came together in 1994 to negotiate a comprehensive, verifiable treaty banning nuclear testing in order to help curb the spread of nuclear weapons and ensure an end to superpower nuclear arms competition. F O C U S O N A R M S C O N T R O L T HE C ASE FOR THE CTBT P ROSPECTS FOR RATIFICATION OF THE C OMPREHENSIVE N UCLEAR T EST B AN T REATY ARE MUCH IMPROVED . H ERE IS WHY . B Y D ARYL G. K IMBALL Adam Niklewicz A