Common sense dictates that if you have a nuclear deterrent, you need to verify that it works. If your enemies suspect that it doesn’t (or won’t) work, deterrence fails and nuclear war evolves from a distant threat to a frightening possibility. The United States hasn’t tested a nuclear device since the end of the Cold War. We haven’t designed a new weapon since the introduction of the Peacekeeper missile and it’s powerful Mk-21 warheads during the Reagan administration. And our much-touted alternative to actual nuclear tests, the Reliable Replacement Warhead, was recently cut by the Obama administration, which is plunging ahead with its quest to dismantle the U.S. nuclear arsenal without considering how destabilizing swift, unilateral disarmament would be to the global balance of power. Senator Kyl has been a staunch opponent of President Obama’s myopic, ideologically centered nuclear policy from the get-go. In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, Kyl offered a pragmatic, reasonable justification for sustaining a safe, reliable, and credible nuclear deterrent. On the issue of restricting nuclear testing with the poorly worded Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (which would have the same chilling effect on U.S. military power as the Kyoto Agreement would have had on our economic power), Kyl nails it: