Abstract
The previous chapter explored some of the ways that the idea of verification has found expression in the nuclear arena. From the complexities of IAEA safeguards, to the challenges associated with bilateral and international treaties, this brief and eclectic overview of verification-related initiatives provided an insight into the evolution of the concept and its application. Of particular interest here is the fact that the scope of nuclear verification activities carried out under bilateral and international treaties to date has been limited to civil materials and facilities, delivery vehicles for nuclear weapons and the remote identification of nuclear tests. The New START Treaty provided inspectors with “the opportunity to confirm that the actual number of warheads emplaced on a designated missile matches the declared figure at the pre-inspection briefing”, but this did not go beyond visual confirmation.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Rose Gottemoeller, “‘New START Verification’, Remarks Delivered at the United States Institute of Peace” (Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Verification, Compliance and Implementation, July 26, 2010), https://2009-2017.state.gov/t/avc/rls/145126.htm.
- 2.
“National Report Pursuant to Actions 5, 20, and 21 of the NPT Review Conference Final Document, Presented to NPT Prepcom” (United Kingdom , May 2014).
- 3.
Atomic Energy Commission, “Project Cloud Gap and CG-34, Demonstrated Destruction of Nuclear Weapons. Note by the Secretary,” April 12, 1967, https://fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/cloudgap/aec-staff041267.pdf.
- 4.
James Fuller, “Going to Zero: Verifying Nuclear Warhead Dismantlement,” in Cultivating Confidence: Verification, Monitoring and Enforcement for a World Free of Nuclear Weapons, by Corey Hinderstein (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 2010), 127.
- 5.
NTI, “Demonstrated Destruction of Nuclear Weapons,” Field Test Program: Final Report, Volume 1 (Nuclear Threat Initiative, January 1969), https://www.nti.org/media/pdfs/Cloud_Gap_Demonstrated_Destruction_of_Nuclear_Weapons.pdf.
- 6.
David Cliff , Hassan Elbahtimy , and Andreas Persbo , “Verifying Warhead Dismantlement: Past, Present and Future,” Verification Research Reports (London: VERTIC: East West Institute, 2010), 36, https://www.eastwest.ngo/idea/verifying-warhead-dismantlement-past-present-and-future.
- 7.
The Department of Energy, “Transparency and Verification Options,” An Initial Analysis of Approaches for Monitoring Warhead Dismantlement (Office of Arms Control and Nonproliferation, May 19, 1997), https://fas.org/sgp/othergov/doe/dis/.
- 8.
Thomas E. Shea, “The Trilateral Initiative: A Model for the Future,” Arms Control Association, June 11, 2008, https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2008_05/PersboShea.asp%23Sidebar1.
- 9.
IAEA Director General, “Statement to the Forty-Sixth Regular Session of the IAEA General Conference,” IAEA, September 16, 2002, https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/statements/statement-forty-sixth-regular-session-iaea-general-conference.
- 10.
A. Richings, S. McOmish, and P. Thompson, “Nuclear Treaty Verification at AWE , Aldermaston,” IAEA Symposium on International Safeguards, October 2014, 3.
- 11.
John Simpson and Jenny Nielsen, “The 2005 NPT Review Conference: Mission Impossible?,” The Nonproliferation Review 12, no. 2 (2005): 271–301.
- 12.
United Nations , “Implementation of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons: Report Submitted by the People’s Republic of China,” April 2014, 8, http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Disarmament-fora/npt/prepcom14/national-reports/China.pdf.
- 13.
It should be noted that some of the more in-depth findings from several of these studies remain classified and have not been released.
- 14.
Cliff , Elbahtimy , and Persbo , “Verifying Warhead Dismantlement: Past, Present and Future,” 2010.
- 15.
John D. Steinbruner, Principles of Global Security (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2000), 38.
- 16.
Ploughshares Fund, “World Nuclear Weapon Stockpiles,” March 2, 2016, http://www.ploughshares.org/world-nuclear-stockpile-report.
- 17.
Ibid.
- 18.
Brookings Institute, “50 Facts About U.S. Nuclear Weapons Today,” Brookings Institute, April 28, 2014, https://www.brookings.edu/research/50-facts-about-u-s-nuclear-weapons-today/.
- 19.
“The B61 (MK-61) Bomb,” Nuclear Weapons Archive, January 9, 2007, http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Weapons/B61.html.
- 20.
Hans Kristensen and Robert Norris, “Dismantling U.S. Nuclear Warheads,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 60, no. 1 (January 2004): 73.
- 21.
U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment, “Dismantling the Bomb and Managing the Nuclear Materials” (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, September 1993), 37.
- 22.
Ibid., 38.
- 23.
Ibid.
- 24.
Ibid.
- 25.
Ibid., 18.
- 26.
Ibid., 38.
- 27.
The Department of Energy, “Transparency and Verification Options,” 29.
- 28.
U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment, “Dismantling the Bomb and Managing the Nuclear Materials,” 39.
- 29.
The Department of Energy, “Transparency and Verification Options,” 6.
- 30.
U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment, “Dismantling the Bomb and Managing the Nuclear Materials,” 10–11.
- 31.
Cliff , Elbahtimy , and Persbo , “Verifying Warhead Dismantlement: Past, Present and Future,” 2010, 88.
- 32.
Matthew Bunn and Scott Sagan, A Worst Practices Guide to Insider Threats: Lessons from Past Mistakes (Cambridge, MA: American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2014).
- 33.
Cliff , Elbahtimy , and Persbo , “Verifying Warhead Dismantlement: Past, Present and Future,” 2010, 30.
- 34.
NTI, “Demonstrated Destruction of Nuclear Weapons,” 76.
- 35.
Onsite inspections were an issue of intense debate in the negotiation of many early arms control treaties, with the United States and the Soviet Union frequently adopting opposing and incompatible positions due to issues that included distrust and broader politics. For a discussion of the politics and verification during the Cold War see Lowenthal and Wit, “Politics, Verification and Arms Control”; Nancy Gallagher, “The Politics of Verification: Why ‘how Much?’ Is Not Enough,” Contemporary Security Policy 18, no. 2 (1997): 138–70.
- 36.
Müller, “The Evolution of Verification: Lessons from the Past for the Present,” 1993, 340.
- 37.
Ibid., 349.
- 38.
Ibid.
- 39.
Jonathan B. Tucker, “Viewpoint: Verifying a Multilateral Ban on Nuclear Weapons: Lessons from the CWC,” The Nonproliferation Review 5 (1998): 87.
- 40.
NTI, “Demonstrated Destruction of Nuclear Weapons,” 43.
- 41.
Ibid., 76.
- 42.
Ibid., 105.
- 43.
Ibid., 87.
- 44.
Cliff , Elbahtimy , and Persbo , “Verifying Warhead Dismantlement: Past, Present and Future,” 2010, 87.
- 45.
Ibid., 33.
- 46.
Steve Fetter et al., “Detecting Nuclear Warheads,” Science and Global Security 1, no. 3–4 (1990): 226.
- 47.
Steve Fetter, “Verifying Nuclear Disarmament” (Washington, DC: Henry L. Stimson Center, October 1996), 10.
- 48.
Perkovich and Acton , “Abolishing Nuclear Weapons.”
- 49.
Brian Anderson et al., “Verification of Nuclear Weapon Dismantlement,” Peer Review of the UK MoD Programme (British Pugwash Group, November 2012), http://britishpugwash.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/BPG-Verification-Report.pdf.
- 50.
Thomas E. Shea and Laura Rockwood, “IAEA Verification of Fissile Material in Support of Nuclear Disarmament,” Managing the Atom Project (Cambridge, MA: Belfer Center, May 2015), 7, http://www.belfercenter.org/sites/default/files/legacy/files/iaeaverification.pdf?
- 51.
Alexander Glaser, Boaz Barak, and Robert J. Goldston, “A Zero-Knowledge Protocol for Nuclear Warhead Verification,” Nature 510, no. 7506 (June 2014): 498.
- 52.
Glaser, Barak, and Goldston, “A Zero-Knowledge Protocol for Nuclear Warhead Verification.”
- 53.
Alexander Glaser, Boaz Barak, and Robert J. Goldston, “A New Approach to Nuclear Warhead Verification Using a Zero-Knowledge Protocol” (53rd Annual INMM Meeting, Institute of Nuclear Materials Management, Orlando, FL, July 15, 2012), 3.
- 54.
Glaser, Barak, and Goldston, “A Zero-Knowledge Protocol for Nuclear Warhead Verification,” 497–502.
- 55.
Cliff , Elbahtimy , and Persbo , “Verifying Warhead Dismantlement: Past, Present and Future,” 2010, 65.
- 56.
Ibid., 55.
- 57.
Eric Gerdes, Roger Johnston, and James E. Doyle, “A Proposed Approach for Monitoring Nuclear Warhead Dismantlement,” Science and Global Security 9, no. 2 (2001): 115.
- 58.
Ibid., 122.
- 59.
Cliff , Elbahtimy , and Persbo , “Verifying Warhead Dismantlement: Past, Present and Future,” 2010, 68.
- 60.
Ibid., 71.
- 61.
Ibid., 74.
- 62.
Ibid., 78.
- 63.
Ministry of Defence, “The United Kingdom – Norway Initiative: Research Into the Verification of Nuclear Warhead Dismantlement,” The 2010 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (New York: Ministry of Defence, May 3, 2010), 19, https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/28426/npt_revcon_2010_jwp.pdf.
- 64.
“The UK – Norway Initiative: Report on the UKNI Non Nuclear Weapon States Workshop,” 3.
- 65.
Cliff , Elbahtimy , and Persbo , “Verifying Warhead Dismantlement: Past, Present and Future,” 2010, 89–90.
- 66.
Ibid., 73.
- 67.
“The United Kingdom – Norway Initiative: Further Research into Managed Access of Inspectors During Warhead Dismantlement Verification” (Ministry of Defence, March 31, 2010), 3, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-norway-initiative-on-nuclear-warhead-dismantlement-verification.
- 68.
Ibid., 4.
- 69.
Ibid.
- 70.
Ibid.
- 71.
Ibid., 11.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Bowen, W.Q., Elbahtimy, H., Hobbs, C., Moran, M. (2018). Nuclear Warhead Dismantlement Verification: Opportunities and Challenges. In: Trust in Nuclear Disarmament Verification. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40988-7_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40988-7_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-40987-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-40988-7
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)