Towards an Integrated Open-source Approach to Monitoring States’ Nuclear Research Programmes: Complementing Satellite Imagery with Alternate Open Sources

Safeguards information analysis is, by nature, a multi-source discipline. There is, however, no consistent methodology for the assessment and continual monitoring and verification of states’ compliance with their safeguards obligations. Our work in this paper builds on more than a decade of our team’s contributions to safeguards-relevant research in order to pursue a holistic approach to the discipline of open-source research, using case studies to highlight the unification of method. The paper takes as its principal case study CRNB, the initially undeclared Algerian facility at Birine, with other safeguarded facilities, such as CENM, the Moroccan facility at Maâmora, serving for comparison. The paper seeks to examine the facilities’ development in comparative historical context and in terms of present utilisation. In doing so, particular emphasis is placed on the method by which satellite imagery is to be properly reconciled with (a) ground-based imagery, and (b) social media and other open sources. It will be demonstrated that in both cases a technically literate, multi-lingual, historically informed approach is required if appropriate, accurate analysis is to be produced. An assessment cannot be produced from satellite imagery alone, but must also be informed by, inter alia, the profile of research emanating from the facility; historical data yielded by social media posts (e.g. Facebook and LinkedIn profiles); and multilingual text and visual sources. Drawing together these disparate lines of enquiry in an appropriate and cohesive manner can yield valuable insights in support of safeguards information analysis. Results of this kind can serve several purposes: they represent a contribution to benchmarking for future new nuclear states’ research and development endeavours; they can help direct contemporary safeguards analyses; and they form useful cases for the incorporation of new methods, sources and techniques into a unified methodological whole. The ultimate objective is to shift away from a view of open-source research as simply a selective toolkit, towards a more integrated methodology for addressing specific research tasks.