Towards A Robust And Efficient Nuclear Disarmament Verification Concept

A comprehensive verification regime will presumably being an integral part of a potential future nuclear disarmament treaty. This requirement has triggered research and development efforts on technologies for nuclear disarmament verification. Although many of these had been extensively used in nuclear safeguards, their application for disarmament verification is challenged by the requirement not to disclose any sensitive information. This has led to developing information barriers, encryption methodologies and authentication procedures for the measurement devices resulting in quite complex and time-consuming technologies. Moreover, their applicability to nuclear warheads prior to their dismantlement may be questionable due to security and safety restrictions of the nuclear weapon states.Currently concepts for combining various technologies in a nuclear disarmament verification strategy as robust and efficient as possible are still missing. Major, albeit partially conflicting objectives of such concepts should include gaining high confidence, limiting inspection efforts to a feasible and economically acceptable level, achieving two security levels for the chain of custody, and limiting measurements to those stage(s) of the disarmament process, at which they are most effectively applied. Examples are given, how evidence of provenance of a treaty accountable item, redundant and diverse choice of chain of custody technologies and absence and presence attribute measurements can be combined as elements of robust and efficient nuclear disarmament verification strategies.