Verification Is Possible: Lessons From The Trilateral Initiative For Today

Non-proliferation and arms control face new challenges in the 21st century, characterised by changing geopolitics and new technologies, including advances in cyber capabilities. As arms control treaties are abrogated and future reductions in fissile material stockpiles look bleak, the question of verification places more prominently. While innovative approaches are needed to ensure the veracity of tomorrow’s agreements, the past offers important lessons. The Trilateral Initiative, a collaboration between the United States, the Russian Federation and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is one such programme. The Trilateral Initiative was born as a feasibility study in 1996 to determine how excess, weapons-usable nuclear material could be removed from US and Russian defence programmes and placed under permanent monitoring by the IAEA without revealing proliferation-sensitive information. It is a perfect case study of what is possible. During the Trilateral Initiative, the Joint Working Group developed a workable model for the verification of plutonium removed from defence programmes that protected sensitive aspects of the material, as well as nine drafts of a model verification agreement to underpin the legal aspects. Rather than serious challenges to the substance of the Trilateral Initiative’s work, the effort was ceased due to changing political tides in the United States and Russia. However, in the years after 2002, the scientific community continued to develop the technical methodology, including a prototype “Attribute Verification System with Information Barrier for Plutonium with Classified Characteristics utilizing Neutron Multiplicity Counting and High-Resolution Gamma-ray Spectrometry” or AVNG. In 2009, the prototype was demonstrated to the satisfaction of American and Russian security forces. Now, more than 10 years later, it is time to recall the lessons of the Trilateral Initiative and apply them to today’s threat environment. This paper will detail the important lessons from the Trilateral Initiative, including the significance of ongoing work at the technical level so that agreements can be executed when political will is present, the importance of proper programme management and an analysis of how models like the Trilateral Initiative can be adapted to today’s issues, including those concerning cybersecurity.