TRANSPARENCY OF REDUCTIONS IN PIT MANUFACTURING CAPACITY

Manufacturing of plutonium pit components is a critical step of the nuclear weapon production cycle. It is not possible without highly specialized equipment and skills and it must be conducted in safe and secure facilities that require considerable time and resources to establish. Irreversible closure of excess pit manufacturing capacities is therefore an important element of the effort to downsize the nuclear warhead production complexes in the United States and Russia after the Cold War. The United States has already terminated the production of plutonium components at the Rocky Flats Plant. Russia has announced plans to phase out nuclear weapons work in Seversk. Monitoring of these facilities to confirm that they no longer manufacture plutonium pit components and subassemblies and to assure that production cannot resume quickly would be a meaningful transparency and confidence-building measure. It also would provide valuable experience for implementing transparency measures at shutdown facilities in other nuclear-weapon states in the future. This report explores possible approaches to monitoring and closure of the Seversk facility and discusses anticipated difficulties of negotiating and implementing such a transparency regime.