Nuclear Non-proliferation and Arms Control Verification by Irmgard Niemeyer & Mona Dreicer & Gotthard Stein

Author:Irmgard Niemeyer & Mona Dreicer & Gotthard Stein
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030295370
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

2 Confirming Numerical Limits on Declared Nuclear Warheads

Procedures and techniques to confirm upper limits on the number of nuclear warheads will become a key verification objective should future arms control agreements place limits on the total number of nuclear weapons in the arsenals. Verifying such agreements would then require the ability for inspectors to “count” individual warheads (rather than launchers). In principle, this can be accomplished by tagging treaty-accountable items with unique identifiers (UIDs), which transforms a numerical limit into a ban on untagged items [1, 2]; but, as further discussed below, this may be difficult to implement in practice because the host may have safety, performance, or other concerns, and inspections would necessarily be highly intrusive.

Depending on the type and deployment status of a nuclear weapon, confirming numerical limits on warheads faces rather different verification challenges. In the following, we distinguish three categories and then focus the discussion on non-deployed warheads, which is the most difficult category to address.

Retired Warheads (and Warhead Components)

In the case of nuclear warheads that are in long-term storage without being moved and are awaiting dismantlement, monitoring could be relatively straightforward and based on standard containment and surveillance (C/S) methods already used by the International Atomic Energy Agency [3]. Treaty-accountable items in this category could also include warhead components in classified or unclassified form. In principle, these items could be placed in containers, which could then be tagged and sealed. Containers may not have to be accessed over long periods of time, and their storage locations may not be considered sensitive.

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