Section 4 Questions

Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)

Conference on Disarmament

General Assembly First Committee

UN Disarmament Commission

Special Session on Disarmament

4. Considerations of Complete Nuclear

Disarmament: Materials, Facilities, Warheads, and Delivery Systems

Questions

What are the elements of a regime to verify a ban on fissile materials for weapons purposes?
What materials, in what forms, should be subject to verification?
Who should have access to this information?
How intrusive should the verification regime be?
What combination of sensors, inspections (systematic and challenge), and data-sharing is optimal to balance confidence-building with certainty and efficiency?
What nuclear facilities must be subject to verification?
How inclusive should control over delivery systems be?
What existing verification mechanisms are applicable and what must be developed?

Comments

Nuclear weapons materials exist in many forms and their properties vary. By far the largest quantities are inside weapons or held for military purposes, naval fuel, considered excess, or declared excess. Smaller quantities have already been disposed of, are under IAEA or Euratom safeguards, or civilian owned. (See chart, p. 21)
It will be a great challenge to take inventories of the military stocks and materials declared excess, adapt facilities to material protection, control, and accounting (MPC&A), and establish safeguards. (See chart, p. 23.)
Efforts to increase the security of fissile materials can include both voluntary activities and internationally binding commitments, building on existing and pending measures. (See chart, p. 25.)
We need internationally agreed standards for MPC&A and better standards for export control. Only if we have all of these can we properly address the question whether we need an umbrella agency.
The following facilities should be subject to verification: Facilities which can produce nuclear materials, facilities which can handle or fabricate nuclear components or can transform components back into fissile materials, civil facilities which can fabricate fissile materials into fuel, and assembly/disassembly facilities where components are assembled or disassembled into warheads. It is probably not feasible to subject command and control facilities to safeguards.
The focus of verification would be on fissile material. It might not be necessary or possible to include certain other materials suggested in the model NWC (e.g., fusionable material).
Sensors are good for measuring static objects, e.g., a complex that has been shut down.
A combination of technology and sampling would make it technically possible to identify warhead components without reference to the design information. After dismantlement inspectors would confirm fingerprints of warheads, which would then be sealed and stored. The ideal system would include information on type, status, serial numbers (if possible) arming and fusing of components. The technologies already exist so getting official agreement on tagging objects/warheads should not be difficult.
A focus under the INF on delivery vehicles rather than warheads would have required an intrusiveness that was not possible during the Cold War.
Once we are agreed on the verification for warheads and fissile materials we would need confidence that dismantlement and irreversible destruction of warheads were taking place. This would require declarations of stockpiles, dismantling of warheads, and transparency with respect to fissile materials stockpiles.
In addition, verification will require data on operational facilities, inspections, and bar-coding warheads and components (for accounting purposes). It is also important to authenticate the nuclear weapons to be dismantled (to make sure they are real), then confirm that they are dismantled and put the parts in storage pending destruction.
A prohibition on the manufacture of new warheads requires closure of warhead production sites — or their conversion into destruction sites — and continuous monitoring.
Today a lot of money is put into routine activities that are not necessarily expected to yield new information. Fewer inspections of a more random nature might be preferable.
Real nuclear disarmament also requires a stronger commitment to transparency and to legal and technical irreversibility, a culture that motivates individuals to comply with disarmament and to resist — and report — non-compliance, the possibility of enforcing clarifications, international trust, and unexaggerated publication of verification results.
Given the lack of media attention to the requirements, costs, and benefits of complete nuclear disarmament, it is not surprising that parliaments do not deal with it and that commitments for financing are low.
Control of delivery vehicles is a minor point within the model NWC. Further development of this issue would be helpful. Control of delivery systems, however, is only part of what is necessary. It will also be necessary to destroy delivery vehicles that can only be used for nuclear weapons.
There is time for political development in this area since the supposed missile threat does not yet exist and NMD has not yet been implemented. Over the long term we will need global missile disarmament but we should start with a moratorium, improved export control, and data exchange.
Specifically, immediate possibilities are to delay or prevent missile production and testing, and to establish regional ballistic missile free zones. Verification requirements depend on the precise activity, but there are a number of current systems that can be used for verification.
Capabilities for remote sensing are improving and disarmament will require more investment and technical progress. It will be necessary to determine what type of rockets are being tested and whether they are banned or allowed. Onsite inspections will also important.
A missile control regime would have links to space based arms control. Thought should be given to integrating missile control and space arms control efforts.
Regarding breakout — the question of secret stockpiles of nuclear weapons or a secret development program — we have two possibilities: A world with a treaty regime or a world without a treaty regime. We would be better off with a treaty and mechanisms for dealing with breakout than with poor capability to detect secret stockpiles and programs.