Verifying Nuclear Disarmament: The Inspector’s Agenda

Latest ACA Resources

Nuclear Nonproliferation

Andreas Persbo and Marius Bjørningstad

In the past year, support for moving toward eventual nuclear disarmament has gathered force. In early 2007, an op-ed by four influential U.S. policy shapers, two Republicans and two Democrats, called on the nuclear-weapon states to “turn the goal of a world without nuclear weapons into a joint enterprise.”[1]

Reaching this goal will require overcoming many political, diplomatic, and technical obstacles. In a June 2007 keynote address to the Carnegie International Nonproliferation Conference, former British Foreign Minister Margaret Beckett embraced the goal of eliminating nuclear weapons and sought to help with this task by offering her country as a “disarmament laboratory.”[2] What this meant was clarified in a February 2008 speech by British Defense Minister Des Browne when he invited representatives of weapons laboratories from four other nuclear-weapon states (China, France, Russia, and the United States) to participate in a technical conference in the United Kingdom on disarmament verification.[3] The challenge, Browne argued, “is in developing technologies which strike the right balance between protecting security and proliferation considerations and, at the same time, providing sufficient international access and verification.” The proposed conference could contribute toward the development of these technologies and at the same time help build deeper technical relationships between the recognized nuclear-weapon states, hopefully generating additional confidence in the disarmament process.

In his speech, Browne confirmed his country’s willingness to take the lead on disarmament research and also made reference to relevant joint British-Norwegian research cooperation. In March 2007, about 20 representatives from various institutes in Norway and the United Kingdom met in London to explore how in the future they might bring their respective expertise to bear on the challenge of verifying nuclear disarmament and agreed to explore a series of technical questions through sustained and cooperative research. Subsequently, technical experts from Norway and the United Kingdom, as well as nongovernmental researchers from the Verification Research, Training and Information Centre, met repeatedly to discuss verification requirements in nuclear disarmament. This article, which draws on some of these discussions, will focus on some of the key challenges related to verification, in particular, international inspections at nuclear dismantlement facilities. Moreover, it will mark out the course for future research and cooperation in disarmament verification.

Defining Verification and the Role of Inspections

Verification can be understood as the “process of gathering and analyzing information to make a judgement about parties’ compliance or non-compliance with an agreement.”[4] However, it is difficult to say what verification will practically entail outside the context of a given treaty.[5]

One thing is relatively certain: the difficulties of verifying nuclear disarmament will correspond with the complexity of the disarmament commitment. For example, verifying that a state has complied with an obligation to dismantle one nuclear warhead will be relatively straightforward. Even in that case, several important questions would need to be answered: How can the inspector be sure that she is looking at a nuclear warhead and not a dummy? If the inspector cannot observe the dismantlement process, how will he be sure that disassembled parts come from the warhead and not some hidden stash of electronics components? How can the inspector be sure that the host state has accounted for all nuclear material if she cannot measure and weigh the “physics package” (the fissile material part of the warhead)?

Verifying complete disarmament is likely to be far more difficult and will involve addressing an even larger and more complex set of questions: How can the inspector be certain that the state has declared all its nuclear warheads? How can the inspector be assured that there is no further undeclared production of nuclear warheads?

One factor that facilitates effective and efficient verification is the careful selection of items, activities, and facilities that must be monitored and those that need not be. If the goal is to verify the dismantlement of an agreed number of warheads, the inspector may not need access to the entire nuclear weapons complex, but only to certain sites, activities, and personnel. Under such a scenario, inspectors will no doubt prefer to pick and choose which sites to visit, although nuclear-weapon states may be unlikely to grant this privilege. By contrast, a comprehensive verification scheme is likely to require nuclear-weapon states to grant access to all relevant facilities, a large selection of relevant personnel, and a wide range of documentation.

Inspection designers need to develop standards for declarations of treaty-limited items along with lists of items, activities, and personnel available for inspection and interrogation. Ideally, the right to pick and choose some of these items, activities, and personnel should be firmly established.

In neither case, however, is it likely that an inspection process will “establish” or “confirm” that a warhead has been dismantled or that all warheads have been declared. In any verification scheme, it may be possible to identify and point out a fake weapon with relatively high certainty. Nonetheless, unless one can open up and check a weapon against a clear guide, there may be no way to prove that one’s assessment is correct. Opening up the weapon would mean giving away critical design information. Obviously, that much transparency can never be given, making the quest for absolute confirmation a fool’s errand. Therefore, some degree of uncertainty must be acceptable in verification.

Traditional International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards, inspections, and measurements are likely to be powerful tools for nuclear disarmament verification because they would allow inspectors to monitor dismantlement processes up close. Moreover, interaction between the inspecting and the inspected party is likely to induce trust and cooperation, enabling more credible and efficient verification in the long run. Inspection designers need to define the purpose of verification, including the role of inspections, in any verification scheme.

Verification Challenges: Warhead Design and Fissile Materials

Those wishing to design a nuclear warhead dismantlement verification regime possess some advantages. First, nuclear weapons exist in small quantities compared to, for instance, small arms and light weapons. There are consequently fewer items to declare, monitor, and verify. Fissile material is also relatively scarce compared to treaty-limited items in other regimes, such as conflict diamonds. Fissile material is also inorganic, which means that quantities remain roughly the same once declared. Unfortunately, these few advantages are readily outweighed by the numerous safety, legal, and national challenges facing the verification designer.

The legal problem is one of interpretation. A nuclear-weapon state cannot, according to Article I of the 1968 nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, “assist, encourage or induce” a non-nuclear-weapon state to manufacture a nuclear weapon or other nuclear explosive device. If non-nuclear-weapon state inspectors are to play a role in the verification regime, negotiators would have to tackle several difficult questions. For example, is a nuclear-weapon state assisting another state if it unintentionally leaks weapons-relevant information, or does the assistance have to be intentional? What kind of leak would break international law? Would information on non-nuclear components constitute a breach?

Under the strictest of interpretations, the risks of involving international inspectors would probably be too great. With some legal flexibility, non-nuclear-weapon state inspections could be permitted if conducted with the utmost care. On the other hand, if inspectors are nuclear-weapon-state nationals, the designers of a verification regime have more legal flexibility. Here, however, national security considerations would play a major role. After all, the nuclear-weapon states would be hesitant about sharing their capabilities with states other than their closest allies.

As seen from the host state, inspector access to its nuclear weapons and facilities poses serious risks of passing on classified information: Could some inspectors be there under false guise to gather intelligence on behalf of another state? If so, what could they learn? Would an inspector from another nuclear-weapon state learn more, or look for other things, than inspectors from other countries?

What would an inspector from a state seeking to acquire nuclear weapons want to find out? For instance, is it isotopic ratios and similar information, or is it the layout of the weapon? Is it more important to protect the internal composition of advanced weaponry than that of an early-generation weapon, or should all weapons be equally protected irrespective of generation?

The host state may ask itself some of these questions when considering acceptable levels of intrusiveness. As a default position, it is therefore likely to provide only a minimum level of transparency just to be safe. Yet, this position may backfire. Seen from the inspector’s point of view, a delay or deferral in access, for example, may be seen as a way to circumvent inspections in cases where compliance is an issue. Inspectors may think that the host is squirreling away a treaty-limited item. Consequently, inspection designers need to develop procedures and methods for resolving compliance issues involving national security-related facilities and information. These procedures are likely to differ from state to state.

Yet another challenge relates to the safety of the inspectors and the facility staff. Inspectors need to know how to behave around conventional explosives, as well as nuclear material. They must be made aware that certain restrictions are in place to prevent an accident rather than to curtail access. The large quantity of conventional explosives involved even in latest-generation nuclear devices puts restrictions on what equipment the inspectors can bring in, as well as what clothes they should be allowed to wear. This information should be available to the inspector upfront so as to avoid any misinterpretations or suspicions.

Verification Challenges: Protecting the Dismantlement Facility

Verification activities in established assembly/disassembly sites, such as AWE Burghfield in the United Kingdom or Pantex in Amarillo, Texas, are likely to be challenging.

The host will wish to protect as much sensitive information as possible, while the inspectors will wish to find out the truth. Naturally, any instruments or equipment that can give away device-based information relating to the mass, configuration, or isotopics of the physics package are sensitive. Other information that will need to be protected is the exact facility layout linked to various processes, schedules for input and output, and the location and function of security systems. Moreover, inspectors will be in close contact with ordinary facility operations, which may be unrelated to the verification objective. In addition to being a potential security risk, the inspectors’ presence will interrupt site operations. Facility staff may feel that the presence of international inspectors is threatening, and the facility operator may want to safeguard the anonymity of his or her staff. There is a very real risk that the host’s sensitivities will override the inspector’s demands for transparency, effectively undermining the verification regime.

Many if not all of these concerns may be remedied by choosing built-for-purpose disarmament facilities and training programs. The advantage of constructing a new facility built with international inspections in mind is that it would be possible to share the facility floor plan with the inspectorate as soon as it leaves the drawing board. Inspectors could then be invited to conduct design-information verification as the facility is constructed. During these visits, the inspectors check the building against the floor plan to make sure that there are no hidden trapdoors, extra piping, or other undeclared construction. Ideally, all the nuclear-weapon states would build identical dismantlement facilities in order to facilitate inspections. Each facility could be placed within a larger construction protected by whatever physical protection measures the host state deemed necessary. This way, one would facilitate inspections while accommodating national security concerns. Facility operators could be specially trained to accommodate inspectors while protecting information at the facility.

Inspection designers should compare the costs and benefits of building new, identical built-for-purpose dismantlement facilities with using old, existing facilities with their inherent challenges.

A Proposal for a Future Research Agenda

Getting to zero nuclear arms will take a long time. It will be a frustrating process fraught with difficulties and dangers, but, as Browne stated, this is “a challenge we can overcome.”[6] Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs Jonas Gahr Støre made clear recently that achieving the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons requires at least five things: political leadership at the highest levels, commitment followed up by action, nondiscrimination, transparency, and cooperation.

Støre held that “[n]on-nuclear-weapon states should cooperate with nuclear-weapon states to develop the technology needed for verifying disarmament. Nuclear-weapon states should seize the opportunity presented by reductions in nuclear weapon numbers to demonstrate this technology.”[7] At a technical level, this cooperation in nuclear disarmament verification research should focus on at least the following:

1. Developing a generic model of the entire dismantlement process. This model should include all relevant verification objectives and technologies and identify suitable verification procedures for each dismantlement action.

2. Developing a declaration standard. This standard should allow the inspected party to list all sites, documentation, and personnel relevant to the verification process. It should include a section describing sites, documents, or personnel not eligible for inspection and for what reasons. It should include an attached description of special safety precautions the inspectorate must take when visiting the facilities.

3. Identifying key inspection points and associated measurement technologies and techniques, including information barriers and other restrictions. The IAEA Trilateral Initiative made significant headway in this work. The British and Norwegian research institutes are developing an information barrier system and procedures that will be credible and mutually acceptable to all parties under future disarmament treaties.

4. Developing procedures and methods that will help states-parties and the inspectorate resolve compliance concerns involving national security-related facilities and information.

5. Calculating the costs of building new, identical built-for-purpose dismantlement facilities and comparing these with the costs of using existing facilities with their inherent challenges.

A joint commitment by nuclear-weapon and non-nuclear-weapon states will make verified reductions and, eventually, elimination of all nuclear weapons a reality. Joint cooperation between laboratories, where possible, will further this goal. It is time to seize the opportunity and get to work.

http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2008_05/PersboShea