Franco-German Verification (NuDiVe) Exercise at Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany, Sept. 2019. (Copyright: Forschungszentrum Jülich / Sascha Kreklau)”

The challenges of nuclear disarmament verification

Recherches & Documents N°10/2020

Emmanuelle Maitre Research fellow, Fondation pour la recherche stratégique

September 2020

www.frstrategie.org

SOMMAIRE

THE CHALLENGES OF NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT VERIFICATION ...... 3

INTRODUCTION ...... 3

1. VERIFICATION AS A COROLLARY OF ARMS CONTROL...... 5 1.1. A consequence of bilateral arms control initiatives ...... 5 1.1.1. An issue raised at the outset of strategic arms reduction efforts...... 5 1.1.2. Feasibility studies in the United States and Russia ...... 6 1.2. A bilateral exercise focusing on technical aspects ...... 8 1.2.1. The development of bilateral tools and procedures ...... 8 1.2.2. Extensive experimentation up to 2000 ...... 9 1.3. Strategic arms control: still the point of reference ...... 10 1.3.1. New Start as a reference and a starting point ...... 10 1.3.2. An endeavor to develop relevant technologies in anticipation of a Treaty ...... 11

2. VERIFICATION: A MULTILATERAL POLITICAL EXERCISE? ...... 12 2.1. The gradual integration of new players ...... 13 2.1.1. UKNI and Quad: the emergence of the United Kingdom and the integration of NNWS ...... 13 2.1.2. Objectives and conclusions of the two exercises ...... 15 2.2. IPNDV and GGE on verification: two instruments to insert the debate into a multilateral framework ...... 16 2.2.1. Origins and functioning of the IPNDV ...... 16 2.2.2. An issue included to the agenda of the United Nations ...... 20 2.3. An issue of growing political importance in the NPT framework ...... 21 2.3.1. Incremental efforts to communicate on the advances achieved ...... 21 2.3.2. A rising political profile ...... 22

3. STATE OF THE DEBATE: PROGRESS ON THE PROCEDURE, PERSISTING TECHNICAL CHALLENGES ...... 25 3.1. The contours of a verified process ...... 25 3.1.1. The 14 steps of the IPNDV: a relatively consensual general outline ...... 25 3.1.2. Technologies identified for a number of steps ...... 28 3.1.3. National or scientific research programs ...... 32 3.2. Technological and political challenges ...... 36

1 The challenges of nuclear disarmament verification

3.2.1. The difficulty of moving forward in a purely theoretical framework ...... 36 3.2.2. Unproved technologies ...... 38 3.2.3. The challenge of maintaining momentum over time ...... 38 3.3. Alternative visions...... 39 3.3.1. The skepticism of some actors ...... 39 3.3.2. An unnecessarily complex procedure? ...... 41 3.3.3. More ambitious visions ...... 42

CONCLUSION ...... 45

ANNEXE 1 GLOSSARY OF TECHNICAL TERMS ...... 1

2

The challenges of nuclear disarmament verification*

Introduction

In one of the first initiatives in favor of nuclear disarmament, the authors of the Acheson-Lilienthal report “concluded unanimously that there is no prospect of security against atomic warfare in a system of international agreements to outlaw such weapons controlled only by a system which relies on inspection and similar police-like methods.” Instead, the report proposed placing all under the control of an international organization.1

The failure of the Baruch plan, proposed the following year to the United Nations to eliminate the nuclear threat based on the recommendations of this report, illustrates the challenge highlighted by its authors. On the one hand, it was possible to create a system of international guarantees on the peaceful use of nuclear technologies, strongly limiting the proliferation of military nuclear programs. On the other hand, virtually no verification regime has been deemed strong or credible enough to allow for the consideration of complete disarmament. President Truman’s 1946 statement that