Todd Jacobson
NS&D Monitor
1/24/2014
The United States does not have the monitoring and verification capabilities necessary to keep track of the potential spread of nuclear weapons know-how growing around the world, according to a recent report by the Defense Science Board that calls for more cooperation among existing nuclear powers to address capabilities gaps. “Too many factors have changed, and are changing, from our historic basis and experience in the Cold War, in a manner that should give national leadership pause for concern,” according to the report, which suggest that monitoring will “need to address more widespread foreign nuclear weapons related activities in a ‘messy’ combination of negotiated, non-cooperative, and non-permissive environments.”
Among the report’s chief recommendations is a four-phase approach for expanding cooperation that would evolve to “internationalize transparency inspections,” with an expanded International Atomic Energy Agency coordinating the effort. Such an effort would begin with “bilateral, cooperative developments and evaluations” among P-5 states, but would ultimately be expanded to other nuclear weapons countries and those with nuclear power and would result in negotiation of a future Non-Proliferation Treaty, dubbed “NPT ‘X’ “ that would encompass all nuclear weapon and material programs. A “paradigm shift” is needed, the report said, where the “boundaries are blurred between monitoring for compliance and monitoring for proliferation, between cooperative and unilateral measures. Monitoring will need to be continuous, adaptive, and continuously tested for its effectiveness against an array of differing, creative and adaptive proliferators.”
Integrating Transparency Into Modernization
The reports authors also noted that in anticipation of more international cooperation, and treaties and agreements with more intrusive inspection regimes, U.S. officials should plan to accommodate greater transparency measures when designing new facilities for the weapons complex, like the Uranium Processing Facility. The report noted that a team from DOE’s nonproliferation program and State Department had a “favorable review” with UPF designers. “As future arms control efforts will likely result in expanded access at U.S. facilities, weapons, and platforms, approaches for meeting verification objectives while limiting overall intrusiveness will be needed,” the report said. “An informal survey by the Task Force indicated that DOE/NNSA is aware of the concern and has introduced the issue into the programs for the new production facilities it is building.”
