If another nuclear arms control treaty replaces the New START treaty that expires in 2026, the National Nuclear Security Administration will need new technologies to keep track of Russia’s large and widely dispersed nuclear arsenal, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office.
The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has started investing in “new, more advanced and more intrusive verification technologies, some of which may be ready and suitable for a treaty that follows a New START successor, a possible future arms control treaty with China, or possibly for a longer-term worldwide disarmament treaty,” GAO found. “However, such technologies are likely at least 5 to 10 years away from achieving maturity.”
New START limits U.S. and Russian deployed nuclear weapons, though Moscow has recently declined to abide by its obligation under the agreement to report on its deployed nuclear forces. The U.S. has continued to publish unclassified information about its nuclear forces.
Once New START expires in 2026, the U.S. already has goals for a new nuclear arms control treaty to follow. They include retaining limits on intercontinental-range nuclear weapon delivery systems, verification and oversight of all nuclear weapons including “nonstrategic” weapons and those in long term storage and “address new and novel Russian delivery vehicles, such as a nuclear powered and nuclear-armed cruise missile,” the GAO report said.
“In the meantime … the U.S. would likely face significant technical and operational challenges to verifying any future treaty with Russia that includes limits on all categories of nuclear weapons,” the report said.
NNSA has a three-option plan for developing new verification technologies that could help support a new nuclear forces treaty.
The first “baseline” approach includes technologies that are largely proven or already used under New START and are ready to support a potential successor treaty.
“More intrusive technologies — such as devices to measure weapons’ radiation signatures — would provide increased confidence in compliance and support longer-term treaty goals but may require 5 to 10 more years of development,” GAO said.
An “additional approach” includes those verification technologies in the baseline approach but introduces technologies “to positively confirm the presence of a nuclear weapon through direct measurements of radiation signatures.,” according to the GAO.
Most intrusive would be the “stretch approach” to treaty verification, which adds “active measurement” technologies that send radiation into a nuclear weapon to determine its material composition and geometric configuration, the GAO said.
