Mutual reciprocal inspections: issues regarding next steps
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Authors
Bailey, Kathleen C.
Subjects
Advisors
Date of Issue
1996-02
Date
Publisher
Livermore, California. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Language
Abstract
Pressures are mounting for a regime to verify the dismantlement of US and Russian warheads, as well as a system of international control over the weapons' fissile materials to assure irreversibility. There are at least four motivating factors for these measures:
• As the United States and Russia lower their numbers of nuclear weapons, each side seeks
assurance that the warheads are actually being dismantled.
• By accounting for the fissile materials and placing them under effective controls, the potential for smuggling and theft is reduced.
• A fissile materials cutoff is being discussed at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva.
Verification of a US-Russian cutoff, as well as substantial reductions in fissile materials stockpiles, are seen as integral to the cutoff.
• Calls for total nuclear disarmament have greatly increased. Dismantlement verification and
international control of fissile materials are widely viewed as requisite steps toward this goal.
There are many questions to be answered before the United States can agree to a warhead
verification regime and international control over excess fissile materials, let alone total nuclear
disarmament. Two of the most important are: What are the prospects for effective verification? and
How much fissile material can be declared as excess, and possibly be, given over to international
control? These topics - compliance weaknesses and excess materials - are the focus of this paper.
Type
Article
Description
Series/Report No
Department
Organization
Identifiers
NPS Report Number
Sponsors
Naval Postgraduate School
United States Strategic Command
U.S. Department of Energy
United States Strategic Command
U.S. Department of Energy
Funder
Contract no. W-7405-Eng-48 (DOE)
Format
14 p.
Citation
K.C. Bailey, "Mutual reciprocal inspections: issues regarding next steps," Nuclear Transparency Initiatives Workshops sponsored by the Naval Postgraduate School and the United States Strategic Command, Monterey, California, February 29 - March 1, 1996, 14 p.
Distribution Statement
Rights
This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. Copyright protection is not available for this work in the United States.