Cultivating Confidence: Verification, Monitoring and Enforcement for a World Free of Nuclear Weapons

The Nuclear Security Project, launched in 2007, helped reframe the global debate on nuclear issues and garnered significant global and domestic attention, increasing the political space for addressing global nuclear dangers and advancing understanding of the steps needed to reduce nuclear dangers. This volume, one of several under the project, presents a blueprint for actions government leaders can take to guide the policy making and technical development necessary to move toward a world free of nuclear weapons. Ten expert contributors identify the key technical, political, and diplomatic challenges associated with verifying, monitoring, and enforcing a world free of nuclear weapons and provide potential solutions to those challenges. Unifying themes include principal challenges or stumbling blocks; current technical limits that should inform decisions about investment in further research and technical analysis; technical constraints to developing the kind of system necessary to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons; and developing the architecture for a verification system.

Contributors: Steven P. Andreasen, Everet H. Beckner, James Fuller, Steinar Høibråten, Edward Ifft, Halvor Kippe, Harold Müller, Annette Schaper, Thomas E. Shea, Ralf Wirtz