Promoting Nuclear Warhead Reductions: Regimes, Approaches and Technologies

Back to All Publications

September 1, 2004

After the Cold War, the United States and Russia recognized the urgent importance of reducing their large nuclear warhead stockpiles. Many technical and policy discussions as well as negotiations both formal and informal emerged to explore the possibility of transparent, verifiable, and irreversable nuclear warhead elimination. A verifiable nuclear warhead reduction regime involves hightly sensitive national security information; complicated and intrusive verification technologies and techniques; carefully designed monitoring and dismantling procedures and substantial technical and financial resources. Thus, it is essential to consider and develop all potenatial policy regimes, verification approaches, and available or promising technologies. This report breaks nuclear warhead reductions into three tiers: regimes, verification approaches, and associated technologies and proposes that with existing technical capabilities, it is fully possible to design a verifiable regime with adequate confidence for irreversible nuclear warhead reduction.