Investigating Development of Nuclear Arms Control Verification: Requirements at the State Level

Over the course of 2014 and 2015, a group of international experts held a series of technical meetings to explore how to use a systems approach to promote the technical analysis of structural factors associated with arms control agreements and guide the development of creative verification solutions. The goal was to develop a framework that could be effectively applied to the satisfaction of multiple stakeholders and provide a means for identifying how technical verification approaches could be better aligned to meet strategic concerns, in support of state security priorities and objectives. Participants found that scenario based exercises provided a practical way to further develop the methodology and could be employed to improve communication between international experts with diverse backgrounds, as well as encourage new ways to approach this difficult issue. One aspect explored during the meetings was how to identify solutions that might satisfy states with diverging perceptions regarding their respective security environments. Interesting ideas for future work on how a systems approach could be used to address verification challenges are presented in the final section.