Work Stream 5: Non-strategic Nuclear Weapons

Penholder: Pavel Podvig (UNIDIR)

Future arms control agreements, whether bilateral or multilateral, will need to deal with all categories of nuclear weapons, strategic and non-strategic. Limiting non-strategic weapons has traditionally been a difficult task, but in today’s environment, addressing these weapons first can open an opportunity to restart the arms control process and expand it to new participants, including China.

One approach to non-strategic weapons can be based on verified removal of nuclear weapons from deployment bases into remote central storage facilities. This way, non-strategic weapons would be separated from their delivery systems and not available to immediate use, which would contribute to stability during crises. Importantly, the procedures required to verify the absence of weapons at a given location do not require access to weapons or a disclosure of sensitive information about them.

The elements of the verification system might include:

· Verifying the declarations of weapon storage facilities at deployment bases. Confirming the absence of weapon-handling infrastructure; can be verified remotely or during on-site inspections

· Continuous verification of the absence of movement of weapons into a base. Can be done remotely, including with the help of demonstrative verification

· Verifying the absence of nuclear-capable delivery systems at certain bases. May require on-site inspections

· Verifying the absence of nuclear weapons in a storage facility. May require on-site inspections

Some of these technologies have been developed and tested (see https://russianforces.org/ndv). Others require further research.