Any type of nuclear arms control or disarmament agreement requires some form of verification measure. Existing nuclear arms control treaties drew upon previous agreements such as the INF treaty, START, and IAEA nuclear safeguards inspections. However, previous treaties focused on limiting specific types of nuclear weapons and their delivery vehicles or reducing the total number of nuclear weapons rather than eliminating the nuclear enterprise as a whole. A potential nuclear disarmament verification treaty or agreement will depend on the geopolitical environment of the time as well as the national policies and priorities of each signatory state. Although research on the gradual reduction and eventual elimination of nuclear weapons is still ongoing, several states have cooperated to conduct experiments, exercises, and simulations on the procedures and technologies required for nuclear disarmament verification. Three of these efforts are the LETTERPRESS simulation conducted by the Quadrilateral Nuclear Verification Partnership (QUAD), NuDiVe Exercise conducted by the International Partnership for Nuclear Disarmament Verification (IPNDV), and the Menzingen experiment organized by the UNIDIR in partnership with the Swiss Armed Forces, Spiez Laboratory, Princeton University’s Program on Science and Global Security, and the Open Nuclear Network. These contain aspects for the development of a potential nuclear disarmament verification. The LETTERPRESS exercise conducted in 2017 tested potential activities and equipment inspectors might utilize in a nuclear weapon facility. The IPNDV NuDiVe exercises conducted in 2021 and 2022 tested the activities and equipment required for the verified dismantlement of a warhead within a dismantlement facility. Finally, the Menzingen experiment conducted in 2023 tested the practical procedures for the verification of a nuclear weapon’s absence at a storage site. This paper will analyze the three cases to offer considerations on the procedures and technologies future nuclear disarmament verification might include.

Arms control treaties during the Cold War generally used national technical means (NTM) to verify treaty compliance. This was because signatory states refused to agree on on-site inspection (OSI) measures since it would require some level of intrusion. Efforts on nuclear arms control such as the Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTBT) or Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) initially included some form of OSI but could not continue due to refusal from signatory states. The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force (INF) treaty concluded between the US and the Soviet Union in 1978 was significant since both states agreed on a highly intrusive verification measure. The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) and the new START also called for OSI measures similar to the INF. Alongside reducing a significant number of nuclear warheads and limiting specific types of nuclear warhead delivery vehicles, these treaties also provided basic models for conducting on-site inspection (OSI). OSI measures primarily rely on the political agreement between signatory states. However, the structure, types of inspections, number of inspections allowed, and technology/equipment used in each of the regimes also differ according to the objectives of each treaty. The INF treaty and START are salient cases as basic models for current nuclear disarmament verification research. Thus, this paper will conduct a case study on the procedures and mechanisms required for nuclear arms control verification in terms of OSI. Using the implications drawn from the INF treaty and START, this paper offers considerations for a potential nuclear disarmament verification.

When proliferation activity occurs, states and non-state actors combine various sources of information to gain a better understanding of the situation. The quality of information source, content, and presentation can significantly influence the perception of decision-makers and end users. However, a state’s nuclear or missile activities are almost always classified. Also, states might intentionally reveal information to deter their adversary, threaten their adversary, bolster their prestige in the international community, or a combination of all three. Hence, any revealed information inherently contains some degree of uncertainty regarding its credibility. Lack of credibility makes it difficult for other states or non-state actors to determine how much of the information is accurate and how much is deception. The increase of publicly available information (open-source information) and the development of tools to collect, process, and analyze this information increased the possibilities of using open-source information to cross-check the proliferation claims of states. North Korea is a hermit state that has very little outside interaction. It also has continued to develop and refine its nuclear program. How credible is information released by North Korea? How can scholars/experts compensate for this lack of credibility in information on North Korea’s nuclear activity? This paper seeks to apply a framework on information quality to answer these questions. First, it will briefly explain the factors comprising information quality (sources, content, and presentation). Then, it will apply the information quality framework to North Korean activity analysis. It will conclude with implications of using the information quality framework to analyze a state that is low in accessibility and high uncertainty.

Monitoring a state that intentionally hides its nuclear activity via open-source information is akin to looking through a black box. Direct information on the state’s nuclear activity remains in the dark, leaving scholars to speculate how much nuclear material or warheads are being produced. Nevertheless, a state’s nuclear program consists of a complex network that ranges from producing weapon-grade nuclear materials by operating its nuclear facilities to securing resources to fund these activities. These indirect activities allow a narrow window of opportunity for researchers to map a state’s activity that sometimes may not be directly linked to nuclear activity per se but is significant to maintaining and operating its nuclear program. These may include malicious cyberattacks to steal or launder cryptocurrency and facilitating cooperation with fellow rogue states that do not comply with the NPT and nuclear nonproliferation regime. The problem lies in how researchers can map this network. Much of the literature that uses text analysis uses data from either (1) formal statement, reports, and documents or (2) journal articles to extract relations between topics that is otherwise difficult to surmise. This study, however, analyzes news articles containing keywords related to a states’ nuclear activity such as international sanctions, trade activities, other states’ policy etc. While news articles fail to live up to the academic rigor of journal articles and unlike formal documents may sometime contain misinformation or incorrect facts, they are a valuable medium to show the day-to-day activity of a state. Although bias may exist as particular news articles may or may not be chosen for text analysis, by using articles collected from 2021 to 2022, this study argues it is enough data to show a short-term trend in nuclear activity.