Monitoring Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear-Explosive Materials: An Assessment of Methods and Capabilities

In this study, CISAC tackles the technical dimensions of a longstanding controversy: To what extent could existing and plausibly attainable measures for transparency and monitoring make possible the verification of all nuclear weapons—strategic and nonstrategic, deployed and nondeployed—plus the nuclear-explosive components and materials that are their essential ingredients? The committee’s assessment of the technical and organizational possibilities suggests a more optimistic conclusion than most of those concerned with these issues might have expected.