Confirmation of Nuclear Treaty Limited Items: Pre-dismantlement vs. Post-dismantlement

One of the key factors in the verification of future nuclear disarmament treaties will be the confirmation, by a monitoring party, that declared treaty limited items (TLIs) are consistent with the declaration made by the host country.A significant part of this confirmation may be supplied by a radiation measurement system that confirms the declared radiation characteristics of the TLI. These radiation measurements can take the form of measuring declared characteristics (or attributes) of the TLI, comparing declared TLIs with a pre-existing template, or some combination of the two techniques. Treaties covering TLI dismantlement form an important subset of general disarmament treaties. In a dismantlement scenario, the confirmation radiation measurements can be performed either before or after the TLI is dismantled (or at both times). Pre-dismantlement measurement may generate additional confidence that the item is truly a TLI but may be technically challenging, while post-dismantlement measurement can offer additional confidence that the dismantled item was truly the declared TLI. Since repeated measurement increases monitoring party confidence and there are technical advantages to both measurement times, a combination of pre-dismantlement and post-dismantlement measurement will lead to the highest overall confidence. The relative importance of the two types of measurement is directly dependent on the specifics of the treaty under discussion.