Weapon inspection scheme would test for nukes but keep designs secret
Protocol could encourage dismantling of stockpiled nuclear warheads
By Andrew Grant
A proposal for authenticating nuclear weapons carries no risk of leaking classified information. The scheme would keep a weapon’s design hidden while allowing inspectors to say whether or not a warhead carried nuclear material. The advance removes a hurdle toward achieving a thorough plan for global nuclear disarmament.
“It’s ingenious,” says James Acton, a nuclear policy expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C., who trained as a physicist. “It solves a major problem for warhead verification.”