Since early 2007, I have been involved in a project with Norway and the United Kingdom on the verified dismantlement of nuclear warheads. To be fair, it started earlier than that, with a painstakingly slow and cautious negotiation throughout the autumn of 2006, when a Norwegian colleague and I visited various UK officials to discuss various ways in which the two countries could collaborate. Back then, the general idea was that the project should fly under the radar. The feeling was that political involvement would complicate rather than facilitate, and that technical cooperation would progress faster. It was in that spirit that the first plenary meeting was organized by VERTIC and held at Bonhill House in central London on 20 February 2007. However, since Margaret Beckett's reference to the process in her 25 June 2007 keynote speect to the Carnegie Non-Proliferation Conference, the process has hardly been flying under the radar.Presently, the process involves several institutes, the Atomic Weapons Establishment and the Verification Research, Training and Information Centre are based in the United Kingdom. The Institute for Energy Technology, the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment, NORSAR and the Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority are based in Norway. The process has also involved an expert from the Norwegian Institute for International Affairs (he's since moved on to greener pastures). Despite the large amount of participating organizations, the meetings are usually relatively small, about 15 participants. The Bonhill House meeting, being the first, was larger (around 25 participants).
After the Bonhill House meeting, the research centres met again in Kjeller, Norway on 20 and 21 August 2007. At this meeting, it was decided that the process should focus on two principal problems. First, under which conditions, and to what extent can international inspectors get access to a nuclear warhead dismantlement facility? Second, how can one design and construct a very simple device that can measure and probe a nuclear device in a safe manner, without giving out classified design information?
This week's meetings reviewed some initial research, where the Atomic Weapons Establishment and the Norwegian Institute for Energy Technology in particular presented interesting facility models, and block blueprints of an information barrier device. Our cooperation is truly unique. As far as I know, this is probably the first time a non-governmental organization works together with a nuclear and a non-nuclear weapon state to iron out differences in respect to the verification of nuclear warhead dismantlement, and to identify working and proliferation-proof verification and monitoring solutions. All institutes participate actively, and since the participants now know each other pretty well, the discussions are candid and forthright. Past reluctance has been replaced by smiles, and an engaged, very technical and focused debate.
VERTIC's role have transformed from a facilitator to an observer of the process, and potential future contracts stipulate a certain support role for research as well. This is of course a natural role for an observer, not only to look at a process, but also suggest ways to improve it, and its products. I am not at liberty to discuss some of the more practical outcomes of the project. Papers will, and have been, produced, naturally. Some of them will be published in various journals and magazines. Jointly authored reports, as well as workshop reports are not likely to be published in quite some time. However, the results will be concrete: a device will be built and an on-site inspection exercise will be conducted. Its conclusions will be written up and circulated for the benefit of the arms control community. This is not high-brow academic research or wishful thinking. It's the real stuff.
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