New START Verification: Fitting the Means to the Ends

For Immediate Release: February 22, 2010

Media Contacts: Greg Thielmann, Senior Fellow and Director of Realistic Threat Assessments and Responses Project, (202) 463-8270 x103

(Washington, D.C.): The sixth ACA Threat Assessment Brief, "New START Verification: Fitting the Means to the Ends," by Senior Fellow Greg Thielmann is available online in PDF format at http://www.armscontrol.org/threats.

U.S. and Russian negotiators are nearing completion of a New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) that will mandate lower limits for the still bloated arsenals of deployed strategic warheads and associated strategic nuclear delivery vehicles. Just as importantly, New START will also include essential elements of the verification system of the now expired 1991 START, as well as new and innovative verification provisions for deployed warheads that together will verify with high confidence the simplified limits of the new treaty.

The latest Threat Assessment Brief reviews the fundamental purposes of arms control verification, the origins and purpose of the detailed verification provisions of the 1991 START, and the implications of adapting New START to the current, post-Cold War security environment.

Click here to download the full Threat Assessment Brief.