A framework for comparing nuclear warhead authentication protocols

Even with the end of the Cold War, nuclear arms control continues to be a cornerstone of strategic stability and international non-proliferation efforts. New treaties are necessary to build upon, or at least maintain, the status-quo, and will rely upon verification technologies and protocols to ensure all sides are dismantling their warheads as promised. The nuclear weapon states refuse to participate in any process which might reveal the design of their warheads to an adversary or would-be proliferator. This makes warhead authentication, the critical verification step where the object to be dismantled is confirmed to be an authentic warhead, especially challenging. Despite several decades of research, there is no agreed means of describing or assessing warhead authentication protocols. This has hindered protocol development, and made it more difficult for the policy and technical communities to communicate what is important and feasible.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctoral

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2019

Author dc:creator

• Macdonald, Ruaridh(Ruaridh R.)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• R. Scott Kemp.

• Nuclear Science and Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/123368

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/123368