Arms Control Collaborations Going Forward: What's Needed for Future Agreements?

If the vision of greatly reduced numbers of nuclear weapons is to be achieved through a succession of arms control agreements, the need for and scope of multi-national collaboration will increase as the numbers decline.  Past US-Russian successes in mutual inspection regimes will need to be broadened into multilateral teaching processes so the steadily expanding numbers of participants can play their roles in the development of the doctrine, technology, and trust for verification processes. To reach an agreement that would take the US and Russian stockpiles below 1000 weapons, one can anticipate that UK, French and Chinese participation in the treaty process will be required if they are also to enter into such an agreement and accept verification of their declared stockpiles.  Were an agreement taking US and Russian stockpiles below 500 in negotiation, the participation of India, Pakistan and Israel would similarly be expected if they were to be treaty parties.  There are good precedents in the Open Skies and Conventional Forces Europe Treaties for both declarations of inventories and inspections that verify those inventories by multiple parties.  The US and Russia will need to accept and act on their new leadership role if the weapons inventory reduction process is to go forward.  They will have to deal not just with their own sensitivities and vulnerabilities about weapons systems and information, but those of future parties as well.  Not just the number of weapons, but the reasons for having weapons will need to be addressed.  The establishment of joint treaty verification development and training centers in the US and Russia, fully open to other weapons states and the IAEA, would be a good start for this process.  From such a mutual process, the determination to deal with rogues who choose to lie outside the arms control system might then develop.