EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Robust monitoring, detection, and verification (MDV) capabilities are necessary to provide decision makers with critical information regarding nuclear threats and to support deterrence and nonproliferation by uncovering efforts to clandestinely develop a nuclear capability or enhance an existing capability. The United States has significant capabilities to monitor, detect, and verify nuclear weapons and fissile material production in foreign states, but in order to address future challenges and avoid surprises, these capabilities must be strengthened and maintained through research and development (R&D) and operationalization of new technologies.

Despite the clear importance of the MDV mission, the committee found that the mission is inconsistently and inadequately prioritized across the U.S. government. The distributed nature of the MDV enterprise requires a high level of integration and coordination to prevent dilution of the mission across the many departments and agencies (D/As) that make up the enterprise. Existing interagency planning and coordination efforts are insufficient, incomplete, or unproven for identifying longer-term MDV problem-sets and capability needs, impacting the enterprise’s ability to effectively develop and operationalize new MDV technologies.

The committee assessed that current MDV R&D efforts are impressive, but that the R&D enterprise remains insular and could more fully embrace ideas from outside the traditional enterprise as well as truly novel technical approaches to MDV. To keep up with evolving challenges, the committee concludes that the enterprise must seek to both modernize MDV systems and approaches in the near term and revolutionize them in the longer term instead of continuing to make incremental steps forward. Information sharing and fusion of intelligence sources is a key example of an approach with revolutionary potential.

To improve the U.S. nuclear MDV enterprise, the committee recommends several actions, briefly summarized below.

To improve MDV policy, operations, and research, development, testing, and evaluation (RDT&E) integration:

• The National Security Council (NSC) and the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) should ensure that there is an enduring interagency planning process engaging all relevant D/As to characterize potential future MDV challenges based on the future threat-space and goals. The process should establish and utilize an external advisory board.
• The Department of Defense (DoD) should establish a governance structure to coordinate requirements, capabilities, and budgetary responsibilities within the DoD and other agencies to lead, manage, operate, and sustain the U.S. Nuclear Detonation Detection System.

• NSC and OSTP should facilitate a review of data and information sharing that includes the MDV mission space, and based on this review, issue clear policy direction to drive the elimination of barriers to data and information sharing.

To enhance stewardship of MDV capabilities:

• NNSA should expand and maintain its nonproliferation stewardship and test bed programs.
• DoD and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) should develop a long-term action plan for stewarding MDV operational capabilities. Congress should ensure that this action plan is appropriately funded.

To increase MDV RDT&E efficacy and innovation:

• The MDV enterprise should institutionalize processes for close communication and coordination between R&D partners and ensure that organizations with the responsibility for transitioning technologies are identified and appropriately funded.
• The MDV R&D enterprise should seek to better leverage the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency, as well as relevant commercial capabilities, to further the MDV mission.

To improve MDV for the nuclear fuel cycle:

• NNSA should prioritize R&D efforts that enhance the efficiency of safeguards tools and technologies, address advanced/non-traditional fuel cycle activities, improve early proliferation detection, and address authentication and assurance of data and algorithms.
• NNSA should continue to support R&D to improve source term, environmental fate, and atmospheric/aquatic transport models. NNSA should provide researchers with real production facility data to leverage for the proliferation detection mission.

To improve MDV for nuclear weapons test explosions:

• NSC and OSTP should facilitate a forward-looking policy and technical review of space-based MDV capabilities. NNSA and DoD should consider how to leverage emerging capabilities to ensure that future space-based MDV capabilities are responsive to the evolving space environment.
• The United States should continue to support construction, refreshment, and improvement of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization’s International Monitoring System.

To improve MDV for arms control:

• NNSA’s arms control MDV R&D program should be sustained regardless of the international environment to ensure that the research community is innovating and generating mature technologies that can be deployed when needed.
• The United States should remain active in multilateral engagements and seek to increase bilateral cooperation to jointly develop technologies for arms control and weapons dismantlement, even if this may be to address far future needs.

To better leverage data for the MDV mission:

• MDV organizations should exploit open-source information/data as an important adjunct to unilateral data collection using classified systems.
• As part of an MDV data science plan, NSC and OSTP should oversee an interagency effort led by NNSA to build MDV data pipelines with multi-point data collection and curation. MDV entities should pursue the broad-based adoption of classified cloud computing.

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