Evolution of Safeguards - An Expert-driven Approach to Acquisition Path Analysis

The IAEA’s Department of Safeguards has embarked on an evolutionary process to more fully develop and apply the State-Level Concept (SLC) for safeguards implementation. This concept makes use of all safeguards-relevant information available in order to focus and prioritize its safeguards activities for a State. A key component is the development of a State-level Approach (SLA) which consists of analyzing acquisition paths, establishing and prioritizing technical objectives, and identifying applicable safeguards measures. The Next Generation Safeguard Initiative of the National Nuclear Security Administration, Office of Nonproliferation and International Security, has supported LANL's assessment of alternatives for SLA development. Our proposed methodology is comprised of three activities: network modeling, network analysis, and strategic assessment. The network modeling step assesses and formalizes the State’s nuclear capabilities in terms of plausible proliferation paths. The network analysis step gives a ranking of paths in terms of their attractiveness under various assumptions. Finally, the strategic assessment evaluates the State’s proliferation alternatives given a set of derived technical objectives and the implementation of related safeguards measures. In this paper, we examine a hypothetical State model to test our methodology’s performance. In this context, we identified and prioritized the hypothetical State’s acquisition paths according to notional proliferation strategies. State Specific Factors were examined in terms of their impact on path priorities. We examined methods for determining technical objectives contingent upon meeting designated performance targets and examined State-wide safeguard performance. This paper represents the most recent iteration of LANL’s SLA development approach and the assessment of its applicability to the IAEA’s State-level Concept