Why the Wrong Time for Disarmament Is the Right Time for Verification
Erik Andersson Sundén, Associate Professor at Department of Physics and Astronomy; Applied Nuclear Physics
A few weeks ago, I found myself at dinner with staffers from the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. They were traveling through Sweden and ended one of their tightly packed days at Stockholms Nation in Uppsala. I work in the Alva Myrdal Centre's technical verification group at Uppsala University, developing methods to monitor and verify disarmament. So, when our conversation turned to nuclear arms control, it immediately struck a familiar chord, even though politically it's a topic many consider dead on arrival.
The timing felt almost ironic. There we were, discussing disarmament during what many would call its least politically viable moment in decades. Relations between nuclear powers are strained. Trust is at historic lows.
Yet as we talked, I found myself making an argument that seemed to resonate: this is precisely when we need to be developing verification technologies.
The Verification Gap
The fundamental challenge of nuclear disarmament has always been trust, or rather, the lack of it. No nation will disarm if it cannot verify that its adversaries are doing the same. And adversaries, by definition, do not trust each other.
Current verification methods face serious limitations. Traditional inspections rely on access that hostile parties are reluctant to grant. Intelligence gathering creates its own tensions and cannot provide the mutual transparency that genuine disarmament requires.
What we need are verification tools that can help build the necessary trust between mutually distrustful parties by providing objective proof of compliance. Such systems work by both deterring violations and enabling their detection, which in turn reduces the incentive to cheat and increases confidence that adversaries are following through on their commitments. This means moving beyond reliance on an adversary's word alone and establishing verification systems that provide independently verifiable evidence of compliance.
The Timeline Problem
These verification technologies take years to design, test, and validate. Beyond the technical development itself, there are critical questions of authentication and certification: can the technology reliably do what it claims to do, and can we be certain it does nothing else? Who provides the instruments that all parties trust? These technologies require confidence not only in the technical systems themselves but also in the processes and protocols surrounding their use. International stakeholders must understand them, trust them, and agree on how they will be applied.
"The question is not whether the world will eventually need these tools. It is whether we will have them ready when it does."
Political windows for disarmament, by contrast, open and close in months. A leadership change, a geopolitical crisis, or even a near-miss incident can suddenly create momentum for arms reduction. But if verification tools are not ready, that momentum is lost.
We cannot start developing verification once the political will appears. By then, it is already too late. The technical groundwork must be laid before the opportunity arises.
The Preparedness Argument
This is what I emphasized to the Congressional staffers: we are not asking for disarmament now. We are asking for readiness.
We need to think of verification technology as infrastructure. We do not build emergency response systems after disasters strike. We prepare in advance so that when the critical moment arrives, we can act.
The same logic applies here. The current geopolitical climate may make implementing these tools difficult, even impossible. But it also makes their development urgent.
As our discussion continued, I realized how strongly this framing resonated across the political spectrum. What had begun as a theoretical point about preparedness took on a practical dimension. The staffers, despite representing different political perspectives, showed genuine interest in this idea. Many of them recognized that even if disarmament seems politically impossible today, the groundwork being laid now could prove essential tomorrow.
Moving Forward
The work underway in verification technology, in remote monitoring and in methods for proving compliance without revealing secrets, is not premature. It is essential preparation.
When the political landscape shifts, as it inevitably will, we need tools that are proven, trusted, and ready to deploy. These are the tools that can transform a fleeting moment of political will into tangible progress toward a safer world.
The wrong time for disarmament is the right time for verification, not because we expect immediate results but because we refuse to be unprepared when the moment comes.
The question is not whether the world will eventually need these tools. It is whether we will have them ready when it does.