ABSTRACT
Verification procedures serve three principal functions: to deter violations and ensure treaty compliance; to detect any variations from agreed arms limitations; and to promote public confidence in arms control and disarmament agreements. The machinery of verification encompasses a broad array of capabilities and arrangements—some technical, others administrative, some national, and others bilateral or multilateral. Chemical and biological weapons present a special challenge to verification techniques, one that is likely to grow more significant with time as the United States and the Soviet Union resume production of chemical weapons after a hiatus of seventeen years. A freeze on the production and deployment of nuclear weapons and a comprehensive test ban have both already been determined to be verifiable in all their most important aspects, even in the absence of measures like on-site inspection. To provide an impartial source of information to verify arms control agreements, various proposals have been made to establish an international verification capability.
