ABSTRACT
Disarmament negotiations are almost as ancient as war and, hence, as man, but have never led to very positive results. In spite of the unanimous and permanent wish for peace, wars have cost in lives and in expense much more than anyone can imagine. The constantly accelerating progress in technology is modifying more and more quickly the conditions of war, of diplomacy and of” inspection. This chapter elaborates the changes in the matter of verification. Today, aircrafts and satellites carry sensors operating on radio frequency, infra-red, ultra-violet, and even X-ray and gamma-ray regions of the spectrum, with such high resolution that a picture taken from a U-2 flying at a height of 21 kilometres showed details on the soil as small as 1.5 metres. Infra-red is now being used both in the satellite early warning system to detect missiles by the radiation emitted by the hot gas from the rockets, and in observation satellites to observe at night and through camouflage.
