ABSTRACT
Verification as a means of enforcing the provisions embodied in a disarmament treaty is widely considered the best guarantee of the security of states complying with the treaty provisions. It is held that the would-be violator is deterred from deviating from the norms of the agreement by the fear of his being discovered and exposed by an efficient verification system. The Soviet Union and the other socialist states, on the other hand, adopted the view that actual disarmament should precede measures to ensure that an agreement was being observed. This issue was finally solved by the Zorin-McCloy agreement of 1961 in which it was decided to apply the verification system simultaneously with, not before or after, a disarmament agreement. The problem of the relation between disarmament, security and verification has been hampered by a lack of comprehensive study and by the fact that, because it is a politically sensitive issue, substantial differences of opinion exist.
