Safeguards Systems Analysis

Book excerpt: Adequate verification is the key issue not only in today's arms control, arms limitation, and disarmament regimes, but also in less spectacular areas like auditing in economics or control of environmental pollution. Statistical methodologies and system analytical approaches are the tools developed over the past decades for quantifying those components of adequate verification which are quantifiable, i. e. , numbers, inventories, mass transfers, etc. , together with their uncertainties. In his book Safeguards Systems Analy sis, Professor Rudolf Avenhaus condenses the experience and expertise he has gained over the past 20 years, when his work was mainly related to the development of the IAEA's system for safeguarding nuclear materials, to system analytical studies at IIASA in the field of future energy requirements and their risks, and to the application of statistical techniques to arms control. The result is a unified and up-to-date presentation and analysis of the quantitative aspects of safeguards systems, and the application of the more important findings to practical problems. International Nuclear Material Safeguards, by far the most advanced verification system in the field of arms limitation, is used as the main field of application for the game theoretical analysis, material accountancy theory, and the theory on verification of material accounting data developed in the first four chapters.