
Monitoring for nuclear proliferation should be a top United States national security objective, but the nation is not yet organized, nor fully equipped, to address this, according to a recently released Defense Science Board report. The report, Assessment of Nuclear Monitoring and Verification Techniques, said for the first time since the early decades of the nuclear era, the United States needs to be equally concerned about both “vertical” proliferation (increase in capabilities of existing nuclear states) and “horizontal” proliferation (increase…