Deterrence and the design of treaty verification systems

Centered around the notion of deterrence, a framework for analyzing the performance of systems for verifying compliance with arms-control treaty constraints is developed. Using the same models, it is also shown how to evaluate the desirability of the treaty constraints themselves. This analysis forms a relatively unified treatment of both topics, one that permits the joint optimization of both treaty limits and verification mechanisms. The specific application discussed is underground nuclear testing, but because of the generality of the analysis one can apply it to other arms-control contexts as well