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"This volume combines the three issues of the journal published in 2025, covering a range of issues from the vulnerability of missile silos to the design of verification arrangements."

"The opening article is "The Counter-Silo Capabilities of Conventional Prompt Strike Weapons" by Eli Sanchez. It asks whether conventional prompt strike weapons could be effective against the hardened underground silos that serve as launchers for intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) mostly notably in the United States, Russia, and China. This analysis assumes that the attacking weapon approaches the target at a hypersonic speed and uses its kinetic energy to damage the silo cover sufficiently to prevent the missile from being launched. The systems that are considered for this mission are U.S. long-range hypersonic glide vehicles that are under development and very ambitiously intended to achieve very high accuracy. The paper concludes that hypersonic gliders with accuracies of more than 5 m (circular error probable) may have a significant counter-silo capability. Such U.S. systems if successfully developed and deployed would potentially further complicate the perceptions of the vulnerability of strategic nuclear strategic forces in Russia and China. This assessment adds to earlier work on this topic published in this journal (Ryan Snyder, "Assessing the Lethality of Conventional Weapons against Strategic Missile Silos in the United States, Russia, and China," Science & Global Security 32, 2024)"

"The second article is "Emerging Accuracy of Ballistic Missile Guidance Systems" by L. M. Arthur and R. Scott Kemp. It uses a Monte Carlo approach to explore the accuracy of ICBMs and how it is limited by guidance and navigation system uncertainties due to sensors and the environment (gravity, atmospheric density, wind, etc.). It then assesses possible accuracy gains from in-flight updates to the guidance system via the signals broadcast by a global navigation satellite system (such as GPS) to correct inertial measurement errors. It finds that combining inertial measurements with position data from a navigation system allows for sub-meter accuracy in position over intercontinental ranges - if the satellite positioning system has global coverage and the missile reentry vehicle has sufficient maneuverability. This could allow intercontinental-range precision strikes with conventional explosives."

"The third article is "Modeling Plutonium Production in the Experimental Light Water Reactor of North Korea" by Cecilia Gustavsson, Peter Andersson, Erik Branger, Grant Christopher, Jaewoo Shin and Hailey Wingo. It combines a possible core design for a 100 MWt PWR, with simulations for fuel enrichment varying from 1% to 3.5% uranuim-235, and satellite imagery of cooling water from the reactor to constrain the operation of the North Korean Experimental Light Water Reactor that started up in October 2023. It assesses its capacity to produce plutonium for nuclear warheads (taken to be 93.8% plutonium-239), in addition to or instead of electricity production. It finds that an initial enrichment of 1.75% uranium-235 or lower could allow the reactor to produce up to 20 kg of weapons plutonium per year. An earlier analysis is available in Patrick J. Park & Alexander Glaser, "Estimating Potential Tritium and Plutonium Production in North Korea's Experimental Light Water Reactor," Science & Global Security 32, 2024."

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The Technical Basis for Arms Control, Disarmament, and Nonproliferation Initiatives