Walker, John Britain and Weapons of Mass Destruction Verfication

This is an insider account of the development of on-site inspections in the United Kingdom for nuclear, chemical and biological weapons control and disarmament treaties from the late 1980s to the first two decades of the 21st century. It contains the first detailed narrative and analytical account from the personal perspective of a senior Foreign and Commonwealth Office expert who participated in numerous realistic and demanding verification activities at British and foreign military and commercial facilities, including the former Soviet nuclear weapons test site at Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan. Drawing on the author's personal recollections, government documents from the National Archives, and official reports submitted to the Conference on Disarmament and other international meetings, the book compiles a fascinating and compelling account of an important but hitherto neglected part of the history of the Cold War and post-Cold War era. Despite the differences between nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and their means of production, the UK's verification exercises, described in detail here, have produced many common insights that apply to the design and implementation of on-site inspections, regardless of the treaty in question. In general, the verification of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons control is treated separately, but this book discusses all three areas in a unique, coherent overview of the lessons learned. In addition to the seriousness of the subject matter, the author also recounts the omnipresent humour and many other anecdotes that never made it into the official post-exercise reports.