By Kashaf Sohail. When we talk about “verification” in nuclear politics, most people picture inspectors counting warheads, satellites tracking fissile materials, or monitoring treaty compliance. But verification is more than a technical checklist. At its core, it builds the shared knowledge required for stability, allowing adversaries to avoid miscalculation. This broader meaning of verification is something I came to see personally. As a woman from South Asia in the nuclear policy space, I have noticed how the language of deterrence often echoes masculinity: resolve, retaliation, rank. That mindset prizes control and prestige, not accountability. Thus, it leaves little room for transparency or openness because secrecy itself is seen as strength. When that is the starting point, verification looks less like a safeguard and more like a foreign intrusion.

By Natalia Luers. ABACC, the Brazilian-Argentine Agency for Accounting and Control of Nuclear Materials, was created after Argentina and Brazil shifted from nuclear rivalry to cooperation, turning their foreign-policy convergence into a verification-based mechanism that reinforced Latin America's peace. In 1991, after both countries returned to democracy after the end of military rule, they formalised their cooperation through ABACC to ensure the international community and each other that all nuclear material and facilities in their territories would only be used for peaceful purposes. United in their opposition to the NPT, viewed as the epitome of unfairness and injustice in the global nuclear order, a system of double standards restricting NNWS access to nuclear technology, they recognised the strategic opportunity to build mutual trust in their nuclear programmes and later integrate into the global system as one front.

By Raoul Cardellini Leipertz. Last spring, a lone Russian satellite drifting through an unexpected low Earth orbit set off alarms from Washington to Brussels. Was it an innocuous on-orbit experiment or the first sign of an exo-atmospheric strike platform? Although officials later softened the most sensational claims, the incident exposed a deeper and far more persistent concern. Space law may prohibit nuclear weapons in orbit, but it provides no means of verifying whether that rule is being respected.

By Sanaa Alvira. In June 2025, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors found Iran to be in non-compliance with its safeguards obligations for the first time in nearly two decades. This finding seemed to mark the beginning of a serious escalation in a long-simmering conflict regarding Iran’s nuclear programme and culminated in military airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities by Israel and the United States soon after. Iran responded with its own attacks: not just militarily on Israel and a US base in Qatar, but also politically on the IAEA itself, accusing the Director General of “partiality and passivity over Israeli attacks over the country” and the Agency’s “double standards.”

By Philipp Fischer. Nuclear verification is a critical component of global security, ensuring compliance with international treaties and preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons. However, verification efforts are facing growing challenges due to technological advances and geopolitical tensions. [...] Open-source intelligence (OSINT), based on publicly available data, offers a powerful complement to traditional verification methods by increasing transparency and improving detection capabilities. This type of “societal verification” can involve actors beyond governments and international institutions by making use of digital technologies and publicly available information.

By Leonardo Bandarra. “New Perspectives on Nuclear Verification” is a blog series designed to bring the next generation of ideas and voices into this debate. We believe that early career researchers (that is, postgraduate researchers, and advanced students) as well as young professionals are uniquely positioned to rethink established assumptions and connect insights across disciplines and regions. Their work captures shifts in technology, society, and international politics at an early stage, offering novel approaches that established debates might overlook. We invite you to follow the series, comment, and share it widely, and, if you are an early career researcher or young professional, to add your own perspective.