Cryptographic Data Exchange for Nuclear Warheads

TL;DR

This paper introduces a cryptographic protocol for secure, verifiable tracking of nonstrategic nuclear warheads, enhancing treaty compliance verification without intrusive inspections.

Contribution

It presents a novel cryptographic 'Warhead Passport' system using zkSNARKs and commitment schemes for secure, privacy-preserving warhead verification.

Findings

Successfully integrates real-world cryptographic standards.

Ensures forward security against data manipulation.

Provides a practical framework for treaty verification.

Abstract

Nuclear arms control treaties have historically focused on strategic nuclear delivery systems, indirectly restricting strategic nuclear warhead numbers and leaving nonstrategic nuclear warheads (NSNWs) outside formal verification frameworks. This paper presents a cryptographic protocol for secure and verifiable warhead tracking, addressing challenges in nuclear warhead verification without requiring intrusive physical inspections. Our system leverages commitment schemes and zero-knowledge succinct non-interactive arguments of knowledge (zkSNARKs) to ensure compliance with treaty constraints while preserving the confidentiality of sensitive nuclear warhead data. We propose a cryptographic "Warhead Passport" tracking system that chains commitments to individual warheads over their life cycle, enabling periodic challenges and real-time verification of treaty compliance. Our implementation follows real-world treaty constraints, integrates U.S. and Russian dual-hash combiners (SHA-family and GOST R 34.11 family) for cryptographic robustness and political constraints, and ensures forward security by preventing retroactive data manipulation. This work builds on policy research from prior arms control studies and provides a practical foundation for implementing secure, auditable NSNW verification mechanisms.