The NNSA carries out three major nuclear security programs. It maintains the safety, security, and effectiveness of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile, accelerates efforts to reduce the global threat posed by nuclear proliferation and terrorism, and provides safe and effective nuclear propulsion systems for the U.S. Navy. This 2011 Strategic Plan describes the goals for the coming decade and some of the near-term initiatives that will move the NNSA toward those goals. This Plan will guide planning, programming, and budgeting process, and form the basis for future program requests. Charts and tables. This is a print on demand edition of an important, hard-to-find publication.

The Global Nuclear Detection Architecture (GNDA) is described as a worldwide network of sensors, telecommunications, and personnel, with the supporting information exchanges, programs, and protocols that serve to detect, analyze, and report on nuclear and radiological materials that are out of regulatory control. The Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO), an office within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), coordinates the development of the GNDA with its federal partners. Performance Metrics for the Global Nuclear Detection Architecture considers how to develop performance measures and quantitative metrics that can be used to evaluate the overall effectiveness and report on progress toward meeting the goals of the GNDA. According to this report, two critical components are needed to evaluate the effectiveness of the GNDA: a new strategic plan with outcome-based metrics and an analysis framework to enable assessment of outcome-based metrics. The GNDA is a complex system of systems meant to deter and detect attempts to unlawfully transport radiological or nuclear material. The recommendations of Performance Metrics for the Performance Metrics for the Global Nuclear Detection Architecture may be used to improve the GNDA strategic plan and the reporting of progress toward meeting its goals during subsequent review cycles.

Addressing an increasingly complex array of nuclear weapons challenges in the future will require talented young people with the necessary technical and policy expertise to contribute to sound decisionmaking on nuclear issues over time. To that end, the CSIS Project on Nuclear Issues (PONI) runs a yearly Nuclear Scholars Initiative for graduate students and young professionals. Those accepted into the program are hosted once per month at CSIS in Washington, DC, where they participate in daylong workshops with senior government officials and policy experts. Over the course of the six-month program, scholars are required to prepare a research paper. This volume is a collection of the 2014 papers from the Nuclear Scholars Initiative.