Fellow for International Studies here at stanford. Going to discuss the brandnew booking see the title on their slide on your screen, the button the Nuclear Arms Race for president ial power which puts readers on the frontline of Nuclear History and offers policy prescription for a safer future. As many of you know he served as a 19th u. S. Secretary of defense nick Clinton Administration defense policy armscontrol and along undistinguished history at stanford he is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution as well part he was the codirector of the center for International Securities in 1998 to 1993 and completed both his bachelors and masters degree in mathematics here at stanford which is particular impressive to me because i did not get into stanford either as an undergraduate or graduate. Hes now the michael and barbara emerita at stanford. Its great we can see you today, we also are thrilled to have his coauthor here. So tom is a director is 30 years of washington d. C. Experiencing Nuclear Weapons, missiledefense and issues but he has senior position at the arts control and the institute for science and International Security. He has been directly involved with efforts to end nuclear testing, extending treaty tom also has a degree in International Relations from cornell. But tommy will not hold that against you. Cornell is a pretty good school too. Im also pleased to introduce my colleague and good friend rose is a distinguished lecturer and a Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution. Before coming to stanford she was the deputy secretary general of nato from 2016 until 2019 and prior to that she surf nearly five years as the undersecretary for armscontrol International Security at the United States state department. So heres what we have planted secretary perry and tom will have remarks about an overview of the argument for the book and then roads will join them in conversation to ask a few questions part b will then save about 20 minutes or so at the end to do q a from the audience. It looks like we have about 142 folks and climbing. If you want to submit a question please do so by going to the bottom of your zoom screen and clicking on the q a button. And i will collect the questions and feed them to our authors after rose has completed her questioning of them. So without further delay, i will handed over to to secretary perry and to tom to gives a sense for their book. Thank you. I will kick us off colin for that introduction and rose its great to be here with you as well. It is an honor and privilege to share this virtual stage with you and thank you so much for organizing. Of course it is also been a great honor for me to it write this book with bill perry called, the button, which comes out this month. Just a little background, we plan is for three reasons that will be a surprise to any of you up course next month, july 16 marks the fifth anniversary of the bottom of the First Nuclear test, the trinity test. August marks the 75th anniversary of hiroshima and knossos sake bombings. This november will choose our next president. These events create historic opportunity to debate the foreign policy. Weve lived with a bomb for 75 years, what should the next president do to reduce the risk of nuclear war . That is what this book is really about. Im going to run through the slides if the Technology Gods are with me, it will all go smoothly. Okay great so far so good. So first, let me put book in the context of the current moment. We are of course in a National Crisis with these three dimensions, public health, economy, racial injustice. And on top of all that we have a leadership vacuum here in washington. Too truly move beyond this crisis we feel the status quo in u. S. Policy must change. Specifically the coronavirus shows how u. S. Defense policy has been focused on the wrong threats. We are spending way too much on outdated cold war scenarios great Power Military conflict with russia for example and not enough on the true existential threats we face today. Pandemics, climate change, nuclear war. Raging unemployment and systemic racial inequalities show we have been investing too much in traditional defense and not enough in building a Strong Economy and a just society. Despite spending 700 billion a year on defense, Many Americans simply do not feel safe. As Martin Luther king worn in 1967, quote, the nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. I would agree with that. So getting back to the issues at hand. Nuclear weapons in particular have no role to play in addressing the serious threats we face. In fact, Nuclear Weapons, we find, make those threats even worse. So lets unpack this a bit. We like to start with this photo because it tends to focus the mind. Here is President Trump with the infamous football carried by the military aid right behind him there. The briefcase contains everything the president needs to start a nuclear war. This is literally how close we are to nuclear war every day, every minute, right now. President trump can start an attack on his own authority with no Second Opinions. No input from congress or the secretary of defense are needed. Now, we dont mean to single out President Trump here. Of course his impulsiveness and disregard for Expert Opinion might highlight these concerns in the current moment. We want to be clear all president s make mistakes. All are human. That is why we strongly feel that no single unit should control the future of humanity. Yet we, the American People, choose to give president s this absolute power, why . Why do we choose to live so close to the brink of disaster . This is one of the main themes of the book. We think it is because u. S. Policies focus on the wrong threat. So lets get to the central arguments. The central arguments we make in the book is that u. S. Policies focus on the wrong threat of a surprise attack from russia. Such an attack is highly unlikely for the simple reason such an attack would mean the utter destruction of both sides. Yet Nuclear Policy has been based on this threat for decades. So the big problem here is this mistake in threat assessment undermines u. S. Security by driving policies that increase the risk of blundering into nuclear war by mistake. We could literally start a nuclear war in response to a false alarm. One of the greatest dangers in the world. And we simply dont need to do this. So we must move away from quick launch policies and said give the president more decision time limiting nuclear used to second strike deterrence only missions. So, bill, turning to you, you of course have had a front row seat to the arms race and met with soviet and russian officials many times. Some might challenge our key assertion here but that is not a realistic threat from russia, would you say that . So i would say they are wrong. When i was secretary of defense i met many, many times with all of the key officials in the russian government, the president , and the ministry of defense, ministry of state and several decades since then ive continued to me of hundreds of russians to we called track to diplomacy, one thing i can say with great confidence, the russians are not stupid. The russians are not suicidal and therefore we are focused on the wrong thing. The first strike is not realistic. What is realistic however is we might blunder in a nuclear war. Thank you. And as we argue in the book, this perceived threat of a bolt from the blue, drives the military requirement we must be ready to launch Nuclear Requirements at all times within minutes that in turn drives these three dangerous policies. First, the president as we mention has Sole Authority to launch Nuclear Weapons within minutes with no Second Opinion or oversight. Second, the president can order a first strike it its not limited to retaliation and most americans do not realize that. And third, the president can launch hundreds of landbased Ballistic Missiles on warning of attack and does not need to wait for proof of attack. When the main things we do in the book is show how dangerous this combination of policies are, and bill please give us your sense of why these policies are so dangerous. Particularly standing out in the danger is the possibility of a false alarm. To me thats not us theoretical threat weve had six false alarms that i know of. One of them i personally experience it is graven in my memory when i was the under secretary of defense during the cold war i got a phone call at 3 00 oclock in the morning from then general of the north american air command in the first thing he told me was his computers were showing 600 icbms on their way from the soviet union to the United States. I immediately woke up. But happily the general quickly added he concluded it was a false alarm and he was calling me to have me assess why his computers had gone wrong. As it turned out, it took us several days to find out it was a computer chip malfunction, very simple very cheap chip. The other times weve had false alarm has been human it can be a technical or human failure there is a realistic possibility to happen six times in the past, it will happen again. Smacked thank you. Every time you tell that story i find it chilling so thank you very much. Lets expand on the dangers of Sole Authority for a moment sprayed in 1963 in fact this week in 1963 president kennedy gave the famous speech where he warned we could stumble into nuclear war due to quote accident or miscalculation or madness. We spend quite a bit of time in the book going through those various scenarios. Bill, could you walk us through how this might happen. So first of all the president might have Bad Information in a classic example of that is president kennedy on cuba were all of his military advisers were recommending a military attack on cuba. Had our troops landed on the beachhead, they would have been met and decimated on the beachhead by the Nuclear Weapons. We did not know, we simply did not know that while the russians had medium weapons but they did have mediumrange label to use. In addition to that we could have an unstable, President Trump might be a classic example of that but is not the only one. In the last few months of president nixons presidency he was a heavy drinker and not in full control of himself most of the time to the extent that both the secretary of defense and secretary of state were deeply concerned secretary of defense james lessing or tried to intervene with the military to say not to respond if they got a call from the president. But of course that was an illegal order and its unlikely the military would have followed it. And then president reagan during the last few months of his presidency, we did not noted the time but he is in the early stages of alzheimers disease. Finally weve already talked about we can have a false alarm in it serious in that dangers has been the past its even greater today with the presence of cyber warfare. All of these say we can start a nuclear war by blundering into nuclear war. That is what should drive u. S. Policy, what we could do to prevent the policy of blundering into a nuclear war but focus on the old cold war of an unreal unrealistic threat of a first strike. So thank you very much. Lets move into what we propose for solutions. The next president can and must reorient Nuclear Policy away from a russian surprise attack to preventing accidental war. And we layout a number of recommendations in primarily the three we will now discuss. Bill if you can walk us through those. So the first recommendation is to end president ial Sole Authority. Theyve had Sole Authority because we believed it was necessary to be able to respond in five or six minutes as weve already discussed, that is susceptible to leading us into a catastrophic war false alarm. The bill now pending in congress is to that purpose. And theres no probability at all being passed this year. It is a very good prospect in the next year we should all get behind supporting that bill next year. Secondly, we should establish that shrink the new president should establish a policy. Some have come close to that event each they backed off. This time lets push it through. Again theres a bill pending in Congress Today that would come out of that. We can have the opportunity another crack at it next year. And finally, we should phase out icbms. They are accidents waiting to happen. Thank you very much. So im going to summarize enclosed so we can get to roses questions and the audience question. So Nuclear Weapons are clearly the president s weapons every four years we have a chance to change u. S. Nuclear policy. The current National Crisis we are in is creating, we feel, a once in a Generation Opportunity to rethink our fundamental approach to national security. Nuclear weapons are so out of step with reality that it is doing us more harm than good. As currently configured our atomic arsenal magnifies the dangers we face from the most likely threaten blundering into nuclear war by mistake. So the next president can and must bring u. S. Nuclear policy into the 21st century. Now, we are pretty realistically know this will be hard. We are up against 75 years of outdated thinking and a 50. Billiondollar industry. History tells us that major change like this can only happen if lead from the top by the president. But, importantly with public support and public pressure to deliver on promises made so we are looking to educate the next president and the public like you. So thank you very much for listening and if you are at all interested in buying the book please go to then bella books. Com. Use the code button 30 you get 30 off thank you very much. I have already done button 50 in button 75 it did not give me 50 or 75 off the book. Just 30. Rose, over to you. Thank you very much call if i have my own copy of the book right here i have to tell you it is a wonderful book. I just read it over the last couple of days to prepare for this session. It really gets you its really good reading. You will learn a lot. I really commend of the authors for turning out something about Nuclear Weapons that is eminently readable. My job is to lead a fire side chat seems like strange in the middle of june to lead a fireside chat but in the spirit of that im going to ask our authors a couple of questions ensued they have to say about it. Right up front, bill and tom i will ask the two of you and you can decide whether you both want to answer for one of you will take the lead. Does that sound okay . Yes. So my first question is the russians have just put out a new president ial decree just over a week ago. Also outline a nuclear release policy resting solely on president ial decisionmaking authority. The president of course being president putin. As one russian analyst put it very simply, and i quote, new first, phone later. What would you say to the russians . And what would you say to president putin based on what you learned during your book . So i would say they are making the same mistake we have made. They are moving backwards not forward. In the russian analyst who said new first phone later but he is contemplating us after they nuke first then we know what hes talking about so boldly is the destruction of civilization. If i could just add i think bill is exactly right. And to say in my experience what i have read about this, the russian situation is even more dire than ours. In other words, the russian president has even less time to make a decision about retaliation once they get the notice of it incoming attack which could be a false alarm. So the situation is even more dire in russia than it is here. We need to help russia move away from Sole Authority, first use, and will launch on warning. So very good i could see that would be extraordinarily interesting conversation, discussion. But also very complex and difficult one. Now let me move on to my second question. Your book focuses on u. S. , Russian Nuclear relationship which has long been based on the notion of first strike ability. Interesting though the policy you are recommending, second use assured retaliation as you call in the book has long been the basis of chinese doctrine. Now, however, the chinese seem to be shifting to capabilities such as icbms and others that would appear to be moving them in a first strike direction rather than second use assured retaliation. So, my question to you is how would you incentivize the u. S. And russia to move to a second strike approach, secure second prices stroke will getting the chinese to stay right where they are . , both countries having an active Modernization Program going on the chinese building submarines and icms and the russians continuing to modernize their nuclear triad. What would you say about that . How do we keep chinese staying where they are with that particular approach and how do we get the u. S. And russia incentivize to move in that direction . So may be bill i will start on this when you can jump in. Rose great question, thank you. I think we need to be careful not to equate china and russia. Not saying youre doing that. Of course u. S. And russia have about 20 times a Nuclear Arsenal of china, 20 times larger. So we need to keep that in mind. I think the way to incentivize china is to reduce the danger to incentivize china to reduce the danger closest to us we need to reduce the danger we posted them. So we should match chinas pledge on no first use for example. I work with them to make it verifiable on both sides for example by taking weapons off alerts. That is where i would start. Okay. What do you think . So i think the trump it just right. Very good very good. Both of you recommend that the Nuclear Reduction talks with russia could start with the proposal that president obama made in berlin in 2013 for up to one third further reduction in operationally warheads below the treaty levels of 1550 deployed warheads. I agree that is the easiest and fastest way to get reductions to level about 1000 warheads. However, i have heard some say today because the russians and chinese are both building Nuclear Weapons are both modernizing just as i said a moment ago, we cannot reduce and eliminate anymore. We need to build up and produce more warheads. What would you say to them . So the test of our warheads, the Nuclear Policy a Nuclear Weapon system is not whether we are equal to or ahead of the russians. The test is deterrence its not a numbers game. We are not trying to keep up with the joneses, the russians. It is an interesting question that will move juice with that provide incentive we cannot be sure the answer to that is. We certainly know during the cold war when we increase and they increase it as they follow the leader approach. I will be interesting see if we reverse the trend no way of knowing that. I would just add this logic of always building more is how we got into the arms race in the first place were both wound up building over 30,000 Nuclear Weapons each fruit as we learned before it is crazy, its expensive and it is dangerous. And as long as we have enough to deter russia and china thats a few hundred or so, than that is enough. Any more than that is wasteful. I would make the additional point that the country has real leads. We have needs uncovered response on the economy, and of course on responses to racial injustice. We do not have money to burn. So we should not do it. Very good i cannot resist before i turn the floor asking you bill, you are an imminent technologist as well, your whole career as a mathematician at stanford but advancing to your time in the pentagon before he became state secretaries focus on the implications of new technological development. I wonder if you could say a few words for our audience about how you think today about the implication of new Technology Trends for our Nuclear Forces in the future . Let me start off by quoting jones who once said technology is a wonderful thing. On one hand. [inaudible] , and the other hand stabs you in the back while technology. Look at the look at Cyber Technology are Nuclear Technology which came as a huge advantage and positive ways. Its also open us up to all sorts of cyber threats, enough to expanding every technology has two sides i dont know of any exceptions to that our job as people and a society is defined away to have the benefits without being stabbed in the back with the threats. So very good, tom i cannot resist asking you, you are spending time in washington as you have throughout your career a lot of time on capitol hill. I noticed theres a lot more interest in these issues on capitol hill despite the fact we have a sharply divided system and a notion of bipartisanship its like a distant concept maybe even a distant dream at this point. I would be interested in how you see the current environments and how you are expecting the environment to evolve . Bill perry in his opening remarks had to Pay Attention to the new legislation under consideration for example president ial use authority. Hows it going to go . Can it be worked . Say a few words about how you see the evolution Congress Going forward. Sure thanks for the question. My answer a year ago will be very different than my answer today. As i said in my remarks we are in an crisis. Defense policy broadly if we administration we have a new administration coming, a Biden Administration we have to deal to responding to the coronavirus and have a real response having to deal with an economy and have to deal with fixing racial inequalities who have had for a decade breed that is going to take real money. The question is where does that money come from in my opinion of a presence going to look and take a fresh approach to this if you do this of course that puts other aspects of the Defense Budget as you know the United States is now embarked on a 2 trilliondollar program to rebuild the arsenal over the next two decades. A big part of that is the new 100 billiondollar program. All these things should be on the table. If we truly do try to change the way the nuclear has to be on the table there will be real opportunities on the days ahead if we see that kind of shift. Do you see more interest, thats a super question theres a small group of congressmen who are very, very interested in issues and focus on them. The wider interest in congress is not there. That is the issue i think concerns and many of us. How to get people engaged and involved on these issues so they dive into this debate. For sure and can certainly a concern of ours is how do you maintain the leadership among members of congress her really care about this. And of course i forgot to mention, today is the 38th anniversary they really sparked a lot of peoples interest in this movement, so many years ag ago. The reason we have that kind of attention then and not now as we had a cold war then. We have a raging cold war once the cold war ended public concern really dropped off quite sharply. One of the reasons we wrote this book to help people understand the stakes to bring attention to issues that people can see front and center . For example President Trump with the Nuclear Button is a something tangible to right in front of us, and it is within our control to do so. Well turn our attention back to call but ive one question whether we have a new president in january of this year or the status quo continues. What would be your your advice on be somewhat different to each. But with the first word of advice be . We assess question in the context of your deep understanding there are a lot of thing on the president s plate. Trying to keep attention on these important matters is important. Tom just went through a big litany of what the next president or status quo present is going to have to wrestle with. What would be your word of advice to the president in january as you having working issues and keep his eye on that prize while all these other agenda items will be grabbing at his attention . The president undoubtedly is going to feast a huge huge economic bubble. Therefore my advice to him would be by taking, look at the recommendations we are making i would try using a little jujitsu on that. Point of the problems is already facing theres a way to face these at the same time. Taking our country out of Nuclear Danger is a twofer. So aid to fork when each look at even three cornered billiard shots that we recognize that throughout my career, thank you both very much for answering my questions. Now back over to you collin. So thank you rose. With a lot of Great Questions in the queue might have some for scenarios of blundering into nuclear war. Sherrill spencers asks what other happening could lead to a Nuclear Weapon being set off . Secretary perry is talked about terrorism could you talk about how that could happen thats kind of a different scenario i have another question related to blundering into nuclear war that speaks more to the issue, mr. Secretary which is that modernization is occurring across many nonNuclear Domain. That nevertheless has serious consequences for nuclear deterrent. Cyber, yes. But the Artificial Intelligence and machine learning, hydro sonic, in terms of development outside the Nuclear Domain what keeps you up the most in terms of blundering across the Nuclear Threshold . What could categorize it, and outside the Nuclear Domain what wrist should we be worried about an terms of blundering into nuclear war. So on the point of terrorism is one thing we can greatly do to minimize about risk. Understanding Nuclear Terrorist can get a bomb unless he is able to steal it which i think is unlikely, what he needs is to be able to get the uranium or plutonium and make the bomb himself is not that difficult. So the one thing we could do in one thing we are doing in fact is to make it much more difficult. One of the principal accomplishments i think of present obama in this field was setting up the program to try get all the nations in the world who have Nuclear Material to take much greater pains to secure that material. So securing the material is one thing we can do in the case of minimizing nuclear terror. The other question was so you mentioned cyber in your remarks, their developments with Artificial Intelligence, hypersonic all of these raise fundamental questions of whether the Nuclear Power might stumble into nuclear war or some other pathway. Which of those keep you up at night the most . So i will tell you one is hypersonic spirit all the hoopla on micro sonic because they can penetrate our defenses is a joke. The eye tbn can and do penetrate the defenses if they wanted to be used by the hypersonics to not really add to the threat we face. Space is a different question. If we are so foolish to allow this Technology Race to militarize space and we are endangering both of our countries and endangering the whole world. I think it is a very high imperative to keep that from being militarize but i think were moving that way right now. One of the things i would urge him very carefully is fighting and objective way to decrease and not increase the situation were in right now. So great. There were a number of questions related to know first used in Sole Authority of the lump couple questions together for you to answer. We asked i was a little bit perplexed by this sentence than bills review of your book and Forbes Magazine for he wrote thats way dramatically reduce assembly into the nuclear wars required the president to consult congress before launching a first strike, adopt a policy of no first use and landbased missile. And then add the first clause, logically suggests the United States might indeed use Nuclear Weapons first as long as both pennsylvania avenue sign off on it and then he concludes please say it aint so. Would you support megastore recommendation that the United States should be able to engage in a first use policy as long as congress and the president would agree . So bill can i jump it out . So i might say our main concern is president ial Sole Authority for first use. The two aspects of that there is the Sole Authority peace and the first use peace. There are two ways to go after those things theres legislature in congress by senator markey and congressman lou to say Sole Authority for first use must be shared between the white house and congress that would slow down and delay any decision on first use which we think will be a great idea. Yes that could potentially still allow first use but of course it would be a shared Authority First use. So thats why i would say in addition to that there should be no first use policy that is a blanket prohibition on first use. Its kind of a belt and suspenders approach if you will. You have a congressional ban on Sole Authority for first use, shared authority for first use so let me add to that i think we should have a note first use policy. As people often said what if somebody attacks with chemical weapons . In the days when i was secretary one of the north African Companies i think maybe livia was building a chemicals weapon plant. I was asked the secretary of defense should we use Nuclear Weapons against them . My answer was we dont need to use Nuclear Weapons to deal with this problem. We do not need to use Nuclear Weapons that was true then and that its true now. Mr. Sec. Do you also growth the point that will make communicate we might need to use Nuclear Weapons for this purpose for nonnuclear contingencies for the actors who might be considering Nuclear Weapons . That is the most powerful in the world thanks they might need that and they would too . So yes it is all bad for the reason you state. It simply encourages people to think they need Nuclear Weapons to deal with conventional problems. And if we set the lead in that regard, at the conventional militaries we have we think we need Nuclear Weapons why dont they need them . See you are exactly right, calling. So i want to continue this threat on congress. So please say more about what you see as an alternative just so authority . We had in the past some people propose a requirement to have Congress Declare War but congress has become completely dysfunctional to what might work instead. While my to look at this is how confident are you that congress can be a mature and active partner in this type of decision when they are infrequently willing to dive into other use of force. Raleigh brown asked how can president s accept limited limitations without accepting the broader term of the war powers resolution . I guess our two halves of the equation here do you think congress is really willing to step up to the back . And you think a president would be willing to give congress the authority in this issue and have to give authority and whole bunch of other areas for support . I will jump into that. In terms of whether president s , they never want to give up authorities they are given. So i think this is something that has to be demanded by the American People and by congress on the basis that it is un democratic. Right, as you Mention Congress has the power to declare war they should have the power to declare war by the constitution. Certainly using Nuclear Weapons as the ultimate declaration of war. So the president should not have the authority to use Nuclear Weapons on that sole discretion. So congress is going to have to step in and reassert that responsibility, that authority by calling back as we say some of the authorities that have overtime seeped to the white house away from congress. In terms of whether congress can get their act together, i trust and believe that if Congress Takes this authority, they could use it responsibly. And people criticize us by saying you can never do it fast enough. Congress can never make a quick decision to launch Nuclear Weapons if we are under attack. That is part of what we are saying, you should never make a decision to launch Nuclear Weapons under risk of attack because that attack is probably a false alarm. What were saying is we need to take our time and not be in a situation where we are prepared to see things quickly because that just increases the risk of blundering into nuclear war. And by requiring congressional involvement you slow the process down which is exactly what we need. When you consider the consequences of nuclear war one thing you can certainly say is there is no need to rush into it. There is no need to rush into any thing lets take our time and think about it. So just a great anecdote. We had an interview with former president bill clinton and the book. He had this great story where people pressured him into take military action or a tough response quickly. He was tell his aides kelly tell them tomorrow . Because if we can kill them tomorrow we are not weak. I think we have to remember that if we can respond later than there is really no reason to respond quickly, the deterrent still holds. So great. We have a couple of questions and it relates to the impact of your proposal on american allie allies. So asks, and large concern over the u. S. No use policy and strong opposition from nato ally, i would add from places like japan, are such concerns overblown . How should the u. S. Reconcile those policy will trying to improve relations with nato and other treaty allies . The first question is on alices second is by taylor im sorry if i butchered your last name the option to use Nuclear Weapons first continues to be an important aspect deterrent how to provide deterrence and reassure allies taking best the authors outline to deterrent and reassure and rely on capabilities such as the proposed Nuclear Cruise missile or are there other methods independent of these capability . How nervous are allies going to be . How can we assure them . Let me address of personally the second for tom. When i was the secretary we were considering no first use. During the debating. I was besieged by representatives of european and asian countries, particularly japan was very strong on this. They had to believe in the no first use would somehow weaken the extended deterrent. All i can say is i never understood the argument at the time. And i dont understand it now i dont see the connection between these two at all. I can assure you i can confirm what youre saying problem at the time in fact its probably more than anything its not actually to go ahead and would be wrongnot going with the no first use. I would just add this is a serious problem. As bill just said ally concerns can get in the way on this issu issue. In a forthcoming Biden Administration for example, they come out strong supporting no first use as a logical extension of the Obama Administration. And no going to have to do and Charm Offensive with the allies and bring them along and convince them that no first use in that process has to start on day one, and it has to be concerted and ongoing. And all of the important allies need to be touched and reassured and i think this policy could be a big success. Civic rose i think you have the pulse of our allies especially in europe has what you say about this . Thank you for the opportunity to come back on briefly its an absolute great question. My view is the allies have been stalled by the Current Administration their particular very concerned about the lack of consultation of issues such as withdrawal from the treaty is a good example. To give them credit they did good conversation on the inf treaty and a lot of information about the russian violation we were able to bring the allies along on that. There is a lot of concern among the allies they are simply not getting true consultation from washington at this point. Certainly not on the point of Nuclear Arms Reduction at a time of the Current Administration says they want to have that on Nuclear Weapons. That directly involves the allies. My bottom line is i think this actually might be a good moment if the new president does arrive in office to actually talk seriously and directly to the allies about it is time for some needed change in the Nuclear Doctrine needs a hard look and we need to talk to them about it. I cant tell you not have any direct evidence of how the chinese would jump into the discussion. I do think theres a time when they have felt where they would have a serious and wise conversation about the matters peers back thank you rose. One saying, tom i also want to get to you if you have anything to try to explain, just that people are interested, President Biden gave a speech to the Carnegie Endowment about a week before the end of the Obama Administration it was officially supposed to be a scorecard for how the Obama Administration had done on the Nuclear Agenda that they went at the beginning. To the no first use debate, biden made it clear in that speech it was his view and the presidency, president obama at the time which the United States would use Nuclear Weapons first. In their view, president obamas use of Nuclear Weapons was to retaliate against nuclear strike. Think his views on the issue have been around for a while. Id note both he and president obama wanted to make sure they had those views on the record before. But tom, ive got some other questions i wanted to make sure there wasnt anything you wanted to add . No, just to say thats a great statement that President Biden had just before President Trump came in. Think it is essentially supportive of a no first use policy. And certainly we help a Biden Administration would move quickly to no first use and make that a reality. A couple questions as it relates to the icbm. So essentially your argument boils down for moving a triad to a dyad. Michael mcfall decent guy said terrific discussion or in book right now. Could you say more about why and how that should be retired . I might add you envision a Life Extension Program . Give us a little bit of a flavor on how that happens and they see so you dont like icbm which are elderly systems on the best day, do you support other forms of modernization like the b21 new bomb . Or the columbia class submarine . In other words when we move toward the dyad should be modernized in dyad . Or should we not make any of those investments either . We answer that question, we say specifically we should modernize the dyad. In terms of why it turns out its the most dangerous weapons we have delayed us a blunder into a nuclear war. Tom what you want to add to that . Just on a question of how you would do it. The first thing we would do is cancel the new program. This is a program to rebuild icbm and it will cost upwards of 150 billion. It will be better to take that money and put it in a barrel and burn it. Right . Will be less safe with that weapon if we build it. I would say not to have that weapon. So cancel that system. Then you want to cancel what we have. As bill just laid out was to never retire the better it simply dangerous increases the risk of blundering into ward to false alarm. Politically that is not going to happen. So i think politically if you canceled the new missile, youre probably going to have to balance that with a life extension of the existing. When you can do thatll cost some money but we can extend the life of the minutemen three and thats probably the political compromise that is coming. But the important first step to cancel the new program and save that money for something else. On to ask what the other peace of the Modernization Program. Obviously, this relates to a question by steven swarts. Lots and first and fast is not primarily driven by fear of a surprise attack, since 1950 military officials have been aware that only a handful of Nuclear Weapons could potentially disrupt or prevent our ability to retaliate by killing or incapacitating top leaders in destroying their mobile command post and linking them altogether with the Nuclear Forces. You, especially doctor parikh, concur with that and do you suggest investing further billions of dollars into the network . Yes. In the book of back to make that specific recommendation. Thats a good thing to do. Certainly for getting away with icbm and launch on warning, then theres a greater chance of the retailing after a Nuclear Attack and that puts a huge amount of pressure from the command control system to survive that. At the same time, a lot of people at sakais first strike would work and take out the command control. Because they will be out there it has been said by people smarter than me, a failure to communicate does not mean a failure to retaliate. Just because we cant communicate with the subs doesnt mean they wont find a way to retaliate and the russians could never be confident that u. S. Submarines that are out there floating at sea and are invulnerable would not find a way to respond. We have a couple of questions about other roles and dynamics of Nuclear Weapons. I last two questions in this category preble talk about the parity conversation, herb says your argument applies the u. S. Could have asked number of Nuclear Warheads and deterrence would not be harmed even if the russian had to ask of those warheads. Many people would argue prepared a knot on the basis of military needs but the psychology of it. That is argument something is like if they have 2x they will feel like they have the upper hand and will not be deterred. How do you respond to that psychological argument . And then Hans Christiansen asks, about damaging mentation he said with your model the u. S. Presumably should not plan damage limitation scenarios. That means about bales retaliation could be used to the extent of the United States and allies are how do you view the after deterrent sales of Nuclear Weapon. So the psychology, towards the diplomacy i guess, deterrence question. In the question from Hans Christiansens on damage. Subject all take the first only the second for tom. Samet i dont have a very satisfactory action to her but ive never been able to understand why people believe that if you have to ask and even if you had one exit and they have two exit somehow you lose your ability for deterrence. Deterrence is your ability to have a sure retaliation no matter how many missiles you have. Hinges more on the way your weapons are based not many how many have on them. Ive heard the argument its hard to answer because i dont understand it at all. I dont believe theres any validity to it. Tom over. I would just remark we got lucky the mpt, fiftieth anniversary. The civil rights icon, service for john lewis is underway. Its taking place in his hometown of troy, alabama. Theyre calling it a service are quite so many talented people here coming to visit us. Thanks to all of you and i can collude, on the table, presentation scratched the surface of the depth of the book so i encourage you to get it. It is a great read. You are watching booktv with top nonfiction books and authors every weekend. Booktv, television for serious readers. Hello, thanks for joining us. I am
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