Nuclear arms race and president ial power. As many of you know, doctor perry served in the Clinton Administration and a worldrenowned expert on foreign policy, national security, defense policy, arms control and a long distinguished history here at stanford. And he is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution oslo and the codirector of the center for International Security and cooperation from 1988 it is impressive to me because i didnt get to stanford to be an undergraduate or graduate student and now the Professor Emeritus at stanford facilities great to reconnect with you, mr. Secretary. We also are thrilled to have doctor perrys coauthor, tom collina, the director of policies. He has 30 years of washington, d. C. And nonproliferation issues hes been directly involved in the efforts to tom head of the e degree of International Relations from cornell he emphasizes 15 distinguished lecture at and Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution. Before coming to stanford, the deputy secretary general of nato from 2016 to 2019 and prior to that served nearly five years as the undersecretary for arms control and International Security at the United States departments of here is what we have planned. Secretary perry and collina will give an overview of the arguments on the book and then rose will join them in conversation to ask a few questions. We will then save about 20 minutes or so at the end to qanda and it looks like we have about 142 claiming so if you want to set up a question please do so by going to the bottom of your screen and click on the qanda button. I will collect the questions and feed them to the authors after rose has completed her questioning. Without further delay i will hand it over to. I will kick us off. Thank you for those introductions. Grows it is great to be here with you as well. It is an honor and a privilege to share this stage with you. Thank you so much for organizing. Its also been an honor for me to write this book called the button. We planned the timing for three reasons that wont be a surprise to any of you. Next month july 16 marks the anniversary of the First Nuclear test. August marks the 75th anniversary of the hiroshima and nagasaki bombings and then this november we will choose our next president. These create a historical opportunity to debate the future of the policy now that weve had the bomb for 75 years what should the next president do to reduce the risk of nuclear war and that is what this book is about. Im going to run through the slides and if the Technology Gods are with me it will all go smooth. Great, so far so good. Let me put the book into the context. They are of course in a National Crisis public health, economy, racial injustice. And on top of that we have a leadership vacuum. To move beyond this crisis we feel the status quo and policy must change, specifically at shows for the u. S. Defense policy and focus on their own throats. We are spending too much on outdated cold war scenarios, Power Military with russia and china for example and not enough on the true existential threats we face today with Climate Change and nuclear war. Unemployment and systemic racial inequality is a show weve been investing too much in traditional defense and not enough in building a Strong Economy and just society. Despite spending 700 billion a year Many Americans simply do not feel safe. The nation that continues year after year to send more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death and i would agree with that. Getting back to the issues at hand. Nuclear weapons in particular have no role to play addressing the threats we face. And thats Nuclear Weapons we fight because thats even worse. The weekend to focus on this photo because here is president of trump with the infamous football. By the military aide right behind them. It contains everything the president needs to start a nuclear war. This is how close we are to nuclear war every day, every minute right now. President trump can start and order an attack on his own authority with no Second Opinions, no input with congress or the secretary of defense are needed. Now, we dont need to single out President Trump here. Of course he is impulsiveness might highlight these concerns in the current moment we want to be clear that all president s make mistakes. All are human and that is why we feel no human should control the future of humanity. We choose to give president s this absolute power. Why do we choose to live so close to the brink of disaster . We think it is because the policy is simply focused on the wrong thread. So lets get to the central arguments. The central arguments they make in the book the policy is focused on the wrong thread of the surprise attack from russia such an attack is highly unlikely for the simple reason such an attack for the destruction of both sides and its been based on these threats for decades. So, the big problem here is it undermines the basic driving policies and increasing the risk of blundering into nuclear war by mistake. We could really start a nuclear war with a false alarm. One of the greatest being jurors in the world and we simply dont need to do this. So, we must move away from the policies and instead give the president more decision time by limiting the nuclear use to the second strike. So, bill, turning to you. You had a frontrow seat to the arms race and its with soviet and russian officials many times. Some might challenge the key assertion that a vote for him russia isnt a realistic threat. What would you say to that . I would say they are wrong. When i was the secretary defense i met many times with all of the key officials in the russian government. The president , the ministry of defense, state, and then since then ive continued to meet with hundreds of russians in the diplomacy. One thing i say with great confidence, the russians are not stupid. They are not suicidal and therefore we are focused. First strike is not realistic. What is is we might blunder into a nuclear war. Thank you. As we argue in the book, this perceived threat of the vote from the blue drives the military requirement to launch at all times. Within minutes, and that drives these three dangerous policies. First, the president has authority to launch the Nuclear Weapons with no Second Opinion or oversight. Second, the president can offer a first strike and is not limited to retaliation and most americans do not realize that. And the president can launch hundreds of landbased missiles on warning of attack and doesnt need to wait for proof of attack. One of the main things we do in the book is show how dangerous the combination policies are. Please give us your same apply the policies are so dangerous. Particularly standing up to the danger and possibility of a false alarm, to me that isnt a theoretical threat. We have had six. Fullstop arms that i know of. One when i was the under secretary defense during the cold war, i got a phone call at 3 00 in the morning. The first thing he told me of his computers were showing 600 icbms on the way from the soviet union to the United States. I immediately woke up. The general quickly added it was a false alarm and he was calling me to have me assess what his computers have gone wrong. As it turned out, it took several days to find out it was a computerchip malfunction. And other times there is a realistic possibility if it happened in the past it will happen again. Every time you told that story i find it chilling so thank you very much. Lets expand on the dangers of this authority for a moment. In 1963, president kennedy gave a famous speech where he warned we could stumble into the nuclear war. We spent quite a bit of time going through those scenarios. Bill, can you walk us through how this might have been . Might have that information. An example of that is president kennedy on cuba. All of his military advisers are recommending a military attack on cuba. Have the troops landed on the beachhead, they would have been met by the tactic of Nuclear Weapons. We didnt know, we simply did not know that while the russians didnt get have been operation operational, they did have tactical Nuclear Weapons that were operational and would have been used. In addition to that we can have an unstable. President trump might be a classic example of that, but hes not the only one. During the last few months of the presidency, he was a heavy drinker and out in full control of himself for a long time to the extent of the secretary of defense and secretary of state are concerned. They tried to intervene with the military to tell them not to respond if they got a call from the president , but of course it was an illegal order and its not likely that the they would have followed. Then in the last few months of his presidency, we had known at the time that he was in the early stages of alzheimers disease. And finally, a false alarm. As serious as the danger has been in the past, its even danger they ma become more dangerous today with cyber. They say we could start a nuclear war by blundering into the nuclear war and that is what the u. S. Policies to prevent the possibility of blundering in a nuclear war, not focus on the old cold war. Because we believed it was necessary to respond in five or six minutes as we have already discussed. And the markey bill now pending in congress for the purpose has no probability at all which is a good prospect for the next year and we should all get behind supporting that bill next year. Second and with those policy for the United States each has considered but this time lets push it through. The warren smith bill pending in the congress which has not passed to have and opportunity or another crack next year. We should phase out icbm. They are accidents waiting to happen. Lets close this out to get to the audience questions. So those are clearly the president s weapons and we have a chance to change Nuclear Policy the current National Crisis we are in creates we feel a once in a Generation Opportunity to rethink the fundamental approach to national security. These are so out of step with reality and to figure out the arsenal to magnify the dangers we face from the most likely threat blundering into nuclear war by mistake. The next president can and must bring Nuclear Policy into the 21st century. And with the outdated thinking of the 50 billiondollar industry. History tells us major change if only let from the top but its and we are looking to educate the president and the public like you so thank you for listening. And to use the code you get 30 percent off. Thank you very much. I already tried to do but and 50 or a button 75. It did not give me 75 percent off. Just 30. Over to you. I have my own copy right here i just read it the last couple of days to prepare for the session. It grips you and you learn a lot. And that is eminently readable. With a fireside chat in the middle of june to lead a fireside chat but in the spirit i would ask the authors a couple of questions to see what they have to say about it and i will ask the two of you and you can decide if you both want to answer. Does that sound okay . The first question is the russians have just put out a new president ial decree a week ago also outlining the nuclear release policy resting solely on president ial decisionmaking authority. Of course being president putin. As one analyst put it distinctl distinctly, nuclear first. What would you say to the russians and to president putin based on what he learned on your book . We are moving backwards, not forwards and it says its a great statement of what they are talking about so boldly through destruction civilization that is exactly right to say that my experience from what i have read it is even more dire than ours. But it has even less time to make a decision with the incoming attack which could be a false alarm. The situation is even more dire in russia than here. We need to make them move away from Sole Authority. And discussion and negotiation now let me move on to the second question on Us Russian Nuclear relationship and though the policy are recommending and has long been the basis of the change doctrine. So the chinese seem to be shifting to the icbm that would appear to be moving in the first strike direction. So my question to you is how would you incentivize us and russia to the second strike approach while getting the chinese to stay right where they are . Both countries have an active Modernization Program going on to build submarines and icbm and russians continuing to modernize their nuclear triad. How do you say about that . How do you keep the chinese where they are . And how do we get the us and russia to move in that directio direction . I will start. Then you can jump in. Great question. We need to be careful not to eat quite china and russia. They have 20 times the Nuclear Arsenal of china. We need to keep that in mind into incentivize china we need to reduce the danger we posed to them. We should match their pledge for example to make it verifiable on both sides by taking weapons off. That is where i would start. Bill . But that he recommended that renewed Nuclear Talks with russia could start with a proposal that president obama made and with that deployed warheads with the new start treaty levels. I agree thats easiest and fastest way to get to the level of 1000 warheads but i have heard that because the russians are building a Nuclear Weapon system and modernizing, they cannot reduce or eliminate any more. We need to produce more warhead warheads. What would you say to them . It is not if we are equal to or head of the chinese. It is not a numbers game. But it is an interesting question. If we reduce our forces does that combine and incentive . And its interesting to see if it reverses the trend. I would just add the logic of always building more is how we got into the arms race in first place building 30000 Nuclear Weapons each. If you learn before, its crazy and expensive and dangerous and as long as we have enough to deter russia and china, that is a few hundred then that is enough. Anything more than that is wasteful. The country has a real need on the economy and responses to racial injustice. We dont have money to burn so we should do it. I cannot resist before we turn it back over but advancing to your time before the pentagon was so focused on the implication of new technological development. Can you say a few words how you think today about the implications of the Technology Transfer the fuse for those in the future . I will start by quoting who once said mythology is a wonderful thing and that is true. Take a look at the cyberor nuclear technology. That is life and i dont know of any exceptions to that. It is our job and without being threatened by the threats. Very good. Spending time in washington throughout your career or on capitol hill. I notice there is a lot more interested in these issues in recent so bipartisanship seems like a distinct concepts of how you see the current environment and how to use this and asking them to Pay Attention for the new legislation president ial use 340. How wells the senate and how you see that Congress Going forward. One year ago the answer is different than today. We really are in the middle of a National Crisis. Its interesting to see how it affects defense policy and Nuclear Policy. If we imagine we have a new administration coming and dealing with the coronavirus the is that where just the money come from cracks in my opinion its way larger than it needs to be in the budget. If there president take the french on a fresh approach but if you do that ahead and is in its but on a 2 trillion and they is part of 100 billion to be in the first but if we try to change the way we because there will be via issues needs if we see that kind of shift but there was a group of founders man congressman who are focused on the file it on dash the fighter interest is not they are and that is the issue i think for many of us. A concern is have but it sparked interest in this movement so many years ago we try to feign these issues in a new way to help people understand mistakes it is something that is too full, right in front of us. Thank you very much for that. And i asked this question in the context of a deeper understanding of there is a lot of the president s plate and trying to keep attention on these important matters is portions so what would be your word of advice. There might advice is to those problems he is already facing up at the same time. We need to look. Back to you. Thanks for i tried to organize them grammatically for but then there is such how that could happen but i have another question related to blundering into nuclear war before the issue mentioned on cyberwhich is of course modernization is a going across many domains about many consequences and Nuclear Deterrence cyberbut space and Machine Learning and advanced conventional munition and in terms of the Nuclear Domain what keeps you up at night the most in terms of blundering across the threshold . And outside the domain what risk should we be blundering into nuclear war . I think there is one thing we can do to greatly minimize the risk and unless we will steal one which one is unlikely to get the plutonium and then make the bomb himself. Its not that difficult. The one thing we could do is make it much more difficult and to set up the programs and then to secure the material that is one very important thing we can do to minimizing the risk. The other question . With the escalation you mention cyberbites Artificial Intelligence and all of these raise fundamental questions of the Nuclear Power stumbles into and what keeps you up at night the most . With a nod at the hypersonic because they can penetrate our defenses. It is a joke even the icbm. The hypersonics do not add to the threat that space is a different question and if we are so foolish then we endanger the whole world that is a very high imperative to keep space from being militarized we are moving that direction when the next president to look very carefully at space militarization and to find an objective not increase the situation we are in right now. Theres a number of questions referring to know first choose and i will love them together. Citizens for Global Solutions ask i was perplexed and the review of your book in Forbes Magazine the best way to dramatically reduce that is to have them consult congress and then to add the first clause logically suggest it might use Nuclear Weapons first as long as pennsylvania avenue signs off and then concludes please say it aint so would you support the new recommendations to engage in the first use policy is very theres president ial Sole Authority for the first use. Theres two ways to go after those. One is legislation in congress by senator markey to say Sole Authority pursuits must be shared between the white house and congress and that would slow down and delay any decision which we think is a great idea. Yes they could allow first use but it would be shared authority thats why in addition we should have no first use policy that is a blanket prohibition. You have a congressional than the shared authority and a ban on first use. Let me add to that we should have a no first use policy. When i was secretary what is somebody that access with chemical weapons and then the north african countries was building a chemical weapons plant and i was asked the question the secretary of defense we dont need to use nick the clear weapons. Do you agree with the point when we communicate far non those that might be considering Nuclear Weapons that is the most powerful military in the world and maybe they due to . Its all bad for the reasons you state and encourages people to think they need weapons to deal with conventional problems. If we set the lead, the conventional military forces we have if we dont then why dont they . Please state what you csn up on an alternative some could have them declare war but it has become completely dysfunctional so one reason is that they could be a mature and active partner in this type of decision to still dive into other questions. How could the sole terms of the representative equation. Risk and to give and also a bunch of other issues. In te people criticize by saying and to make our largest shouldnt discussion. But we should never make that decision to launch under risk of attack its probably a false alarm so we need to take her time and not be in a situation where we are prepared to do things quickly because that just increases the risk of blundering into nuclear war and by requiring congressional involvement to slow the process down a exactly what you need. Consider the consequences. Thats a great anecdote to have interviewed and he is a great story of people pressured him to take and then he would tell his aides then there really is no reason to but turning to American Allies also allies like east asia or japan. How do we reconcile with the first is to see but had to the thing you can buy that to reassure the allies while tss applied and that is the proposed and with those others that are have a view capability also to maintain the viability of the deterrence. When i was a secretary we were considered but no first years and during the debating. I was besieged from representatives of european and Asian Countries and japan was very strong on this. They had a belief that. It probably wasnt anything but to go ahead wrongly with first use. This is a serious problem because allied concerns can get in the way of the president doing the right thing on this issue. But to bring the allies along and then convince them this does not in any way affect the us to commit their terms that start sunday number one and has to be concerted and ongoing spanking us thank you for the opportunity to come back on. My view what was solved by the Current Administration and black confrontation on issues such as the other treaty which is a good example the good consultation on the imf treaty and from the violation we can bring them along. There is a lot of concern they are not getting true consultation certainly not on Nuclear Arms Reduction when they say they want to have a negotiation of strategic leopards concussion. I think this might be a good but then there is any did change but you are believed to have a good and serious and why its conversation about these matters. And i want to know that if people are interested giving a speech to the Carnegie Endowment one week before the end of the Obama Administration and then there was a scorecard how they had done on the Nuclear Agenda obama outlined at the beginning it was a good record but mixed but have no first use debate in which the and then to retaliate but then the issue has been around for a while. I know both he and president obama wanted this on the record before. But i have some other questions but i want to make sure what you want to add on to this. No. That was a statement just before President Trump came in. Thats the no first use policy and many of us hope the Biden Administration would move quickly that michael so could you say more about how and why it should be retired . Do you ask on envision for retirement and how that happens . So you dont like icbm the system do you support other forms the but should we not make any of those investments either . We answer the question. So how do you feel about that . The first thing is cancel the new icbm program this is a program to rebuild costing upwards of 150 billion its better to take that money to put it in a barrel and burn it. We are less safe than the one to repack retire and the bill laid out because it simply dangerous and increases the risk due to a false alarm. Politically that will not happen. And don sat with the life extension and you can do that. It will cost money but you can extend the life and thats probably the political compromise that is coming. And then to cancel the new program to save the money for something else. And with that modernization and equation its not only driven primarily by fear but many just hand the weapons but the mobile and fixed and and then investing in billions of dollars to harden the empty tree network . Yes. We make that specific and are the richer maybe thats a good thing to do. Just to add to that getting away from icbm and lunch on warning there is a greater chance we would be retaliating after a Nuclear Attack which puts allied of pressure on command and control to survive that. At the same time there is no ability for the russians to expect a first strike would work or take out command and control because they will be out there at see as said by people smarter than me failure to communicate does not mean failure to retaliate. Just means we communicate doesnt mean they will not find a way to retaliate and they could never be confident and i would not find a way to respond. We have a couple of questions about the roles and dynamics of Nuclear Weapons so i last two questions of this category. It implies the us could have ask that for the psychology of it that is Something Like so the first question in the category then is asked but if the term fails for retaliation could reduce and after the tire and then another from Hans Christian anderson. But somehow you lose your ability for deterrence. That parity is a political construct to make people feel better but not required. Damage limitation i think its a myth. The belief we can limit is a myth. So the key thing to avoid is nuclear war itself. If you are getting ready to preempt and thank you can limit damage that way you are increasing the chance of nuclear war to begin with it is tremendously dangerous and should not be considered. Coming up on time but there were a few other questions relating to the rogue state that then a reporter for voice of america and the Korean Service asked if the doctor feels the perry process to deal with north but we had an agreement with the north koreans. And for these i will not go into some date for a fascinating discussion starting up a survey questions to have so many talented people here that coming to visit us remotely and i will just conclude by saying and out of these questions and issues left on the table and the presentation and just scratch the surface i encourage you and we are thankful you share the ideas to dig deeper into the book