And there was no longer this same status so to speak. A couple years later in 2005, i assume opposed to nato, hard to believe now but in actual fact we were seriously talking about russia becoming a member of nato. And being a part of a membership action plan and we had a few draft sent had some discussions. Than in 2006 we had something called the 12 city tours of russia in which senior nato officials were tasked to go out to 12 major cities in russia and talk about how wonderful nato is and how we were no longer ran opposition. I got the short stick. I did a fleet tried it off, but above the arctic circle, shedding people left and right, lo and behold when i showed up at the university there were 150 or 200 people protesting my presence. I couldnt figure this out. I walked up to this elderly gentleman who had ribbons on his blouse and with my interpreter i asked why are you protecting my presence here as a nato official talkedabout the great relationship we have with russia . His answer was because my pension is too low. That took me awhile to figure out but what he was essentially saying and was echoed earlier, all the problems internal within russia is not our fault because of you guys, it is what you did to us. That kind of continued to resonate and has resonated and is part of what we see now and what Vladimir Putin plays up to with his audience. He still has 80 or better Approval Rating by people in russia. As i said, i just want to put that as interesting anecdotes. I was also acting assistant secretary in august when russia invaded georgia and it was hard to get all the ambassadors back to their vacation even with an invasion. One of the most sacrosanct things you dont want to touch is an august holiday by our european colleagues. I wanted to speak a little bit about nato. One of the things i would ask you to keep in mind is the Nato Alliance, nato allies are continually concerned about and interested in the rush of u. S. Bilateral dialogue. We made it very clear even though i am no longer route member of the nato staff sometimes i still say we, still think of myself as trying to reflect that alliances views on many things as steve indicated it is true we have endorsed again, both our Strategic Concepts 2010 and other documents in our statements during the summits that we will remain for the foreseeable future in the current situation, Nuclear Alliance but more important, political dimension steve eluded to and that is the real desire to burden share, to be part of the Nuclear Deterrence posture and even more important, the consultation aspect of that. That the United States will consult if ever contemplates using Nuclear Weapons under any situation and this goes back to the release 60s. Participation, this political linkage is incredibly important. I cant emphasize that enough. The physical presence of a u. S. Nuclear Deterrent assuages any fear is that the United States may eventually abandon those that are members of the alliance. Participation, this reflects in the arms control process as well the alliance looks to actively participate, we set up a committee that would provide a forum for the u. S. To keep the alliance informed about bilateral u. S. russian relations and particularly in the arms control realm and their concern is that whatever dialogue goes on between the United States and russia it should not lead to a weakening of the transatlantic link in nato. And it shouldnt it should be based on but the assumption of reciprocity between the allies, not just the United States, the allies and russia, this inclusion of what i call but european footprint in any of these arms control processes needs to be subject to this consultative process involved alliance and it is also based on the principle of the indivisibility of security. In every document in a no puts out and especially in some statements we talk about this again and again, indivisibility of security. Saying all that the Alliance Still goes at great lakes to endorse, support and embraced arms control, the reciprocity aspect of that. Even the most diehard official within the alliance that believes that we should eliminate all Nuclear Weapons, they talk about it only in the official context of reciprocity and would pro quo, that we would not eliminate nuclearweapons, reduce Nuclear Posture except in a process of discussion and negotiation with russia. In the last summit the alliance again stated they look forward to developing various transparency and Conference Building ideas with Russian Federation in the context of nato council with the goal of developing detailed proposals and increasing mutual understanding. They continue to believe that this partnership between nato and russia based on the respect of International Law is of Strategic Value and continues to aspire to cooperative, instructive relationship, but one that is reciprocal. The flip side of that coming as they have said, Current Conditions do not exist to allow that to continue and the alliance decided in essence to suspend all discussions within the context of the nato Russian Council. While i was there at shared something called a Nuclear Group and that Nuclear Group developed a series of security Building Measures that were shortterm, mid term and long term. Among those included discussions on nato and Russia Nuclear doctrine. Those discussions were candid and very open, it was a very constructive dialogue, nato and its side was pushing to have russia provide information on tactical nonStrategic Nuclearweapons which they refuse to do but they were still willing to talk about document and do it in a classified environment. We had three of those meetings. We also dealt with safety and security of Nuclear Weapons and that process, each nuclearweapons state which the United States and russia conducted specific safety and security exercises each at location in one of those countries. They were very successful and they were really eyeopeners for the Nato Alliance as to how these countries would conduct conduct response to situations where a Nuclear Weapon might have been stolen, there might have been an accident, there might have been a debt nation of some sort. To follow on the exercise, was to be a Nuclear Weapon or Nuclear Device in a country that wasnt a Nuclear Weapon state. And russia decided one of the states that had the dual capable aircraft mission, none of those states were up having this exercise. Another country did and the russians refused to participate and this is all happening in 201011 and that that point there was no longer any discussion on transparency and Conference Building. So closing up, good to haveome discussion, but again, natos concern, theyre very interested and keen on having a continuing dialogue on confidence and security Building Measures. That is not happening and given the continued animosity and difficulties and challenges of various accusations and allegations i dont see that happening in the near future. How are we doing . I could finish up by telling a story that aptly captures our challenges, a story about two hunters funding for bear in alaska. They get up there, dropped by the pilot of an airplane and the pilot says just to let you know i can only take you to guys and one bare. Three days later the pilot flies back and there are the two hunters with two bears and they start arguing, look, i cant do it and one of the hunters says i will give you an extra thousand dollars if you take all of this. Okay. The two bears, two and is get in the plane, the plane takes off, gets five miles and crashes, miracle of miracles, both hunters survive, one staggers up, looks around and says where are we, the other one says we are two miles further than we were last year. We continue to go down i will close and take your questions, thank you. Thank you. We do certainly have was at the same pilate . Different pilot. We certainly have enough time for questions and while you are all gather in your thoughts, let me just pick up on a few things. I know vote agenda listed me as additional speaker, i have sitting of. What i will do is moderated discussion and take your questions. On the nato Russia Council, even if nato were inclined to resume some of those activities do you think the russians would bite . I dont think so and part of the recent is, surprisingly for an alliance, at the summit a year ago, last year, there are some very Strong Language that made it quite clear it there will no longer be business as usual with the alliance. For example, quote, russia has breached its commitment and violated International Law. That is a very big thing for europeans, breaking the trust at the core of our cooperation. They lamented the fact that the two decades nato has gone to extraordinary lengths to embrace this relation, talking seriously about them becoming a member of nato and as a result of crimea and the activities in Eastern Ukraine but also the things they have done and threatened to do in georgia, moldova, and just a whole litany, infective you go on the nato website they have listed 25 years of medical crimes nato has committed against the Russian Federation and responded to that and it is a long list, everything from nato promised that we would never deploy forces in Eastern Europe to we violated the nonproliferation treaty by training pilots to fly the Nuclear Mission. Ago on and on and on so is going to be hard to go back to our relationship. As i said at the beginning, i am very disappointed in some respects, i think we should have been a little more forceful. The alliance should have been a little more forceful in trying to read engage, saying where can week, as steve and andy pointed out the where are these areas we can Start Talking again and Start Building trust and confidence . That is why at the end of the day the track we are based in is going to pay huge dividends and this is really really important. Guy is largely right but let me add a minaret of optimism. I went to the early 1990s in the state department on arms control issues that you had the soviet walkout from the negotiations on strategic arms reductions in 1983, you had a deep freeze in u. S. soviet relations throughout 1984 and 1985 the soviets said they would resume negotiations and in two years you had the major progress on start. It is hard to be optimistic about the current state of u. S. russian and west russian relations right now but we also cannot ignore the possibility, there may be an opportunity to turn things around. Probably being pessimistic is a more realistic course now, but things can change very quickly. That has been demonstrated in relations with washington and moscow in the last 30 years. One other thing that you brought up, the question in talking about doctrine. The russians are quite interested in talking about new technology whether it is precision guided munitions or other things and i clearly remember the question from one of the participants to the russians, where i was asked okay, how would you feel about a cyberattack . Does a cyberattack constitute an attack on your state . Does it create an existential threat, and the answer was well, that depends on how all successful it is, right . That seems to be at the very risky situation for us to be in. I fully understand that these talks with russia and everybody else on cybersecurity and on any kind of limited difficult, but once you introduce the notion of a Nuclear Response to the cyberattack it seems to me we need some kind of forum for at least discussing these issues. Nato may not be the right place. I just welcome your thoughts on that. One thing that came out of the discussion was that on the nato side my guess is the alliance is going to have to be prepared to talk about questions other than nonStrategic Nuclearweapons. That would include questions like Missile Defense. And include issues like conventional strike and it might include issues like conventional forces because i do believe at least now while the russians are in the process of modernizing their conventional forces their perception that is the reality that nato forces and Russian Forces that the conventional level nato still has some significant quantitative and in particular qualitative damages of you have to have that broader discussion, where cyber fit into that i dont know. Part of that is i am not sure yet that either the United States and russia separately have a fixed enough doctrine on cyber to have that conversation. You could argue maybe it is better to start the conversation before sides get fixed but for all of the attention it is talked about in the cyber world i am not sure i understand what american risk is. I will give you an example because i do think when the u. S. Government thinks about cyber, how do you deter cyberattacks. Four five years ago, i was at the annual deterrent seminar in august where they talk about deterrence questions and a very interesting panel on cyberdeterrence and the question itos, i am not sure i received a good answer was when i look at deterrence in the Strategic Nuclear area i understand what we are talking about because i read Hans Christian synapse writing and said how many departments are there, continental ballistic missiles, we periodically exercise them. It is clear to the worlds, what backs of american Strategic Deterrence in terms of force and doctrine. When you look at the cyberside is still a pretty opaque worlds, we dont know how much does the u. S. Military put into a cyber, one of the capabilities, i dont know how deterrence works in that world when you are not communicating, if you conduct a cyberattack, here is what might happen and we may have to be getting our own thinking a bit before we have a useful conversation with the russians on that. Let me just add at nato we have a cyber center of excellence, the genesis of that was a cyberattack, massive cyberattack from unknown sources and as a result, nato headquarters created a cyberdivision, very small but one that is not wholly endorsed by all the members of the alliance, but again recognizing many challenges and difficulties, what is an attack and so on and so forth and trying to come to grips with it by creating an infrastructure to deal with it and have a forum for discussion on that and there was talk about having a group like that in the context of the nato Russian Council just like we have, i share at Missile Defense of group which we had very good cooperation with the russians up until 2008. Again they structure themselves to deal with it but theres a long way to go. Thanks. Steve put his finger on a central question and you rephrase tibet, does russia want to reduce the risk . And when we look at an incident, the response to em age 17, that certainly doesnt give one great optimism, a massive trust destroyer but let me offer a ray of optimism and it has to do with for us to participate in track ii really is track ii. We dont need to think about necessarily, i certainly dont think about whether it is the u. S. Government endorsing this or not. The russian system hasnt worked that way suggest the very fact that we are able to hold these discussions and have the level of representation we had from the Russian Federation says something that at least some areas and the russian government are supportive of continuing these types of discussions. Maybe not in the context of the nato russian discussion as guy suggested, but in this context, emphasizing the point guy was making what we are doing as all that much more important. It is time to take questions from you. So we have some roving microphone stand i just ask that you introduce yourself and your affiliation and i will try to go in order. Can you come up . Thanks. I am a russian reporter with the Russian News Agency and my question is a direct followup to what you were discussing. I think it is an important discussion, thank you for having it. Second from me as a journalist it is hard to cover this event because i do not understand its practical significance. So i have a group of experts who seem to be agreed that a dialogue is needed. From what i am hearing, you should dialogue on confidencebuilding addressed building, all of that. Like andrews said on the russians side it is probably sanctioned in some way even on track 2 but what about the american side . You are all for it so what does it mean . You also isnt seemed to be all agreed the u. S. And the west are not willing at this point to restart the dialogue. That is my question. What does it mean . What does this panel mean . What is your opinion metal for washington . Let me try briefly and i will let the diplomats takeover. Yes, this is track 2 but remember also our sponsor for this dialog was the u. S. Government. And so, there was definitely interest in the u. S. Government. We had some government speakers that did not participate formally in dialogue but did it in, gave a luncheon and dinner no. I know anecdotally, not on an official level that theres great interest in what was said. I dont know that the u. S. Government has plans to follow up on this. That is beyond my ken. It is not quite i dont know if it was totally track 1. 5 but both sides, steve put it well, both sides have a big interest in reducing some of the risks that are currently not entirely nuclear but the risks of an advert distillation, to the extent that this may contribute to helping mitigate some misunderstandings i think theres great interest. Great question. Just on the value of the event, of day. This event is being streamed live on the internet and i believe cspan is also broadcasting the event so i think there is value simply in low role of Public Education the we are talking about this, recently serious people, knowledgeable people, and we think theres the problem in that maybe, maybe this could have some influence outside of the building in a multitudes of ways. I will lead two points. Any time i had a conversation with somebody in the u. S. Government, the Government Supports these things, they think these contacts i useful and they keep a dialogue going and have ideas that can work in 2 official channels. The second point i would make, this would be my view, in the aftermath of russias military seizure of crimea and Russian Military action in Eastern Ukraine it was appropriate for nato and russia, nato to ratchet down 8 russia relationship and there have to be political consequences to egregious bad behavior but i think probably the feeling most of the american participants in the workshop is that it might make sense for nato to relax that and open up the way for an 80 Russia Military to military dialogue particularly on the issue of how do you avoid accidents and miscalculation when you have an increased tempo of nato and Russian Military forces operating in close proximity so we would say lets open the door to that. Having said that i also think in my own mind i am not sure whether the russians would say yes, we want to have that dialogue but i argued be worthwhile for nato to do that because neither side should an interest in a conflict that begins by miscalculation or accident. I saw a question from this young woman here. Thank you. The story from the allies perspective particularly from turkey so my question is about the follow upon the idea that nato is not prepared to reaffirm its commitment of among the allies especially when it comes to the reluctance to host the tactical Nuclear Weapons pierces the ones who are eager to receive the modernization of the war had, the next generation of cable aircraft. How much longer can nato actually continue its policy of avoiding talking about keynotes. We going to seek new countries particularly Eastern Europe who will take over . Great question. Dieguy . Native is looking at its policy and going through a bureaucratic process. The fact of the matter is native to conduct nuclear exercises, they dont announce from, it is not public, if you look at the and out. I commend that you, there are several good papers in their including mine. I have a slide in there that shows if a Nuclear Mission for nato was ever required, 16 different nations would be participating in that deployment to send a political message of solidarity of the alliance and part of the burden sharing ongoing process we have today, all the other nations are looking for ways to participate in some way other than holding the annual Nuclear Policy symposium, how they can actively participate. Given the current circumstances there has been a lot of talk about the possibility of forward deployment. As far as i have seen at least in my discussions with people at nato, no one is talking about a moving Nuclear Weapon and having them be currently stationed, but there is discussion about what more can we do and how can we get to the messageing part of that . A part of that is solidarity by doing exercises with as many nations as possible actively participating. One thing people forget is at the end of that sentence, based on the current policy situation, the policy situation has changed so you do get some people talking about the situation has changed particularly Eastern European allies, and those are irrelevant and we need to reexamine it. From an overarching alliance standpoint i dont see any changes, certainly movement of those and it wouldnt from a technical standpoint have any relevance anyway to be frank. That is not to say we are not continuing our exercises. Arms control and did a good job of announcing those the we try to keep secret. A little bit of history, nato said in 1997, the founding act incorporated in the nato russia founding act but as a result of the enlargement there was no intention, no plan, no requirement to deploy Nuclear Weapons on the territory of new nato members. I agree with everything guy said about the importance of nato consultation on nuclear questions, the importance of burden sharing, i missed this part of the discussion in october. I would have said we could be at a friend of nato. It seems to meet there have been suggestions in the last five or six months from folks in washington, maybe a response to russian bad behavior in ukraine would be to move Nuclear Weapons to a place like poland. I think that would be unwise on three counts. First of all the fleeing those weapons from current locations to a place like poland makes the more vulnerable to russian preemptive strike and a crisis. If it is deployed it can cover two thirds of polish territory. Second i dont mind in the current sense of circumstances being a little provocative towards russia but putting american Nuclear Weapons in poland would be really provocative. Think 1962, the cuban missile crisis. The third reason is 50 United States were to go to nato and say we want to move our bombs to the aircraft and poland, my guess is you would have bought large number, a majority of allies. An idea that makes weapons more vulnerable ticks off russians and causes disruption of the alliance doesnt strike me as a particularly smart policy. I think it makes sense in parallel with what we know, nato at the same time said in the current and foreseeable for security circumstances there would be no requirement for permanent station of substantial conventional combat forces on the territory of allies. I think there is a discussion to be had about that question but what still applies is i dont think it buys you anything in military terms and it buys you lots of problems when you change that. We saw no need to do that. Take away all those of is that at benefit and make it more capable to answer. A question right there. Georgetown university. Sharon raised the question of what the russians think about suspension of all these working groups. I was at a conference several months ago lamenting suspension of these groups and he said we, russia, would like to resume them but we are not going to beg. I think that is your answer. Other questions here . Thank you. Georgetown university. An interesting result of a poll in several nato countries, ukraine and russia and one thing the poll showed is a divide within nato on the article v commitment. How do you, what do you think . How does that affect further progress on limiting strategic weapons . I saw that joel. My guess is going back to the 1970s and 80s, similar polls but not sure how much weight to put it in. Natal governments seriously understand what it is about. They understand supporting each other in article v is essential to the alliance and that is a totally separate question on the issue, nonStrategic Nuclearweapons. I am a retired army officer. I work for a small consulting company. My question is because we are talking on strategic Nuclear Weapons, they are hard to find so hopefully someone can expand on the Remote Sensing these you talkedabout and the second thing would be at the operational level has launch capability if that is even something you guys can share or understand or believe from russia . In terms of authorization, what level, down to Tactical Division army commanders, in terms of executing because im always worried about mistakes, everyone makes mistakes all the time. If there was this an area where you contemplate the use of Nuclear Weapons then there is up process we go through, it is interesting. Is that what you are talking about . You guys know that. On the issue of Remote Sensing, the challenge you faced with non strategic arms control, the closer you get to the warheads the more intrusive monitoring will be. You can talk about non intrusive monitoring and remote monitoring, we did talk about, trying to remember the technology, radiography, we are at a little bit of a loss. We are all political scientists, i am not sure on this panel, but [inaudible] you need to ask them that question. Our National Labs have been involved in this Technology Development for decades and the issue there, to sign an agreement in 10 or 15 years you would need to be starting at Development Today so there are long lead times. Not giving a very specific answer but there are i guess a significant describe some of them in detail in the paper available for that. You need to start the collaboration in the early year, with the russians and you all have by in into particular techniques and approaches. One point at the october workshop, one of the u. S. Labs gave an increase on the radiography but they said with this technology, you could actually tell if that was a Nuclear Warhead or not. Raising my hand please tell me that is one mile, that is one meter. Were still talking about the insurance point. Pretty much everybody agreed on the american russian side, that there would be value in having a dialogue between american, russians and others. How do you get verification technologies looking to get questions that go beyond current entries. How would you for example want to monitor a limit on Nuclear Weapons and storage, what would be the technology that you need . As you put time endeavoring to those, if political circumstances to get that treaty, you didnt have verification. And techniques in a cooperative manner not coming from an american lab or russian lab and a joint effort, that technology in the end might be more acceptable to both sides. In december of last year, development of further technologies. To encourage universities to make contributions. What i dont have a fix on is how much money, things on the shelf, and Monitoring Technology do not prevent the treaty going into force. Richard fieldhouse. And consulting work. To provide context and question, with ukrainian crisis and risks that ensue from that with so many officials have come down. There is wide agreement, any progress on this issue and maybe if there is a political resolution to the ukraine crisis that would change dramatically, some of you thought about this, the new start agreement, new treaty will come to an end at some point. And there may be an interest in the United States and russia either continuing or doing something additional so there are restraints on both sides, Strategic Nuclear forces, i point out from the senate standpoint when senate continued the new start treaty and communication, clear and the official part, future arms control would include in on strategic Nuclear Weapons written into the resolution of ratification and would require the administration to make an official approach to russia with nonStrategic Nuclearweapons. Where that might be, syrias official dialogue on the issue. I tried to be optimistic about these things. Even though you have a difficult situation between russian washington and moscow. 20182019 the russians will have interest in a dialogue about what happens in 2011, by its terms it expires in february of 21 although the sites have the ability to move up 5 years. The russians have shown little readiness in the last four years to go beyond new start. And the continuation of some kind of cap on american Strategic Forces and a certain amount of transparency particularly talking about the timeframe of 20202021 which is when you s strategic modernization programs with the ohio class serving replacement with a new Strategic Bomber or Intercontinental Ballistic Missile as those are coming in mind, we want to have some kind of cap. The question then becomes with american negotiators be able to use the russian interest as leverage to say okay, but now we have to go beyond strategic and talk about nonstrategic. That is going to be a judgment we have to reach at the time. Whether that is enough leverage to force the russians to do something i personally would like to see the next step in arms control move beyond strategic or report strategic and move to a tree where one aspect would be a limit on the total number of Nuclear Weapons deployed, non deployed, strategic, nonstrategic and subsequently not deploy strategic warheads. We wont no for number of years, the russian interest in having some kind of treaty gives us leverage to get them to broaden the number of systems covered to pick up nuclearweapons beyond strategic. Do you want to answer . It is an excellent question and my honest answer is maybe. Russia is prone to nonlinear events in 2015 and assuming that will be the situation in 2018 or 2020 is risky. I would say that one key positive step seems obvious to get to this point where we would like to be, there has to be a resolution of the situation in ukraine and that resolution, the ukraine situation has to include a broader discussion about European Security and if there is progress on that, this would be more possible but there has to be facilitated conditions here. Make a question appear . International center for terrorism studies, there were provocative ideas presented in connection with the safety and security of the non strategic weapons. The ideas presented by the americans substantially different from those presented by in their originality . Siprele opt rm ppe an exercises or anything else about in terms of exercises but trying to push a little bit more. Though there were six items and you can read about the mint the report, but briefly adjoined assessment of the risk, you know if anybody has been following the Nuclear Security summit context you know any discussions of risk assessments are very taboo. We wont do that with the russians now because they are not attending the Nuclear Security summit in 2016. You could also flip that around and talk about site security, share best practices. This is how win at generic sense you could have exerciseds to focus on accidents or incidents and associated consequence management, you could develop Incident Response procedures. So for example you could consider, i will read from the report, tabletop and joint exercises, procedures for responding to different crisis scenarios. Some of these are borrow from the Nuclear Security world. You could set up but 1540 Security Council resolution joined working group to explore challenges specific to safeguarding strategic Nuclear Weapons from access by non state actors. This is a hold over to the other areas. You could initiate a dialogue between nato and russia on unintended escalation and military encounters. I wouldnt call these necessarily provocative. The question is do you have what is the hook to initiate or resume some of those things that had been done under the neo Russia Council . I wanted to add something to the previous question. Let me be a little more frank, very pessimistic about having a discussion with the russians about nonStrategic Nuclearweapons. Given the conditions our talk about happen, the structural situation, structural security situation russia faces and the asymmetry and importance of Nuclear Weapons for russia wont go away in five years coming it is likely going to increase of from their perspective make the discussion even harder to make progress on. We were not able to make progress on that in 25 years in the 1919s when it was the political environment so to think in five years the structure, the core problem, the asymmetry, strategic mismatch is going to be worst, tougher. I would add to that, overwhelmingly after these two dialogues what i come away with and steve used it earlier, it is difficult to put these Nuclear Issues in a box. When we sit you need to have a new dialogue, a participants said you need a new dialogue on European Security, how do you get there, who do you include . You need to talk about issues or concerns from both sides, i dont say it is to be at pollyanna. Most of my career in the u. S. Government during negotiations in arms control, there are some russian concerns or issues that are not going to go away. We cant simply say keep deploying Missile Defenses and pretend it doesnt matter or that there arent issues of concern with that. We have our own security interests to consider obviously but the real question is if you cant get anywhere, strategic Nuclear Weapons in a pure the nuclear avenue, are there other things, broader discussion where you might get progress on that and this is not simply trade tactical move clears with ballistic consensus, obvious no one is recommending that, but you have to at least have those discussions, not in the press but facetoface. There is an antecedent to that. If you go to 1985 when the United States and soviet union resumed discussions it was nuclear and space talks where you had a group on Strategic Nuclear forces and intermediate range Nuclear Forces and defense and space because soviets at the time said reducing Strategic Forces we have to have a dialogue that features our concerns about things like american Missile Defense. The defense and space talks did not reach an agreement but the context of the overall discussion created a framework for the treaty. In 2011 one of the big hopes of the Obama Administration was to reach an agreement with the russians on Missile Defense and that failed and it failed primarily because we were not ready to talk about the context of strategic stability where you bring in the goal of strategic offense, nonStrategic Nuclearweapons precision guided conditions, Missile Defense, space weapons, it was my hope when the Obama Administration was trying again to engage in this, success in those efforts in spring and summer of 2013, to me i would have said if we agreed to a framework for discussion about strategic stability for broader framework, if we are not able to do that i dont think we can make progress on looking at non strategic Nuclear Weapons to the side. One last hand up. I am megyn kelly. A little bit further particularly china as a factor in willingness to go forward. And possibly arms reduction. The formal russian position is articulated, Nuclear Arms Limitation talks should not be u. S. Russia and include britain and china. The Multi Lateral one, i would argue, correct me if it is wrong, if you look at the american Russian Nuclear arsenals, each of those is 4500 total nuclearweapons including strategic and nonstrategic, about 300 weapons apiece. You have to get to a multilateral dialogue, but it does seem there is significant room for one more bilateral u. S. russia and negotiation. If washington and moscow cut their total Nuclear Arsenals and have it would still be six to seven times larger than the nearest third world country but so far what the russians are saying publicly is the next negotiation has to bring in those countries. There might be a half step you could do because i dont believe they will be prepared to say we will make a commitment not to go above 300 and still at 3,000, but could you ask the chinese, the british and the french for example to undertake a unilateral permit and where they say as a matter of policy we will not increase the number of Nuclear Weapons as long as the United States and russia reduce . A great question. My discussion with russians over the years, no question russians are concerned about what china is doing and could possibly do it in modernization, expansion of Nuclear Weapons capability. Over the years they have been frustrated at least in discussions with me about what they see as lack of transparency. Indochinese programs. That china russia relationship that some level is a black box for us. You cant answer the questions with any certainty but most significant, 20062007 the russians approach the Bush Administration with the notion of trying to multilateral the treaty and the Bush Administration response was sure, try, good luck. That would be great, but that was not met with any interest and it was the concern principally about shine at that was motivating the russians at the time. That raises an interesting question, sometimes in nato you forget the rest of the world also has issues and interests and that was brought home to me by discussion with the russians about nonstrategic Nuclear Weapons, why dont you take them all that are west and move them east of the urals. That prompted a visit saying that will upset the whole balance we have in this part of the world. That really isnt such a good idea. We should be talking about the elimination. One of the ideas floating around was to take a man to move them so they would not be less of a socalled threat to nato so there is a concern that you need to take into account, that a broader strategic outlook needs to be addressed when you are dealing with a small issue of nonStrategic Nuclearweapons. Do you have any last comments . Thank you all for your time and attention to this important topic. I hope even though the fact that everyone showed up on a friday before labor day means we are ready to come back from our strategic holiday and work on these important issues. Let me thank our external relations staff, my staff, often baker putting this all together and finally please tell me thank the panelists. [applause] i hope you all enjoy. [inaudible conversations]