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Discussion on us russia relations, Nuclear Agreements between the two powers and President Trumps first meeting with president putin scheduled for next month. Good afternoon everyone and welcome to our final panel of the team which will focus on reducing security and Nuclear Risks with russia. As everyone in the room knows we are in a period of significant crisis in the bilateral us russia relationship. Causing symptoms are multifaceted, the ukraine, the buildup in exercising nato and parts of military forces, the common border area between the alliance and tempers of russia, russias alleged violation of the 1987 Intermediaterange Nuclear forces treaty, concern that russia is developing new Nuclear Weapons and threshold for when it might consider using them and of course, russian meddling in the us election and some of our european allies. Nuclear arms control may not be dead but it is certainly wounded. While some meaningful cooperation continues such as entry into the 20 2010 start treaty, the implementation of the joint comprehensive plan of action, theres no ongoing dialogue on steps although it was encouraged here. From chris ward that perhaps some dialogue may be in the offing. But in the absence of dialogue, this raises the odd , steps of conversation in the areas of strategic offense and defensive forces. Meanwhile technological change and advancing congressional weapons associated doctrines for the youth have increased escalation dangers. Press secretary of state Rex Tillerson said on may 14 the United States needs to quote, improve the relationship between the two greatest Nuclear Powers in the world. I think its largely viewed that if it is not healthy for the world, its not healthy for us but this relationship remains at this low level. I think the president is committed and rightly so and im committed with him as well to see if we cannot do something to put off on a better footing in our relationship with russia. Despite these comments the Trump Administration has yet to articulate a clear policy toward russia or strategy to reduce nuclear risk. While President Trump said he would like to improve relations with moscow and that inventory should be reduced, hes also pledged to strengthen and expand Nuclear Capabilities, denounced new start and reportedly he responded negatively to put in suggestion to expand the new start treaty. Further complicate matters, much of washington and democrats in particular are unlikely to do any engagement with russia given the Ongoing Investigation into the trumps campaigns ties and possible collusion with russia but preventing us russia confrontation potentially nuclear conflicts, cooperation and arms control should be judged on its own merits and on its own terms, namely whether it enhances Russian Security. Here at the Arms Control Association we been grappling with these problems and questions and working to identify potential solutions, primarily through our engagement with the trilateral us russia commission. Today were happy to continue this engagement and fortunate to be joined by two outstanding experts. To my right is a fellow instead a Nuclear Security fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for international peace, a fellow with the institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the university of hamburg. He holds a phd in Political Science from Hamburg University and his Current Research focuses on escalation dynamics in the nato arms control measures. Seated to my left is a stanton Nuclear Security fellow at the rand corporation, Research Interests include nato security strategy, Atlantic Security institution. Prior to her current position she was a Program Officer of the Family Foundation where she focused on multilateral action to strengthen the purity and she received her phd in policy studies in International Security and Economic Policy from the university of maryland. They will provide 10 to 15 minutes of opening remarks which will be plenty of time for questions from all of you. Ive asked a summary from your european perspective of for your Russian Security security and arms control relationships, the trumpet ministrations approach today, options to reduce security risks with russia and suggestions on how the inf treaty might be saved. Following already, and is to help us make sense of the us Russian Military nuclear doctrine, outlining escalations and what can be done to reduce Nuclear Escalation dangers and im possible ways forward for bilateral arms control. Thank you kingston. I think saving the inf treaty, thats a huge hole but okay. We will see what i can do. What i want to be doing in the next 10 minutes or so is im going to walk you through three different areas of arms control between the United States and russia, particularly i think that it was the view from europe and also answering a couple of questions such as why do we need us russian arms control, what speaks for further russian arms control, what speaks against it. It could be done and what has the Trump Administration done so far . As you will see, quite a lot actually speaks for another armscontrol approach in these difficult times. Letter, without anticipating my own remarks, im unfortunately very skeptical with regards to further us russian arms control, at least in the short, maybe midterm. And this is largely due to reasons that have not so much to do with armscontrol as such but more with the general bilateral us russian relationship in the terms of geopolitical competition, maybe we can talk about that later as well because i think its important to frame armscontrol in the larger political environment. Let me start with the first area and the area of constant security Building Measures and particularly im talking about museums for the region so why do we need it . Obviously at the risk of military escalation is particularly high in the baltic region and that is for two main reasons, one can find more reasons but im trading on those two. First, russia continues to engage in highrisk tactics such as dangerous military brinksmanship and second, the regionalmilitary balance is very much in favor of russia. That creates insecurity in the Baltic States, i just came back from a recent Research Trip through the Baltic States and poland and i can tell you yes, these guys are really afraid of what russia is amassing close to their border but at the same time, might also create misrepresentation to those countries and on nato. So if both sides, nato and russia denies the situation is quite destabilizing and treated as a matter of high priority, it could focus on conflict management to the aim of preventing unintended escalation. However what speaks again that is the pure fact that russia reads benefits from its contradictory behavior. I would go as far as to say that unpredictability is a major element of the russian strategy viscvis nato. In essence, it may be necessary to change the russian calculus. Moscow must come to use its gains from corporations as outweighing those from unpredictability. But that would basically mean that rush washington would have to be willing to offer something significant and with that, i mean something that goes beyond the immediate armscontrol bowls of unpredictability, stability and transparency and i think we should discuss that later as well, what could be. So background, what could be done . Nato and russia already hold airspace security, i think that i said three or four times on that. One of the goals here is to have transformatives which are not all times but that hasnt gotten very far. Another approach could be for washington to see direct talks with the russians, here the game could be reinvigorate, modernize and multilateral eyes armscontrol agreements. There are a couple of those that focus on Risk Reduction, was probably the incident or the agreement on dangerous military activity. So back in the cold war, those were designed to prevent excellence in exactly the kind of dangerous military encounters and that kind of atmosphere we have right now and thats trying to address that behavior that we are seeing from russia at the moment. Have we seen any conflict policies of the Trump Administration or any novel approaches that regards, the answer is straightforward, not all. Lets turn to conventional armscontrol in europe. Kind of like a side scheme in washington, you barely hear it mentioned these days. Conventional armscontrol in europe is that locks at least since 2002. Efforts by the Obama Administration i have failed, largely because at that time the russians completely lost interest in it. If we go down one level, we come to the regional balance. There, in the baltic region is a very strong concern for nato and the countrys concern. If we go even one level below that, to the sub regional level, here russia is concerned about the security of the leningrad. As much as we talk every day about leningrad, the Russian Military is concerned about their ability to hold the leningrad and in open conflict with nato. So, think of this whole approach over this whole situation as a russian. [inaudible] you have the strategic level and regional and subregional. At least, theoretical, it should be possible to arrive at some kind of quid pro quo low arrangement for the region because everyone could gain something and everyone has concerns in the region. What could that mean . It could mean mutual geographic limitation on manpower, equipment and other capabilities coupled with intrusive and transparent measures. We are not running short of ideas in that regard. Kingston just mentioned a deep cuts commission and the last to report, particularly german came forward with practical ideas of what that can look like. Then again, arms control policies are basically built on certain recognition that preserving the status quo is beneficial. However, the United States and russia both view each other as challenging the status quo. That is a fact, from both sides. It is also highly questionable that u. S. Allies in the region such as poland would agree to a regional conventional armscontrol regime particularly in light of the Nuclear Superiority in the region by russia. So for rhetorical regions, has there been any novel approach of the trumpet ministration in that regard . Unfortunately not. That leads me to my last part, to Nuclear Arms Control, as we have all learned earlier this year from media reports, russia has not only produced more inf muscles that are needed to sustain a flight test program, but basically started to deploy some of those weapons. That is what we hear from intelligence assessments and some leaks that come to the press. These missiles are known as ssc eight. While that fact alone speaks quite strongly and both sides see it violating the treaty. The consequence for europe would be tremendously negative. Let me make this point as clear as possible. If not carefully handled, the inf crisis has the potential of reinvigorating the missile debate of the 1980s, with all the turmoil encountered at that time also with potential to further undermined and split the alliance. In time of a politically weak in nato, and times of almost no leadership from the United States, we should make sure that is not happening we should not allow to split the alliance along certain lines. Are there armscontrol Solution Solutions . One would be for the u. S. Reassuring russia. [inaudible] in romania and poland. For a long time russia complained, perhaps correctly that defense could be turned into offense with our systems. One of the options would be to make it impossible to fire tomahawk cruise missiles. Im not just talking about software fixes. They need to make sure russia has declined all systems. Heres the caveat. If they tested and deployed the missile, according to the inf treaty all those must be destroyed. That doesnt look like an option for moscow because they replaced almost 80 of their short range system. It would mean i would have to destroy their newest generation of shortrange launches. Having said that the fallout could go further. Without writte russia returning to compliance they will most likely not give their consent to a new start agreement. No input from the trumpet ministration so far, and before i continue along those lines, let me finish, i believe it was a rather Bleak Outlook so let me apologize but i hope i will provide some positive note in that regard. Thank you. Thank you to the Arms Control Association for bringing us together for these important discussions. Its an honor to be here. I fondly recall my time as a student when i was first getting into this field. Sometimes a long time listener, firsttime caller. My husband said that would work. As a student of policy study, you learn about the garbage can model. We all know this. Its this idea that policymaking is as organized anarchy and consists of various streams, problems, solutions, participants in choice opportunity. Choice opportunity is essentially garbage can into which various problems and solutions are dumped by the participants as theyre generated. Its very important that the garbage is processed and remove removed. Its cynical for policymaking but its very descriptive of the current state of relations. Many old garbage cans and new garbage cans. We have nuclear, gray zone issues, syria, ukraine, and lots of garbage cans. None of them are being processed or removed. Kind of heartened to hear the remark about the important work underway at the National Security council and i hope we make Good Progress on these issues. We are getting into the summer. We have a lot of garbage cans. Wait, no one heard my list . Let me speak up. I had a great list but i hope we start making headway into a lot of these difficult problems we have, especially as we get into the summer. In the summer, garbage get stinky. We worked really hard to d conflict our remarks. I wanted to briefly share my personal opinion about three things to stimulate discussion and q a. First i wanted to talk about russias concept in their improving capabilities at the theater level. Second i wanted to talk about how its viewed in russia and third i wanted to talk about the importance of armscontrol and i know thats an issue that is near and dear to a lot of you here. First, Russian Military thinkers have been working for over a decade on the cost of Strategic Deterrence, i think weve seen a lot of writing calling this thing coercion and a lot of other things, but i believe personally using russian terminology for this is very interesting because its also not what we think of as Strategic Deterrence. This idea is essentially a blend of deterrence, corrosion and control. It is supposed operate in wartime and peacetime. Strategic deterrence relies on three types of capability. The first one is nonmilitary. We know theyre highly provocative and it also relies on Strong Nuclear and conventional capabilities. I think theres a debate in washington about how low the Nuclear Threshold is. What you see in practice is Strategic Deterrence and russia is improving with an explicit goal of reducing nuclear reliance on early stages of conflict. They are planning to use this as a means of escalation control. They want to inflict this on their military and economic targets. They call it forceful non deterrence. One of the many challenges is that russias precision strike systems are used for escalation control. We can talk much more during the questionandanswer session about potential nuclear use and how the russians look at that or their concerns about an Aerospace Threat from the west which could result in. [inaudible] their development of conventional system and how the russians think about them is really the thing to watch if you want to understand the russian dynamic moving forward. So, to get back to the garbage can, there are ways to reduce the potential of russias use of conventional military forces into echo what they have brought up as some of the potential proposals by the deep cuts commission, by the European Leadership Network on reducing the dangers of accidents, so kind of curbing those pathways to escalation and thats a very good place to start. Its clear to me that we are in for a period of very serious changes in the european theater, and are you having any discussions about armscontrol and its pretty bleak because we are in for a lot of transition. Second, across the Analytical Community in russia you see a variety of opinion on the effect of moscows rattling around the ukraine conflict. Some say that its a useful reminder to the west that their interest need to be taken seriously, especially in places like syria. Others maintain that the western narrative that they are in Nuclear Danger is nothing more than propaganda. Other russians actually say that moscow has lost legitimacy. They say you loose nuclear talk in the media should have occurred much sooner. Last october. Its impossible to consider them as a factor in potential aggression because it would probably mean the end of our civilization. He also added it is abundantly clear that Nuclear Weapons are deterrent in many experts believe the possession of nuclear arms by leading countries was one of the reasons why the world has not experienced a major Armed Conflict in the more than 70 years since the end of world war ii. Now, we can debate whether or not russia used the nuclear shielding crimea. I think its a very interesting discussion. We can also wonder if putin statement was too little too late. It was clearly made to an International Audience and western experts. Personally i view this as an attempt to reassure that russia does not view Nuclear Weapons as tools of coercion. I think its obvious the proof will be in the pudding, but i also think there is a lot of concern and russian circles that Nuclear Weapons could be used in a limited way, for instance in the north korean context by north korea and this will shatter what they view as the fundamental role of Nuclear Weapons. My third comment is about the importance of the Nuclear Arms Control architecture. I think we can disagree on whether theyre practical or desirable. I dont think the russians are interested in that. I think we all need to agree on the importance of extending a new start and preserving our transparency, predictability and verification regime. I think it needs to be clear in the Administration Needs to make a clear statement with regard to that. They had a great piece in survival a few months ago. I hope you read that. He talked about this idea of learning. [inaudible] he was contributing to russian understanding about deterrence and what americans understand as deterrence. This kind o acceptance of the american deterrence logic pretty also called for restatement of the principle that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. I strongly endorse that. I think if we think about substance for the strategic stability talks this would be a very nice place to start, but broadly i am sorry to say i am not tie teary either. I think we are in for a very lengthy phase were both United States and russia, as well as many other countries are racing to develop offensive systems, nuclear, conventional, other ones, and i think they will have indications for strategic ability. I think we also need to make sure we preserve existing transparency and predictability in areas where we havent. Thank you so much. Thank you to you both for some incredibly rich presentations with a lot to chew on. When we open this up to the floor for questions. Please raise your hand and i will try to find you and try to please ask a question. Please wait for the microphone. My question is for you, what do you think the russians are trying to accomplish with their provocative actions in the baltic sea, where their planes come close to nato ships or they come into nato airspace and submarines come into nato water waters. This seems to be going on all the time, and i worry that this is going to be a spark that someday could lead to inadvertent escalation. What do you see as the purpose of this . What is the strategic intent . , and what can be done about it question. Thank you very much for your questions. Very excellent questions because it points to the larger question of what is behind all that. What is the Russian Strategic interests. Why are they doing that even though they know its pretty dangerous. We have seen the buzzing. Youre right. This is actually pretty serious. I think the russians have several objectives. One of the objectives is to make clear to nato we are here, we are ready, we are armed and just dont come too close. In a sense, its not to move too close, not to engage in too many military maneuvers, not to spend too much hardware and so on. The other objective is what i tried to point out in my remark remarks, to create a sense of unpredictability. A sense where the opponent in that regard, nato, does not know how far othe are the russians going. What do they want to achieve. That kind of creates the image of an adversary that is very dangerous, one that you cannot calculate what would be his next move. I think the larger picture behind all of that is that russia is trying to get back to a quote, the russians are trying to keep the american out in the russians in and oppose soviet states. They are achieving this with a strategy where there intimidate their neighbors, where they fuel conflicts in countries where there are russian minorities, we need communication again, not just the nato russia meeting every now and then. We need it at the operational level through officer contact, regularly open channels, and then hopefully at some point, some mutual Risk Reduction agreement which i try to point out in my remarks. Very briefly, when i talk of nonmilitary and indirect military uses of force as part of Strategic Deterrence, this is exactly what that is. I think whats not clear to me is the trends over time because its not entirely clear if the russians have actually reduce the amounts of those activities over time. I think we are so excited about what happened a couple years ago so we still carry the perception. It sort of lingers the effects of their actions. I think the other part of this is these are the forces they have to course. What to use military force for . You use it for coercion. Thats what theyre doing. Richard fieldhouse. I wanted to get back to you, he made about the use of nuclear, smallscale Nuclear Forces for escalation control. Not conventional, nuclear. Non nuclear. Sort of what russia sees some limited use of Nuclear Weapons as a form of escalation control. I wanted you to address that and the question of whether you see a problem in the differing understandings of deterrence or crisis stability between the United States and russia, including the United States with nato. Thats a very good question. I need to think about it more substance simply. I think as a part of this idea as Strategic Deterrence and use of conventional capabilities, the russians talk about use of conventional capabilities to send a warning to inflict damage on specific targets to get the adversary to back down. This is the idea proposed by others for the last decade and they blamed to develop that conventional capability that would subsid substitute what they use Nuclear Capabilities for since there conventional forces were so incredibly weak. However, i think theyre still developing their capabilities and i think its still not entirely clear what will happen to that Nuclear Deterrence piece of it. It is clear that as escalation progresses they look at that as a possibility. There are very few, since the article came out there have been few explicit discussions in that way. I think as folk understand the spectrum, if theres a conflict between nato and russia, how many conventional forces does russia have to lose for it to get to the point where it gets desperate enough to signal with nuclear use, whatever it looks like that it sort of needs to stop now. I think that is sort of thing that folks are exploring. If you read reader peace and survival, there is a debate going on that seems to be leaking into Russian Media and the potential limited use in case of an airspace attack. Yeah. Thats the reason theyve been doing them. Even though you undermine their Nuclear Deterrence. I think some in the Russian Military circles actually do think that because the United States was a country that developed the concept of limited nuclear use you engage in that against the United States. I think its a highly questionable debate and we havent really seen what that means. The other thing i will say is you do have people who are still in leadership positions on the russian National Security council. His statement dont really, you dont see proof of that in the military or in terms of leadership. Did you want to add something. Just quickly, because that seems to be a debate which is going back and forth here in washington. Look, we dont really know whether the russians have this doctrine are not. I think actually, the more interesting question is, if they have it, for what purposes do they have . Do they have it for purely defensive purposes or do they have a for offense of deterrence purposes. I would not single out the russians so much in that regard. It is not new. Every time a conventionally weaker power was facing a conventionally stronger power you had this kind of doctrine. It was like a final warning shot in a conventional warning system. I think the bigger question for us is what are the scenarios where the russians would employ that. Theres a lot of guesswork going around. Talk to lots of different people in different areas and we are speaking so much like these are actors, however if you talk to scientists who are cooperating on Research Levels or you talk to folks in the diplomatic area, each person i talked to. [inaudible] and you give us a fuller sense where you see levels of cooperation. In addition to the separate areas ive seen cooperation on. And then theres another question here, i saw a hand up. Yes, sir. I was wondering if you could comment on the doctrine and how it applies to the current level of context and policy. Can you describe that doctrine. Let me talk. Briefly about nuclear materials. Whats been interesting to us to share his opinion on that type of cooperation, the perception has been if you look at the budget, its not entirely clear we have a commitment but also if you look at the substance in the meat of russian american materials, theres really not much left. I think thats very sad, personally because we took for granted and the russians took for granted the amount of transparency and reassurance actually generated by a lot of these efforts because we knew a lot more about russian practices in terms of security and a lot of that is gone. I think its important to talk about positive examples of cooperation where it does exist but i also think we shouldnt overstate them. I think the other issue is, if you look at bureaucracies on the russian side and generally this rhetoric of the new generation of people who have now become bureaucrats, its a rhetoric of people who were not part of the activities in the 80s or the 90s. I think that is a different change when it comes to Nuclear Issues and generally much more nationalist. There are other aspects that are marked troubling than they are positive. So first of all, there is nothing like the doctrine. There is a large body of thought, of intellectual military empirical thought going around and russia for ten years, and some of those thoughts have the same theme and sometimes they plug into each other, sometimes they dont. For those of you here in the audience who have dealt with russia for many years, you know for a full fledged doctrine that more or less encompasses the whole society in the whole state apparatus you need to be pretty organized and the russians are not that organized in that regard. There is a lot of stuff going on in Different Actors pursuing different interests and while interes inter agency competition, and put on top of that corruption and so on. Nevertheless, lets talk about what can we understand. Some people have described it as new generation warfare, other terminal Strategic Deterrence, others say cross domain coercion, where all those approaches have in common is asymmetric responses. Its basically a very cheap insight to say everyone has vulnerabilities. The United States as the most powerful military in the nation has vulnerabilities. That kind of doctrine is trying to exploit that along certain lines. I think we should not fall, we in the west, nato, the u. S. , we should not fall into the trap of describing russia as the strategic superman who can act on all fronts and who can tip all of our elections and who can intermingle their and destabilize whole societies at the same time having all these military capabilities. The russians are trying to exploit weaknesses wherever thats possible. If its not working, for instance like in the french election, then they just go on and test somewhere else. I would say yes, we should be aware. One of the responses to this doctrine is in the realm of resilience. Not so much in the realm of deterrence because when it comes to asymmetric, how do you want to apply it in a conventional or even Nuclear Context to someone who is spreading this information in your country. Its just not possible. Make your societies more resilient. I think that applies not only to those countries that are being targeted by russian propaganda like the Baltic States but all societies. Why was america so vulnerable to the russians interfering in the election . Was it because the russians were so good because theyre such as superman. No, i think it has domestic routes in the United States. Very quickly, i think its important not to see what we wanted to be so i would encourage you to go back and look at your own writings and trace them back into the military journal. What you see is there is a lot of complexity about them thinking that the west thanks its highbred so theres a lot of mere imaging going on. I am Kathy Crandall robinson with women in International Security. Im curious to know, what is the civils propriety grassroots feeling or concern about Nuclear Weapons in russia . Does it matter, and are there things we should be doing to work with and reach out to Civil Society about Nuclear Weapons issues and disarmament efforts. Let me say this briefly. Russia is going through nuclear modernization. They are going through a period where there is the perception that the west is hostile despite the fact that they very much appreciate western culture and im pretty sure most of them have seen house of cards, even though i have not so i think when a country goes through nuclear modernization, i think you see that in newcomer countries. Theyre excited about it and i think there are limits in engaging with Civil Society because i doubt youll find a lot of receptive to that. The one caveat is where you do find some activity with regard to the downsize of the Nuclear Energy program so the environment until invocations that it has uncertain bodies of water and other parts of russia. There you have a much more Environmentalist Movement and that aspect of it, but i would say thats the only thing. Honestly i dont want to pretend that im an expert on the russian Civil Society. German Civil Society sure. The polls are very clear, i think 92 of germans think a Nuclear Weapons treaty would be a good idea. 85 of them think it would be a good thing to withdraw from german soil which basically means denouncing Nuclear Deterrence. At the same time, we have seen a very surprising debate within germany, a couple of months about germany perhaps acquiring its own Nuclear Deterrent or at least going together with the french agility deterrence, but first of all that would run into a lot of domestic german problems. I think any politician that would pursue that would risk the end of his career but at the same time we see pressure from other countries including the United States, and not just on germany but on europe, and i dont want to exclude that the future german French Security bond which has to develop not only for the sake of those two countries but for the sake of europe would, at some point again seriously pursue that way. I would add to that. It would be very interesting to see what that would mean for russians. Another question. Let me go to rachel over here. Hello. Can i ask you to expand a little bit about what you think could be the domino effect of failures to resolve the inf violation and how you said that would probably go over to the senate not deciding to renew, and just what would that mean in terms of doing away with predictability and transparency in returning to the cuban missile crisis level tension. Thank you. Have a question about the upcoming meeting between the u. S. And russian president which i was trying to get clarity from chris ward about. From germanys perspective, if you could put yourself in the shoes of the kremlin for a moment, what three things with the german governments want to see happen or not happen in that meeting between the president s. If you can, what do you think the russians will be looking for him especially with respect to the strategic relationship . Im not asking about cyber hacking or collusion with russian election, but the traditional security relationship between the two. Is that limited to the realm of armscontrol. Ticket as he will. Because, armscontrol may not be the concern of the europeans at this point, especially since they didnt have a reoperation trend affirmation of article five. So then your responses in any concluding comments you want to make as well. You want to start in response to rachels question. Rachel, basically, what could happen are two domino effects. The one would very much pertain to the european theater, the other would pertain to the bilateral u. S. Russian stability. The first domino effect, well lets start with the worstcase scenario. The russians continue to say we are not doing anything wrong, everything is fine, whatever in the u. S. At some point decides look, were just, get out of inf and we have to go tit for tat. We also need inf capable missiles in europe or maybe just go full and say. I think theres a lot of people in washington who are aware of the fact that with the highly destabilizing, not just a general sense with russia, but what i wanted to point out also with you to maintaining an Alliance Unity within nato. A lot of sensible people like steve piper or my colleague has put forward some proposals saying, for instance we could station longrange bombers in great britain, equipped with cruise missiles, conventional, we could play the naval card, put u. S. Ships. [inaudible] others have said we should concentrate on point defense for certain military installations. That goes to the concern that they have with the baltic. I think there are some opportunities. As you can hear from my response, those are all military options. As much as i like, i can recommend the article my friend just brought forward in the latest armscontrol issue, we would like to see those armscontrol solutions, but i have a feeling that the train has already left the station in that regard. Lets look for damage limitation and lets not go too far. The domino effect with regards to the bilateral, it could be that trump decides, its a great deal so lets just expand it for the next five years. He could do that, even against the background of the violations, but nevertheless we would face the same problems five years later, or he decides against that and then you know the strategic armscontrol mechanisms that we have in place will just wither away and that will throw us back to a state where we have seen in the very 19 early 70s and 1960s and you just mention the cuban missile crisis. Nobody wants to go back to those days. I think we have to really work hard on preserving inf. On jills question, in the interest of time, it whittles down to three things. That was about the Vladimir Putin and the trump meeting. Okay. One thing germany would like to see. They would like to see trump reaffirm article five. Very briefly, let me answer the second question first. Then i will make a brief point on the first question. In terms of the russians, if we think about fictions and how feasible that is, i think in terms of the broader stability package, we all know the list its Missile Defense and we also know they are going to have some transparency and insight on how that will be perceived. Those are the three things that keep the russians interested in having a dialogue. Very briefly, on the crisis question, i think you talked about the missile crisis that rachel discussed. Dont get your crazies confused because its actually very important in the russian debate. They think they are back in the euro missile crisis, some of them do. They argue that epa launchers are back into that discussion, but also, if you read some of the things that have been written for domestic consumption, not western consumption, there is a lot of concern that there will be an armscontrol collapse but that it would be different so would start with inf, go to start and then, i think they view the collapse is much more dramatic and potentially consequential. On that cheery note, i want to thank our panelists for an excellent set of remarks and thoughtful responses to your questions.

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