Problem. The cause was the inability to workout an agreement and the different repub hicks of the soviet union and that is related to them but that was the thing in the end that brought the soviet union down and the other brief reminiscence about 1986 to show how gorbachev had been through a major trabs formation before he met president reagan was i arrived in the soviet union in moscow three days before the accident. I had the World Economy and International Relations and i had with me a oneyearold son and thats relationship toif what i was going to say. Have been there two days and listening to the radio and i realize some catastrophe has happened many terms of a nuclear accident. The next week a few days later i gave a talk at the institute and i was trying to be forward leaning and talking about the importance of improving u. S. Soviet rehagss and the press that hosted me the chair of my panel then started attacking me for the lies the United States was telling. There had been no accident. No one had been killed. So that was one version of it and by the way, after my talk i had people privately come up to me and say whats really going on. The three subsequent weeks and had a quick turn around and admitted that something happened unfortunately and by then it was too late and playing soccer in may 1st and radio active dust places and just before i on my last day the man that attacked me when i gave my talk came up to me and said thank you very much for being here and terrible tragedies happen and we have to Work Together and cooperate the United States and soviet union to make sure that this doesnt happen again but this was really a transformative moment and unfortunately when you hear some of the things today about who is responsible from what in the world and the downing of the Malaysian Airline and Everything Else thats happening it sounds a little reminiscent of what it was hike in 1986 before gorbachev admitted what had happened. So i think the first point i wanted to make having listened to this fascinating panel was even though we know that it didnt succeed completely it was the beginning of a very important process and Something Like that, its hard to imagine Something Like that could happen today. Its based on the personal relationship between these two leaders that at the spite all of their differences got on rather well and were at a point today where u. S. Russian relations are worse than they have been since any time since before he came to power. And obviously the personal relations between the two president s are poisonous and theres very negative relations. We know that yesterday and fiona hill mentioned this briefly in her introduction, the kremlin announced that russia was with drawing from this agreement that it had with the United States on the disposal of weapons grade plutonium and the United States was of course blamed for that and putin when he announced this that the reason russia is doing this and im quoting now the emergence of a threat to strategic stability and as a result of unfriendly actions by the United States of america against the Russian Federation and he tied russia rejoining this union to three conditions. One of them is that nato can with draw and sources in russias neighborhood. And obviously because of whats happened with crew crane. And in the region and then thirdly and has to ago are regate the act and continue lack of understanding about separation of powers in the United States and how that system works. Those are three conditions that mean that they wont be met obviously so that rush wra will now have withdrawn from this agreement. So the purpose of our panel today is to ask why has it been so challenging since the soviet collapse to reach and then maintain and increase arms control agreements between the United States and russia. You would have thought with the collapse of communism and the end of the soviet union it would have been easier to reach such agreements and as has been pointed out in every presidency since the collapse of the soef wret union they have started out rather hopeful about arms control agreements and in the second terms if were not talking about george h. W. Bush administration and in the second terms of Clinton George w. Bush and obama. These arms controlled agreements have been stagnated and they havent been able to proceed. And this is tied to a broader theme which is that in the past 25 years each american president has come into office or george h. W. Bushs case he was already in Office Seeking to improve relations with russia and four different resets and trying to have a more productive relationship. All of these have ended in disappointment and have a disappointment on what a productive relationship with russia has looked like. What has worked has been issues where russia feels were treating it as an equal where it feels that its interests are respected and our interests and those of russia narrowly coincide it. One of those has been what happened in the fall of 2001 and the first phase of the war of afghanistan and the russians were very helpful and really cooperated with the u. S. And we have a common goal. Theres more examples. U. S. Russian cooperation in disarming syria of its chemical weapons in 2013. The discussions we have to the agreement on iran and the arms control agreements. And its where the u. S. And russia deal with each other as equals. We are the two super powers and russia usually feels its being respected as a world player because we come to the table as equals so all more reason to question why its been so difficult to complete and to sustain these arms control agreements. Now we have two because we couldnt have any better speakers to discuss that with us today. Ill be turning first to steve. Thats a principal and former assistant secretary of state dealing with arms control issues in the george w. Push administration and he has also in capitol hill and former ambassador to ukraine. Having dealt at various levels in the state department and the National Security council with arms control issues. He is of course a senior fellow and hes the director of the arms control and Nonproliferation Initiative and has written widely on all of these issues and ill sure that hell have a great deal to say about all of this. So ill going to say a few words about the background to when george w. Bush came into the white house about what had happened during the Clinton Administration in terms of arms control agreements and then we can move on to see what happened since then. And so when president pill clinton took office in january of 1993, he inherited two Nuclear Arms Control agreements from the george had felt wflt Bush Administration. Start one and start two. And we heard a little bit about the background of them in the previous panel. Start one reduced each side to no more than 6,000 strategic war heads on 1600 Strategic Nuclear delivery vehicles and start two which had been completed before the first president bush left office went further and reduced each side to no more than 3,000 to 3500 strategic war heads and also from the u. S. Perspective very importantly it was supposed to ban all heavy icbms and all icbms with multiple war heads. Now start ones entry into force was held up by an issue that were reminded of very much today again and that was the wegs of ukraine and its readiness to give off its own Nuclear Weapons so of course when the soviet union collapsed ukraine was the Third LargestNuclear Country in the world and the Clinton Administration and before the george h. W. Bush administration worked very hard on trying to ensure that russia would become the only nuclear successful state on the post soviet space and that involved ukraine. And maybe ukraine being willing to transfer their Nuclear Weapons to russia. But that was tied to the memorandum that if it relinquished its weapons its territory and integrity would be guaranteed and had security insurances which of course included the Russian Federation. In 1996 the Senate Finally ratified the start two agreement but then there were problems with moscow so this is now a tale in the 1990s of the difficulties of implementing these agreements because of the deteriorating political relationship and particularly they werent happy about giving up on the icbms and then the disagreements with russia about nato enlargement in the latter part of the 1990s and then 1999 with the nato actions against serbia over cosovo with the bombing et cetera and then delayed ratification of the agreement. It timed it. This is where we come back to star wars and well hear more about the son of star wars or sdi Missile Defense. And where it then tied it to saying that the senate had to ratify the 1997 agreement on the abm systems. The antiBallistic Missile systems. And start two which had been ratified which have been signed into law by president george h wflt bush was then pulled back by Vladimir Putin when the United States announced that it was uniliterally with drawing from the abm treaty at the beginning of 2002. So by then you have all of these Missile Defense issues which are now intruding on the arms control agenda. So with that brief background im going to turn to you and we will look forward to your discussion of arms control in the george w. Bush administration and whether you have views about why discussions on arms control did or didnt impact on the ability of the United States to cooperate with russia and other issues too. Thank you for inviting me. I guess i want throw an idea on the table before i actually get into my discussion with the Bush Administration. In 2009 i wrote an op ed. They gave it the title why democrats failed at arms control. That was their title. Not mine. But the issue that i hooked at was this pair dock. By reputation republicans are are deeply skept car length of arms control and democrats are deeply enthusiastic. And if you look at the history of bilateral strategic arms control the scorecard is astonishing. Republican president s have a lot of accomplishments they can point to and when i read that article in 2009 it was the case that no democratic president had negotiated it and strategic arms control agreement with the soviet rewrun i dont know and russia. Why is hah . How can it be that the guys that are skept car length have to have a lot more success than the guys that are enthusiastic. And democrats had bad luck and maybe with jimmy carter its not his fault hah the soviets invaded afghanistan so if you can enthuse his inability to bring about the ratification of start two but in my article i put forward a different theory which was that its common sense among people, among all of us in a negotiation and we negotiate and personalize all the time. Excessive enthusiasm and is not conducive to getting the result that you want in the negotiation and youre buying a car. And even if you find a car that you really juan, i should say especially if you want, the last thing you want to do is convey to the seller that you made up your mind its that car and no other. If you convey that if the seller becomes aware that your demand has become really what happens, the price goes up. The negotiation is prolonged because the seller thinks im not going to leave number on the table. And im going to get as much out of this transaction as i can and thats common sense. And our personal business transactions. For some reason not just democrats but george h. W. Bush for example was a little into enthusiastic and ended up getting a bad deal too but for some reason, many of our president s failed to translate what is common sense in any sort of business transaction we might negotiate at a personal level. They dont understand that the same applies between nations and in negotiating with the russians conveying excessive enthusiasm could backfire and that was this piece that i wrote and that was in 2009. And president obama did succeed and this arms control treaty from russia. I would argue that negotiation became prolonged again because of excessive enthusiasm. But with that background i want to turn to the Bush Administration which has been accused of many things. But have never been accused of excessive enthusiasm for arms control. What was the record of the Bush Administration. And more than less committed to abollishing the treaty. And also given the security environment that existed at this point committed to reductions in Nuclear Force levels but not at all committed to the idea that this needed to be negotiated and agreed between the United States and russia so first thing the administration did was in december of 2001 it aggregated or provided notice of a aggregation for the preceding decade every single issue of the magazine arms control today had run an editorial about how the treaty was the cornerstone of strategic stability that without the abm treaty the entire architecture of arms control as we know it would collapse but the inevitable result would be a new arms race between the United States and russia so in december 2001 this theory was put to a test. Bush provided notice of termination and five months later he signed an arms control treaty with moscow providing for reductions, i think the force level under the Nuclear Force level under the existing tree was 6,000 warheads per side. It was reduced to no more than 2200 under the moscow treaty. So first of all, this theory that without the abm treaty you couldnt have arms control was disproven within five months because actually arms control had its first was the First Successful strategic arms control negotiation between the United States and russia in more than ten years hah took place in the wake of aggregation of the abm treaty. But also i think the background to the moscow treaty was interesting because the Bush Administration did a review and determined a level it thought was appropriate in the security environment and announced that the United States was going to reduce its Nuclear Forces to this new level and the russians came knocking on the door and were very happy that youre reducing your Nuclear Forces and we really need a treat because its very important to make them neutral. Here is what its going to have to say. Were not interested in years of negotiation and this is a take it or leave it. Well sign this and they actually printed it on the front and the back of an index card to show how bare bones it wassed. And this was a treaty you can print on an index card but it did require those sides more than 2200 deployed Nuclear Weapons. So it was interesting that it was basically indifferent to whether we got an arms control agreement or not and suddenly the russians were not the obstacle. They were insisting on agreement and the u. S. Was in the position of saying well, okay. Got to be on these terms and in the end the russians said yes to those terms. It was the first success in arms control for more than ten years and maybe even the q and a when we talk about why the Clinton Administration wasnt and it had some problems getting an agreement with russia on what it wanted to do. It got itself completely wrapped about the axel and the russians took advantage of that during the Clinton Administration. It was such that a bilateral arms control agreement was possible. Now, you know, thats how we started the Bush Administration. Things kind of went downhill especially toward the second term and i think there were a whole lot that work there and Paul Saunders over at National Interest did where did things go wrong . I was astonished he interviews lots of russians that near the top of the list of russian complaints about the Bush Administration was the memorandum. I could ask for a show of hands of how many people know what it is. But it was an effort about armed forces and the russians were bitter by the way the Bush Administration handled that. And the decision to deploy Missile Defenses in poland and supporting the georgian government and its actually much more complex than that and an important part of the puzzle is the memorandum believe it or not. And i think it became difficult to maintain that momentum and it had a lot to do with president putin and his effort to return russia to Something Like the role played in the past. Maybe ill stop there. Thank you. Do you want to take up the story . Sure. Well save the memorandum for the q and a. If you look at how arms control has played in the Obama Administration and its relationship with russia over the last 8 years i guess id say there were three phases and the first phase was the reset from 2009 to 2011 and it was pretty clear that when Barrack Obama became president , he actually wanted to do Something Big on Nuclear Weapons and we saw that in a speech in prague in april of 2009 where he embraced the goal of a World WithoutNuclear Weapons and also being realistic and said look this may not happen in my lifetime as long as theres Nuclear Weapons my life. As long as we have Nuclear Weapons we have to have a deterrent thats safe and reliable. Going back to the first panel, obama and reagan are the ones who had a passionate belief about doing something specific about getting rid of Nuclear Weapons. You had in those in those first months, and marsha is here who helped negotiate the s. T. A. R. T. Treaty so when the president went to meet with thenpresident menveda, they had a s. T. A. R. T. Treaty. Russians were more comfortable with it. The complaints i heard, yes, we understand the american desire to limit warheads only, but you limit deployed warheads, you dont limit reserve warhead us and dont limit missiles and bombers and how does that not create a huge breakout potential . And so i think the russians were more comfortable in the Obama Administration indicated early on there was approach to eliminate both warheads and strategic vehicles, missiles and bombers. The new s. T. A. R. T. Gave a boost. Make just a comment on recent im in the group that thinks reset was a success. I say it was success in terms of what i understood its original purpose was, which is not to get the u. S. russia relationship to nirvana but to get out of a hole we had with russians in 2008 and get the russians what obama defined as u. S. Interest. It was a strategic u. S. Nuclear arms agreement, more help on indian Iranian Nuclear program and helping afghanistan, logistics in getting supplies and forces to afghanistan. In those first couple years the Obama Administration would look back and say it achieved huge, important things. By may or june of 2011 it was clear the reset had run its course and they should have declared reset was a success and come up with a new term. Looking after the new s. T. A. R. T. Treaty it was clear and the president made this public, he wanted to go beyond new s. T. A. R. T. And not only negotiate further cuts in strategic but bring in nonNuclear Weapons. You might have a u. S. russian negotiation looking at everything. And then russia held back. To figure out why is an interesting question. We can speculate. Its clear the russians were content with new s. T. A. R. T. And were not looking to go beyond it. The russians look at Nuclear Weapons as political tools above and beyond their Strategic Value and it gets into moscows selfperception of a super power. The only way though can claim themselves as Nuclear Super power is have lots of Nuclear Weapons. In 2010 the russians still saw themselves with significant gaps, visavis, nato and other conventional military forces and they saw Nuclear Weapons as part of that gap. Which was nature toes policy during much of the cold war. A part was also Missile Defense. Conversation came up in the first panel about how much russians feared sdi. I was posted at embassy from 1986 to 1988. When you would talk to soviets about sdi, there was this palpable fear in ten years the americans are going to put us out of the Ballistic Missile business. Its really interesting how much faith the soviets and russians have in american technology. I think in 87 people like sardaov, close adviser to gor bechef started saying, look, boss, this is rocket science. Its hard to do. As the leadership in moscow, that i think made possible the deal linking was prepared to go into the