Transcripts For CSPAN3 Politics And Public Policy Today 20150908

System combat for wmd. They sponsor strategic dialogues. And the grant was awarded for the fiscal year 2014, right. So in about october 2013 things were a lot different than they are today in terms of the u. S. Russia relationship. The objectives initially were to explore really verification modalities. If you were actually able to sit down, officially with the russians and negotiate an armed control agreement to limit Nonstrategic Nuclear weapons, how would you go about it and what verification would you think about. Of course, this changed over time. And initially the First Agreement was to sort of set the groundwork and the second meeting was supposed to look at very hardcore issues of an agreement. Instead, what we had was russias annexation of crimea, the u. S. State Department Verification Compliance Report where the First Official alleviations of russian violations of the treaty and we had sanctions as well know and implementation was moving along. Maybe a little bit more slowly. And so because of this, because of these increased tensions, what we decided to do in october was, okay, lets focus on confidenceBuilding Measures. What can we do in terms of political and technical confidence building members. In october we met in vienna. We had two europeans in june but if we move forward in this process, well include several more. And so in the october. The details are there in the report. Im going to give you some examples. But in october, the themes were we sort of rallies around a few themes. Arms control is never hesy and in times of chris is it is not easy but it is still an important venue if you can use it to build transparency and trust. [ technical difficulties ] in october, all of the participants said official limits on Nonstrategic Nuclear weapons are off the table. Interestingly enough, in october, or this is not a new cold war. In june that tone had changed quite considerably and that really effected the kinds of things that we talked about. We spent a good deal of time we had some representation from u. S. National labs an we talked specifically about Verification Technology and that was one of the areas that we believe could be fruitful, even if were just looking at longerterm Technology Developments. And we also talked about confidenceBuilding Measures in terms of lab to lab cooperation, limited data exchanges and then of course the kind of existing venues of cooperation like the Proliferation Initiative and so we cast our net widely. The next few slides are a long list of things that we talked about. And i welcome, in the q a session, if you want to ask specific questions about them. Obviously the russians are really big on Historical Data exchanges on the president ial nuclear initiatives. These go back to the 1990s. So the idea, is if you have a good baseline of what of what Nuclear Weapons none strategic Nuclear Weapons are out there, then you can move forward from that baseline. They were little, as we were, more squeamish on more current data exchanges. In october, we said, you know, we really cannot reaffirm what we call the nato three noes, which is that we have no intention, no plan and no reason to deploy Nuclear Weapons on the territories of new weapons sorry, new Member States of nato. And we could not commit to no modernization. And these were topics that we discussed at length both in october and a little bit in june. On the technical confidenceBuilding Measure area, we had the basic assumption that multilateral confidence Building Measures were the hardest and bilateral at the moment were probably desirable but not so easy to accomplish and that unilateral measures might be okay. All right. So that is a very narrow avenue for doing things. But we still talked about possibly having expert visits to former storage sites in europe and thinking about some of the things that we had done in the past with the russians. For example, the Trilateral Initiative between russia, u. S. And iaea on fissile material. In the longterm the focus was on cross cutting technologies, things like information, transformation, security, data storage and barriers and focus the focus from verification and more on monitoring. There are things we have done in the fissile material area that we might think about in the future. And then we had a Third Working Group that was kind of funny. It was like, well, we talked about political and technical confidence Building Measures, lets think about tangential opportunities. And that group brainstormed and came to the conclusion that wow, we need more security but it is probably not possible right now. But i think everybody agreed we need to create transparency and in the june workshop that was a heavy focus, i would say. So i really am going to try and breeze through the next few slides. In our second workshop, what we tried to do is say, okay, we had a list, a menu of ideas and lets drill down on that. And i asked each participate participant to participant to come up with ideas and put some meat on those bones and circulate it and we came up with an ideas paper and that is in the website and in the package for the second workshop. And in those ideas, i asked folks to focus on military doctrine, transparency, Technology Development, and then safety and security of Nuclear Weapons. And this was kind of the surprise topic, i think, for our second workshop. Which it is kind of counter intuitive. If you are having if your relations are not the best at the moment can you talk about sensitive topics like the safety and security of Nuclear Weapons. And what we decided to do, what we decided was, it is worth a shot. Right. We have a lot of focus on Nuclear Security these days and there have been exercised and cooperation with the russians in the past in some limited ways. And so we have a menu of potential cooperative actions we could take there. All right, so this idea is paper. You can see we had a lot of ideas on the transparenty e transparency idea. It was pretty evenly divided. I cant go through all of this here, a. , because i think it would bore you and b. , because there is a lot of language on those slides. But i think suffice it to say and i know steve will talk specifically about military doctrine. There are a lot of topics we need to talk with the russians about. And specifically, given some of the statements by putin and other lower officials, we need to clarify some topics with them. And they feel the same way. For example, on Ballistic Missile defenses. So transparency, we had a lot and i apologize, this is so dark it. Didnt look this way on my computer. A lot of different ideas for kinds of information we might exchange with the russians. And one particular topic that we talked about at length in june was the inf violations. And i think well discuss a few ideas that that we had for being more transparent about those violations on both sides. Technology development, a lot of stuff emanating from our labs. I think in the future, if we did this again, i would get some Russian Laboratory experts as well. There is a lot of work to be on authentication of information. There was a lot of interest in Remote Monitoring techniques. And fundamentally for Nonstrategic Nuclear weapons, you have a lot of definitional issues which have an impact on the kind of verification that you can explore. Keep going through this. On safety and security of Nuclear Weapons, a few of the ideas that came out were to do a joint threat assessment of the risk of penetration of a storage site. You could also flip that around and do a joint assessment of site seek improvements. You could do some exercises that build on things done with natorussia council on recovery, how could you recover a Nuclear Weapon that was stolen, those kinds of things. Okay. So that is the sort of setup for the workshop and now im going to highlight a few of the themes that we explored. Two more slides. Fundamentally, the u. S. And russia needed new basis for transparency. The old bases dont work. And that is in the 1990s russia was looking forward to somewhat to integration into western institutions and transparency was seen as the price for that. That is no longer viewed in that way. We talked a lot about nuclear messaging and how we have new generations of officials and how we might need to tweak that. We dont know how well that works any more. On the uses of transparency, we suggested that the russians need to clarify the status and the relevance of deescalation concepts. In other words, are they really contemplating the use of Nonstrategic Nuclear weapons to avoid a war or inkurgs. And we talked about Russian Military exercises that would give the appearance of that kind of alarming doctrine. And on the russian side, they said the u. S. Needs to clarify what did ash carter mean in terms of counter i think it was ash carter, right . In terms of counter veiling measures in response to inf. There some surprising misunderstandings given sort of the level and expertise in the room. At least surprising to me. I think we agreed we need a new political umbrella. And that we need some shortterm actions urgently. Fundamentally, i think we agreed that u. S. , nato and russian policymakers need to meet for implementation for current agreements designed for misunderstanding and one of these is the incidents at sea. In the last years there have been over 40 incidents between military forces and and i think right after our meeting, the american im trying to remember an admiral and a russia admiral met in naples to discuss some of that. But we believe it needs to be even broader. We suggested that we should expand the vienna confidence Building Measures to include exchanges of information regarding Nonstrategic Nuclear weapons, High Precision conventional weapons and air and Missile Defenses. And in the shortterm, we had a list of actions that we thought were urgently needed. So we need more information. If you know, we were told well it exists on a classified basis, russian experts, you really need to publish articles on the concept of deescalation. And were told it is not a part of official russian doctrine. We like more confirmation of that. One of our participants recommended that the u. S. Government should consider some transparency measures to demonstrate that the mk 41 launcher for ages for sure cannot contain or launch offensive surface to surface missiles. This is one of the allegations that the russians made. We recommended that they convene joint activities regarding the safety and security of Nuclear Weapons or exchange or exchange such collaboration to include a exchange of best practices. Sorry, that wording is a little off. And then finally, maybe the special Verification Committee under the inf treaty should be reconvened to talk about the allegations on both sides. In the longer term, we think it would be useful to reconvene activities previously conducted by the Nato Russia Council, including military to military to avoid misunderstanding and we think we should resume better technologies for verification and finally we think there needs to be a new review of classification issues regarding Nuclear Warheads. So those are the big sort of items from the two dialogues. And im going to stop there and welcome my colleagues. I think were all just going to sit at this table . We can do it however you like, so they can provide their insights on these two rounds of talks. Thank you. Good morning. Thank you, sharon, for inviting me to speak today and also to participate in the two meetings that were held over the past year, october in vienna, and in june, here in washington. Im going to make some brief comments about why i think this exercise was so important and important that we continue. And then some remarks about the domestic political context in russia, which sharon asked me to speak about. So there is a feeling for me, and i think for all of us, of sort of deja vu all over again in having these discussions. As a young, aspiring sovietologist in the 1980s, i cut my teeth on meetings like this. And through the 1990s, dealing with the Nuclear Legacy of the cold war was a very relevant and even urgent topic, i think, for a lot of us. And then something seemed to happen. The topic seemed to the topics of Nuclear Security, nonproliferation, arms control, et cetera, seemed to some extent lose their urgency, from my perspective, and their relevance. And i was thinking about this and talking about it yesterday at lunch with sharon. And what happened . Well, okay, i would i think the Bush Administration, the george w. Bush administration had something to do with this, as they came to power in 2001 with a very different perspective on the value of i think what we refer to as traditional arms control agreements, negotiations, et cetera. Whether one agrees or does not agree, there was the withdrawal from the abm treaty. There was the socalled moscow treaty, which was basically a bone thrown to the russians because the russians wanted a piece of paper in may of 2002. And so they got about 3 1 2 pages of paper in the moscow treaty. Two. Two. [ laughter ] thank you for the correction, steve. It is longer in russian than in english. Russian is a complicated language so it might be three. And the message was the cold war is over. We are no longer enemies. Despite the fact that most of the weapons from the cold war remained where they were, remained on hairtrigger alert, and in many of the same places as to where they were. And then what happened . Well, 9 11. I think this had something to do with how Nuclear Security to some extent went out of vogue. Although, personally, my First Impression my first thought in watching the second airplane go into a World Trade Center building was, as horrific as this is, imagine what a disaster this would be if this involved a weapon of mass destruction, a Nuclear Weapon. But i think something deeper was at work. It seems to me like we kind of and we, i mean, to some extent, the policy community in the United States, that we went on a strategic holiday. And we seem to forget, to some extent, the nature of the existential threat that the weapons present to ourselves and to our planet. Yeah, we had the unipolar moment, and the uroasian wars in iraq and afghanistan. And more talk about Global Warming and climate change, the global jihad and the Global Crisis and mr. Obama did become infatuated with the3 o global z momentarily, until i think he and his administration realized, presumably, that virtually all of the other Nuclear States existing and aspiring had no interest in global zero because Nuclear Weapons were there asymmetric strategic equalizer in trying to prevent making the world safe for american conventional weapons dominance. But thanks to Vladimir Putin, to some extent, it looks like the strategic holiday is over. The ongoing war in ukraine, as sharon alluded to, reminds us that we never did successfully resolve the challenge of building a new European Security system in the quarter century since the end of the cold war. In thousands of the strategic and Nonstrategic Nuclear weapons that we used to agonize over, they are still around. And putin loves to remind us that their still around. And that, yes, russia could incinerate europe and the United States on a moments notice if they so chose. Mr. Yeltsin used to make bombastic, punintended remarks like that, but we could kind of toss it off and say that is old boris, hes had a view vodkas and hes not serious. But when vladimir says this, you know, we kind of look at each other and this dude, hes not really serious, is he . You know, i remember when mr. Obama said in march of 2014 in brussels, just after the annexation of crimea, and he was making a cutting remark about russia, really. And he said russia is just a regional power. What keeps me up at night is the thought of a Nuclear Weapon going off in new york. And honestly, the first thought that came to my mind was dont give him any ideas. Come on. Now, seriously, here we find ourselves in a situation today where Russian Military forces are violating air space, sea space of nato countries at record rates. Nato is preparing to move more forces closer to the russian border. Military exercises on both sides are beefed up and we are coming into much closer proximity to each other as we often did during the cold war and the term the new cold war is already a cliche, whether you agree or not. Well what happened . That is not the topic for today. Ill explain that in my next book. But the point i want to emphasis is that the strategic holiday is over. The topic of Nuclear Weapons, strategic and nonstrategic, and there are a lot smarter people at the table and in this room about the technical issues involved, is indeed relevant and perhaps urgent. And that is why these two meetings that sharon organized were so important. Conversations that used to happen so frequently with russians, 2030 years ago, maybe even more, more years ago, we have to some extent forgotten how to have. And worryingly to me, the cod ray train to talk about this has diminished. 20 or 30 years ago, i was one of the youngest guys in the room on such a conversation. Today i still remain one of the younger people in the room in a conversation about this. And guess what . Im not so young. And so i think this issue of of training a next generation of experts to understand the technical, the political, the historical details and facts about these weapons, which still exist and present tremendous dangers is very important. I suspect, in fact i know, that the generational dilemma is quite a bit worse on the russian side. So let me conclude by making a few comments about the russian political context that sharon asked me to speak about. I could provide two words. Not good. Okay. Ill provide a little bit more than that. Recall in the spring and summer of 2013 when newly reelected president obama, he wanted to pursuit with pursue with reset two, if you will, with the russians. And the focus was on armed control, hopefully another round of Strategic Offensive reductions, and yes, possibly a broader discussion of strategic stability. Including the roles of Missile Defense, precisionguided munitions, spacebased weapons, et cetera. Now, yes, mr. Edward snowden, remember him, he did complicate things in the summer of 2013. But basically the reason why that discussion ended in my view is the russians were not interested at the time in pursuing the discussion, or at least not in the terms in which the Obama Administration wanted to. And as you recall, the summit meeting that mr. Putin and mr. Obama were to have on the side lines of the g20 meeting, or actually in moscow after the g20 meeting in st. Petersburg, that was canceled. Now over the course of the last 20 years, Nuclear Weapons have come to assume a much larger role in the overall strategic posture for moscow. And i think the reverse is true for us. And so one problem i think we face, and in a larger sort of a general way, is there is kind of a strategic mismatch. To a greater extent today than that which existed during the cold war period, especially the latter cold war period. But secondly, and over the last 15 years, whatever trust Vladimir Putin had towards the United States, particularly the United States, has evaporated. And even worse, his whole domestic, political consolidation is much more dependent upon antiamericanism. It is the principle prop, i think, in his political legitimacy, authoritybuilding strategy with the russian public. And so weve just heard this over the past several years, this growing chorus of, we are the enemy. We seek to weaken russia. Come on, lets be serious. The cia, the nsa, the state department, all of the ngos that we support, we cant hold a candle to the russians themselves which wh it comes to the task of weakening russia. Sorry, but just had to say that. But i think that the point for mr. Putin is that for most of the time that he has been leader, defacto or de jure of prosperity, that is the backbone of his political popularity. That has e ebbed away and that is more important for the domestic political consolidation. That is an obstacle. But it is not a super obstacle. And we point to first of all the removal and the disposal of the entire declared chemical weapons arsenal of syria which took place in 2014. And of course, weve had the important agreement on iran, which for the first time mr. Obama in his term of presidency has something nice to say about mr. Putin. So this is it is possible, but i think in conclusion i am concerned that to me russia is more unpredictable and potentially more dangerous today than at any time in the last 30 years. A colleague at the American Enterprise institute, leon aaron wrote a good a provocative article in the Los Angeles Times about a year ago arguing that Vladimir Putin is the most unconstrained and heavilyarmed leader in world history. It is an interesting thought. Stalin was pretty unconstrained. Didnt have the weapons that are available now. Bresh nev, krushov were more political. So i would say the domestic Political Climate in russia today may not be so conducive to the topics that we are talking about but it is essential that we continue to talk about them. But i also think it is essential that we dont cut our our nose to spite our face. To dismiss the activities in the natorussia council, to me that smacks to cutting off your nose to spite your face. We dont do this as a favor to the russians, we do these cooperative things because we think they help to alleviate the security dilemma and the challenges that we face. So i have gone on too long. Thank you and turn it over to the next speaker. Steve. Okay. Good. Well first let me thank sharon and css for inviting me to participate today and including me in the workshops that took place in october and june. Because i would very much with agree with what andy said. These conversations or channels are very important, particularly at a time of more difficult relations between the west and russia. Im going to focus my talk on two things that came out of the june workshop. The need to take steps to avoid accident miscalculation, and also the utility of a discussion about Nuclear Doctrine. But i first might make a comment on something that sharon alluded to, which there were a lot of steps and things you could do with regard to Nonstrategic Nuclear weapons that particularly in the second session we didnt talk about. It wasnt that we werent aware of those, but they didnt seem to be issues that had much prospect. To briefly go through them, the best way to deal with Nonstrategic Nuclear weapons is to negotiate numerical limits on them. And you would have to resolve a series of verification issues. And one idea that came up in june was this does it make sense now to have the distinction between strategic and nonstrategic. Maybe you remove all Nuclear Weapons period. But there was confidence and security Building Measures that we didnt get into detail on. One is transparency, the agreement that the United States, nato and russia would Exchange Data on numbers, types and locations of weapons. And then as sharon suggested in her opening remarks, well maybe you could start with the unilateral reductions that washington and moscow announced in 1991 and 1992 because exchanging data on historical things might be easier than exchanging things on current numbers. Other ideas out there is a the United States and russia might announce, a no increase commitment. Both are not seeing a need to increase them. Another idea is this idea of debating. In the case of the u. S. Arsenal, when you are talking about one weapon, the b61 bomb, they are not mounted on aircraft. And as we understand in perhaps almost all cases on the russian side, the weapons are different from the Delivery System. Could both side as agree on a practice to keep that. Keep the warheads and the Delivery System separate. And another discussion is relocation consolidation of weapons. So there is a fairly rich menu of ideas on confidenceBuilding Measures in addition to numerical limits. And there is a very good reason we did not spend a lot of time in october and particularly in june on these questions because the russian government has made clear since the new start treaty entered into force in 2011 that it has little interest in talking about limits or confidenceBuilding Measures on nonstrategic weapons. The official russian government position now is that it would be prepared to have a conversation about these systems once the United States had withdrawn the Nonstrategic Nuclear weapons and that is believed to be about 200 Nuclear Bombs in europe and withdraw them from europe to the United States and destroy the infrastructure for them in europe, i position that i dont think is acceptable to nato. And there also turns out to be reluctance on the nato side when you talk about these instructions. There is a conversation ongoing within a couple of years within nato on confidence and security Building Measures that nato might be able to talk about. That is a close conversation. But on the outside, when we get a glimpse of it, the list of measures seems to be shrinking. And ill throw out how difficult sometimes this can be. I took part 2 1 2 years ago in a track 1 1 2 conversation where we had a mix of government and nongovernment experts from nato countries. On the russia side it was just nongovernment experts. But what came out of the workshop is perhaps a confidence Building Measure would be to say, can you go to places where we used to store nonstrategic weapons and verify they are not there because you are not giving away much information on current stockpiles. And this seemed to be an idea this group felt and had some interested and some of the participate participants participants said lets do our next conference in germany. And they were hosting Nonstrategic Nuclear weapons in western and some in eastern germany and we thought well have this take place in germany and well go and visit a former american and soviet site and that had interest into it ran into the wallow posed by german, american, and nato security features and we have yet to have the visits. So i think the workshop, particularly in june, we said lets focus on more modest and achievable steps with regard to Nonstrategic Nuclear weapons and focus on the relations taken place largely since the russian seizure of crimea and Russian Military action in Eastern Ukraine and what can we do and what is necessary. And so one area that we focused on, and this moved beyond Nonstrategic Nuclear is a need to avoid miscalculations. Since 2014, since russias illegal seizure of crimea, youve had a significant increase in the number of in stances where you have nato and Russian Military forces, aircraft ships operating in close proximity to one another. And now nato reports in 2014 in the first part of this year, they are intercepting Russian Military eric at a rate three to four times the rate of 2013. The European Leadership Network came out with a report last year where it talked about 40 potentially]aduv dangerous interactions between nato and Russian Military units. There were two cases in the report that were particularly alarming where it was reported that russian intelligence aircraft operating in International Air space but operating in or near civilian air lanes were operating with transponders off, meaning they were invisible to civilian air Traffic Control and the most disturbing case was last year where an s. A. S. Airliner south of sweden had to take evasive action at last moment to avoid midair collision. And i would say neither side wants these accidents and miscalculations and there is in fact a significant body they can build on to try to avoid this. In the u. S. Case, you have the 1972 incidents at sea agreement and you have the 1989 dangerous military activities agreement. And a number of nato countries have parallel agreements with the russians but not all. And there is no blanket agreement that covers all nato and russian forces. But agreements like incidents at sea and dangerous military activities were designed to set rules with how military forces would operate. Once the sea agreement was internalized, American Navy pilots were told if you are intercepting a russian aircraft near a american aircraft carrier, this is the significant set you come at so as to no appear hostile. Can you not fly over ship this is side at an altitude of such and such. And it focuses on interactions along the americangerman border, but if something is going on on the other side and if it is of concern and ambiguous, here is a radio channel you can call and say what is going on. And the whole point of the agreements was to reduce risky situations, reduce ambiguous situations and provide immediate means for the forces involved to clarify it so you do not have an accident. And so i think we came out the discussion in june it would make sense, despite the ratcheting down in natorussia contacts, to have a natorussia discussion to look at the agreements and update them and try to negotiate an agreement that would cover all nato and Russian Military forces. And again, we thought this kind of agreement, presumably since neither sides wants an accidental conflict, would be in interest in nato capitols in moscow. And one question came up is would the russians want this. If one of the things they are trying to do with the uptick in Russian Military activity is to intimidate and create concern in the west, do they want to take the edge off of these sort of activities. But i think it is important to ask, go back to the case with the s. A. S. Airliner last year. What would have happened if the pilot had not taken evasive action and there was midair collisions between the aircrafts with the trons ponder off. Think about the impact on russias image but the pressure public would apply on nato military forces to be much more aggressive in terms of intercepting and escorting Russian Military aircraft. So this is something neither side should want. And another idea that came up, although there is tensions there are a couple of documents in europe that have worked. The vienna document on confidence and security Building Measures and the open sky treaty. So the question is can you take those documents and improve them. The vienna document on confidence and security building notifies you exercise over a certain level and could you lower the level so nato and russia are notifying more of the exercises to avoid a situation where a snap exercise runs the risk of big misinterpreted by the other sides and like wiz with open skies, can you increase the height in the skies because this contributes to confidence. And one suggestion was could you command coverage of the Data Coverage to include Nonstrategic Nuclear weapons. I think the group recognizes that might be difficult but there might be interest on the russian side if the United States would provide information on things being deployed to europe. And that is what we talked about to reduce the risk of miscalculation. And we thought there was ability to discuss Nuclear Doctrine. Look agent the two looking at the two sides, nato has remained clear it is a Nuclear Alliance. But if you look at the weapons play in Alliance Defense policy, it is significantly less and reduced from the time of the cold warme. And you see this that the number of Nuclear Weapons has been reduced significantly. We used to have a number of different types of Nuclear Weapons and now it is the only b61 navigator bomb. And nato practices, and this is a Quick Reaction alert, where at times during the cold war, you had nato aircraft with Nuclear Weapons on them prepared to launch very, very quickly. And think a saw a nato document that said it would take a number of weeks to recover that status. There has tl has been a ratcheting down on that side. And when nato thinks about Nonstrategic Nuclear weapons in europe, it is in terms of deterrence but also assurance. They are a symbol of american commitment to defend europe and i think a symbol that has become more important in the last couple of years in places like the baltic and poland and other regions because of the concern about russia. And they look at Nuclear Weapons and think if it is used, it is used less for the military effect than the political effect. The political message sent is this conflict has reached the point where it is in danger of spinning out of control, perhaps escalating to Nuclear Weapons and it is now time to stop. And if you look at the unclassified russian doctrine, it doesnt seem to be so problematic. Russia has now said both in the 2010 and the 2015 doctrines that it would use Nuclear Weapons in two cases. One, if Nuclear Weapons were other weapons of mass weapons were used against russia or allies or a military assault where the mission of the state was at stake. And i look at those and i say that doesnt sound that much different from natos policy of flexible response in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. But there are some questions. First of all we dont know what the classified russian doctrine says. And they talk about deescalati deescalation, to stop a conflict. Which again sounds like it might be similar to response but there is not a lot of clarity to the doctrine. For example, what is the threshold for the nuclear use that the doctrine sees. How low is that. Some suggest that deescalation envisions use of Nuclear Weapons as much for the military impact as for as political signal and there was just a bit of general confusion. I mean, it was interesting, i think to the american participants in the june discussion, that virtually all of the russian participants said, deescalation is not a part of russian doctrine, which seems to contradict what weve been reading about what they are been writing about for Nuclear Doctrine for the last 15 years. So one thing that came out of this discussion is it would be useful to talk about doctrine in a way to have a better understanding of how the sides view these. It was also really very clear from the june discussion that when russia looks at Nonstrategic Nuclear weapons, it is looking at an offset for nato and american advantages in precise guided conventional weapons and convention and general purpose forces. Left unsaid and my own belief is when the russians look at Nonstrategic Nuclear weapons, and after putes visit to beijing yesterday, but the big factor is the chinese factor. Where i believe the russians do not understand or see how they could cope with a conflict with china, certainly nonstrategic weapons play a role in that. And again what came out of the discussion is a better understanding of Nuclear Doctrine on both sides and maybe some sense of having that conversation would be easier than talking about specific confidenceBuilding Measures or limits on nonstrategic weapons. And finally we chatted a little bit about the nuclear vestage which andy referred to. Nuclear issues have become more prominently public because Vladimir Putin talks about Nuclear Weapons so much. In march there was a documentary put out on Russian State Television about the crimea crisis in february, march of 2014. And at one point mr. Putin said i was prepared to put our forces on nuclear alert. And i think the reaction to this was, what . If you look at that crisis, how it played out, there was no evidence that nato was prepared to take military action, no nato nuclear alerts. Nato begins to take steps really only at the end of march, after the crisis had reached its key point and russia had an exes crimea. And there are questions where we dont have good answers. Why does mr. Putin talk about Nuclear Weapons so much and ive come up with three or four ideas. A couple are benign and a couple less. And he likes to think of russia as a super power and if you look at super power status, the only area they compete is Nuclear Weapons. Another area is that the russians and i think still believe that they have areas wh they lag behind the west in china and in terms of conventional forces so part of the reason to talk about Nuclear Weapons is to remind the work, look, if we get beat conventionally we can escalate to nuclear. A third reason may be that he sees some value to appear ago little bit crazy, a little unpredictable when you talk about Nuclear Weapons particularly if its part of an effort which were seeing to intimidate the west. But the most worrisome suggestion is that some of his language suggests that he might see Nuclear Weapons not as instruments of deterrence but instruments of coercion and that would be worrisomworrisome. So, again, some kind of discussion that would allow us to understand this would be very useful. So what came out of the june workshop was there are some very important areas for conversation where discussions between nato and Russian Military officials would make a lot of sense even at a time when nato russian relations are at a fairly low point. But i guess the question is can nato and russia have a Productive Exchange on these kind of issues in the current political environment . Well, thank you very much. Its a pleasure to be here and also a pleasure for me to participate in these workshops. Of course, the problem with being the last speaker means everybody said everything i wanted to say so i really have very little to add. But the one thing i want to emphasize up front is that all of the things we did during these workshops is the most important aspect of these workshops was the fact that we held them. And the fact that we engaged in a dialogue that at present we dont really have with nato. The Nato Russia Council process has been suspended until further notice and there is no dialogue going on between nato and russia and i regret that. Certainly at the height of the cold war we continue to have a dialogue and not to discuss these things is a dangerous opportunity for miscalculation. Let me its interesting to reflect back over the last decade and see how much things have changed. First of all, in 2003, i was working in the department of defense and i was actually one of the people that were negotiating the moscow treaty and as part of after we finished signing that treaty, i was tasked to go to geneva for the first Consultative Group meeting, or as we called it, to have a dialogue with the russians and i had the bought into the fasct that the cold wa was other and we no longer had an adversary and we were Strategic Partners or competitors at worst so i dutifully in arranging the room for our meeting set the two heads of delegation at the heads of table and the delegations down the sides and the russians went crazy. Absolutely said no, no way, its got to be across the table and we wouldnt do it like that as a collegial kind of relationship. And then when our head of delegation started talking about the fact that you were no longer an adversary i still remember the heads starting to turn red from that kind of attitude which clearly indicated the United States was going to treat russia just like it treated any other country and there was no longer this same status, so to speak. So a couple years later in 2005 when i assumed my post at nato its hard to believe now but in actual fact we were seriously talking about nato becoming a member russia becoming a member of nato. And being a part of a membership action plan and we circulated drafts and had discussions. Then in 2016 we had something called the 12city tour of russia in which senior nato officials were tasked to go out to twelve major cities in russia and talk about how wonderful nato is and how were no longer in opposition. I got the short stick and i got m mermansk. I dutifully went out there to the largest city in the Arctic Circle and when i showed up at the university there was about 150, 200 people there protesting my presence and i couldnt figure this out. I thought why so i walked up to this elderly gentleman who had ribbons on his blouse and i asked why are you protest mig presence as a nato official to talk about the great relationship we have with russia. And his answer was because my pension is too low. That took me a while to figure that out but what he was saying and was echoed by steve earlier here is that all the problems in russia are not our fault but because of you guys, what you did to us. And that kind of continued to resonate and has resonated and is part of what we see now and what putin plays up to with his audience, i guess he still has an 80 or bert Approval Rating by people in russia. So as i said, most i just wanted to put that as interesting anecdotes. I was also acting assistant secretary in august when russia invaded georgia. It was really hard to get the ambassadors back from their vacation even with an invasion. Thats one of the most sack rezant things you dont want to touch is an august holiday by our european colleagues. I wanted to speak about nato. One of the things that i would ask you to keep in mind is that the Nato Alliance, the nato allies are concerned about and interested in the russia u. S. Bilateral dialogue. Weve made it very clearened even though i no longer am a member of the nato staff i still sometimes say we because i still think of myself as trying to reflect that alliance views on many things and its true that weve endorsed again in both our Strategic Concepts in 2010 and other documents and our statements during our summits that we will remain for the foreseeable future in the Current Situation a Nuclear Alliance but it was a real plan to be part of that Nuclear Deterrence posture and even more responsibility the consultative aspects of that. That the United States will consult if it ever contemplates using Nuclear Weapons under any situation and this goes way back to the early 60s. Participation this political linkage is incredibly important. I cant emphasize that enough and the physical presence of a u. S. Nuclear deterrent assuages any fears that the United States may eventually abandon those that are members of the alliance. Participation this reflect in the arms control process as well. The alliance looks to 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 instead it should be based on the assumption of reciprocity between the allies, not just the United States, the allies and russia. This inclusion of what i call the european footprint in any of these arms control processes needs to be subject to this consultative process in the alliance and its also firmly based on the principle of the indwizability of security and in every document that nato puts out, and especially in its summit statements but we talk about this again and again about this indevisability of security. Saying all that the Alliance Still goes to Great Lengths to endorse and support and embrace arms control. And the reciprocity aspect of that. Even the most diehard official within the government in the alliance that believes that we should eliminate all Nuclear Weapons, they do they talk about it only in an official context of reciprocity and a quid pro quo that we would not eliminate our Nuclear Weapons, we would not reluce our Nuclear Posture except in a process of discussion and negotiation with russia. In the last summit, the alliance again stated that they look forward to developing various transparency and confidencebuilding ideas with russia, federation, in the context of a nato council with the goal of developing detailed proposals and increasing on mul 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 a cooperative, constructive relationship but one thats reciprocal. The flip side of that is, as theyve said in the summit, is that 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. Now when i was there i chaired something called the Nuclear Group and that Nuclear Group developed a series of confidence and securityBuilding Measures that were short term, midterm and long term. Among those included discussions on nato and russia Nuclear Doctrine. Those discussions that were candid and very open, it was a very constructive dialogue, nato on its side was pushing to have russia provide information on their tactical or Nonstrategic Nuclear weapons which they refused to do but they were still willing to talk about doctrine and doing in the that classified environment. We had three of those meetings. With we also dealt with safety and security of Nuclear Weapons and that process, nuke each Nuclear Weapons state, united kingdom, france, the United States and russia conducted very specific safety and security exercises at each at a location in each one of those countries. They were very successful and they were really eye openers for the Nato Alliance as to how these countries would conduct a response to situations where a Nuclear Weapon might have been stolen, that it might have been an accident, there might have been a detonation of some sort. The final exercise was to be a Nuclear Weapon or Nuclear Device in a country that wasnt a Nuclear Weapon state. And russia decided they asked it be in one of the states that were that had the dual capable aircraft mission. None of those states came forward to have this exercise. Another country did and the russians refused to participate. And this was all happening in 2010 and 2011 and at that point there was no longer any discussion on transparency and confidence building. So im back i guess ill just close up because i think its good to have some discussions but again, as far as nato is concerned theyre very interested and keen on having a continuing dialogue on these confidence and security Building Measures. Thats not happening. And given the continued animosity and difficulties and challenges of the various accusations and allegations, i dont see that happening in the near future. How are we doing . I guess i can finish up by telling the story that captures our challenges and this is the story about two hunters that go hunting for bear in alaska. They get up there and theyre dropped off by the pilot in the airport and the pilot says well, just to let you know, i can only take back you two guys and one bear. Three days later the pilot flies back and theres the two hunters with two bears. And they start arguing and he says i cant do it. Finally one of the hunters says ill give you an extra thousand dollars if you take all of us. He says well, okay. They load the two bears in the plane, the two hunters get in the plane, the plane takes off, he gets about five miles and crashes and miracle of miracles, both hunters survive. One staggers up, looks around and says where are we . The other says i think were two miles further than we were last year. [ laughter ] so we continue to go down that path and with that ill close and take your questions. Thank you. Thank you. Well, we do certainly have a lot of was it the same pilot both years . [ laughter ] different pilot. I dont think so. So we certainly have enough time for questions and while you are all gathering your thoughts let me just pick up on a few things. I know the agenda says listed me as an additional speaker. Im not going to talk. Ive said enough. What im going to do is moderate a discussion and take your question 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 reason is that, surprisingly, for an alliance at the summit last year last year, theres some very, very Strong Language that made it quite clear that it was no longer going to be business as usual at the alliance. For example, russia has breached its commitments as well as violated International Law. Thats a very big thing for europeans. Thus breaking the trust at the core of our cooperation. And they lamented the fact that for two decades the nato has gone extraordinary lengths to embrace this relationship. As i said, talking seriously about them becoming a member of nato. And as a result of crimea, as a result of the activities in Eastern Ukraine but also the things theyve done and tlented to do in georgia and moldova and and just a whole litany, in fact, if you go on the nato web site theyve actually listed the 25 years of mythical crimes that nato has committed against the Russian Federation and responded to that and its a long, long list. Everything from nato promise that we would never deploy forces in Eastern Europe to we violated the Nuclear Nonproliferation treaty by training pilots to fly the Nuclear Mission and just goes on and on and on. So its really going to be hard, i think, to go back to a relationship and, again, as i said at the beginning, im very disappointed in that in some respects. We should have been more forceful the alliance should have been more forceful in trying to reengage and saying, look, where can we as steve and andy pointed out, where are these areas that we cant Start Talking again and building the trust and confidence. As i said, thats why at the end of the day i think track that were engaged in is going to pay huge dividends and is really, really important. I think that thats largely right. Let me try a little optimism. I went through the early 1990s when i worked on the state department on arms control issues and you have had the soviet walkout from nuclear portions and strategic arms reduction at the end of 1983. You had a deep freeze in u. S. soviet relations throughout 1984 and then in 1985 the soviets went ahead and resumed the negotiations and two and a half years you had major progress on start. So i think its very hard to be optimistic about the current state of u. S. russian and west russian relations right now. But we also ought to not ignore the possibility that there may be an opportunity to try to turn things around so again i think probably being mess mistic is the more realistic course now but things can change quickly. Thats been demonstrated by relations between washington and moscow in the last 30 years. One other thing, steve, that you brought up, this question in talking about doctrine and other you know, the russians are quite interested in talking about new technologies, right . Whether its precision guided munitions or other things. And i quite clearly remember a question from one of the participants to the russians where i was askeding a, how do you feel about a cyber attack . Does a cyber attack constitute an attack on your state, does it create an existential threat. And the answer was well, from one russian well, that depends on how successful it is. So that seems to be a very risky situation for us to be in and i fully understand that these talks with russia and with everybody else on Cyber Security and on any kind of limits are difficult but once you introduce the notion of, well, a Nuclear Response to a cyber attack it seems to me we need some kind of forum for at least discussing these issues. And nato might not be the right place. I welcome your thoughts on that. One of the things 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 Nuclear weapons if it wants to have a dialogue with russia and that would include questions like Missile Defense, conventional Global Strike and it might even include issued like conventional forces because i do believe that at least now while the russians are in the process of modernizing there is a perceptions but and it still reflects the reality. Nato has significant advantages. Where cyber fits into that i dont know and part of it may well be is im not sure yet that either the United States t United States and russia separately have a fixed enough doctrine on cyber to have that conversation. But for all of the attention talked about here in the cyber world im not sure i understand what american doctrine on cyber is. Ill give you an example. I think when the u. S. Government thinks about cyber, how do you deter cyber attacks. Strategic command does this seminar in august where they talk about a range of questios s the question i had is when i look at deterrence. I can read writing and say how many bombs does the United States have . We periodically exercise them so its very clear to the world what backs up american Strategic Deterrence we dont know how much the u. S. Military put into cyber. So we may have to be getting our own thinking in order before we can have a useful conversation with the russians on that. Let. Let me add that at nato we have a cyber center of excellence and talent and the genesis of that was a massive cyber attack from unknown source s. [ laughter ] and as a result nato headquarters has created a cyber division, very small but one that is again not wholly endorsed by all the members of the alliance. But is, again, recognizing the many challenges and difficulties, what is an attack and so on and so forth and coming to gribs with it by creating a infrastructure to deal with it. And there was talking about having a working group like that in the context of the nato Russian Council just like we have i chaired for example a theater Missile Defense subgroup in addition to the Nuclear Group and which we had very good cooperation with the russians up until 2008. So thats you know, again, theyve structured themselves to deal with it. But again theres a long way to go. Thanks. Steve put his finger on the essential question and you rephrased it. Does russia want to reduce the risk . And when we look at an incident like mh317 and the response to mh17, that doesnt give one great optimism and its certainly a mess of trust destroyer. Let me offer a little bit a ray of optimism and it has to do with you know, for us to participate in a track two, it really is a track two and you dont really need to think about necessarily or i dont, many of the participants dont need to think about whether the u. S. Government endorses this or not. The russian system doesnt work that way. So just the very fact that we are able to hold these discussions and to have the level of representation that we had from the Russian Federation says something that at least some areas in the russian government are supportive of continuing these types of discussions. Maybe not in the context of a nato russian discussion as guy suggested but in this context. And it emphasizes the point guy was making that what we are doing is all that much more importan important. Thank you. Its time to take questions from you. So we have some roving microphones and i just ask that you introduce yourself and your affiliation and ill try and go in order. Austin, can you come up. I. Thanks, im a russian reporter with tass, the russian news agency. My question is in followup of what weve been discussing. First, i think its an important discussion, thank you for having it. Second for me as a journalist its hard to even cover this event becau event because beyond its practical significance. So i have a group of eminent experts who seem to be agreed that the dialogue is needed. From what im hearing from all of you you talk about confidence building and trust building, like andrew just said on the russian side its probably sanctioned in some way even on track two so what about american side . You are all for it so what does it mean . You also seem to be all agreed that the west and the u. S. Are not willing at this point to restart the dialogue. Thats my question. What does it mean . What does your opinion matter for washington . Let me try briefly and then ill let the diplomats take over. Yes, this is track two but remember also our sponsor for this dialogue was the u. S. Government and so and there was definitely interest in the u. S. Government. We had some government speakers at our that did not participate formally in the dialogue but did attend, gave lunching and dinner notes. I nknow anecdotally that there s great interest in what was said. I dont know that the u. S. Government has plans to follow up on this, thats beyond my ken. Its not quite i dont know if i would say its totally track two, track one and a half. I think steve put it quite well, both sides have a big interest in reducing some of the risks that are currently not entirely nuclear, right, but the risks of these inadvertent escalation and so to the extent that this may contribute to helping mitigate some misunderstandings i think theres great interest in it. Its a great question, andre. But just on the value of the event today, this event is being streamed live on the internet and i believe that cspan is also broadcasting the event so i think there is a value simply in the role of Public Education that we are talking about this reason kbli serious people, knowledgeable pen knowledgeable people and we think that there is a problem in that maybe this can possibly have some influence outpseudoof t outside of the building in a multitude of ways. I just had two points briefly. Any time ive had a conversation with somebody in the u. S. Government about a track two ive been involved in, the u. S. Government supports these types of things, they think these contacts are useful, they keep a dialogue going, sometimes they produce ideas which can then work their ways into official channels. The second point i would make, and this would be my view, is that in the aftermath of russias military seizure of crimea and Russian Military action in Eastern Ukraine it was appropriate for nato and russia for the nato to ratchet down the nato russia relationship. 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 a nato russia militarytomilitary dialogue, particularly on the thing on the issue of how you avoid accident and miscalculation when you have an increased tempo of nato and Russian Military forces operating in close proximity . Now having said that i think in my own mind im not sure whether the russians would then say yes we want to have that dialogue but i would argue that it would be worthwhile for nato to do that because neither side should have an interest in an conflict that begins by a miscalculation or accident. Thank you, i saw a question, first this young woman here. Thank you. I follow this story from the allies perspective, particularly from turkey. So my question had to do with a followup on the idea that nato is not prepared to reaffirm its commitment to the treaty considering the significant divide among the allies, especially when it comes to the reluctance to host the tactical Nuclear Weapons versus the ones who are eager to receive the modernization of the warheads at the next generation of dual capable aircraft. How much longer can nato actually continue pursuing its policy of awarding. Are we going to see new countries, particularly in Eastern Europe who will take over the mission . Great question. Guy . Well, i dont think thats a good question. Its complicated. I think clearly right now nato is relooking at its Nuclear Policy and theyre going through a somewhat of a bureaucratic process to see if anything needs to be changed. But the fact of the matter is nato conducts nuclear exercises. They dont announce them. Its not public. If you look at the handout, there are several really good papers in there, including mine. [ laughter ] but i have a slide in there, for example, that shows that if a Nuclear Mission for nato was ever required that up to 16 different nations would be participating in that forward deployment. Again, to send the political message of the solidarity of the alliance and part of the burden sharing ongoing process that we have today is all the other nations are looking for ways in which they can participate in some way than holding the annual Nuclear Policy symposium as how they can actively participate. Now given the current circumstance there iss been a lot of talk about the possibility of forward deployment. Theres as far as ive seen, at least in my discussions with people at nato and no one is talking about a moving Nuclear Weapon and having them be permanently stationed but there is discussion about, well, what more can we do and how can we get back to the messaging part of that . A huge part of that messaging is solidarity by doing exercises with as many nations as possible actively participating. Now, the one thing people forget about the three nos is that it says at the end of the sentence based on the current policy situation. The poll zi situation has changed and so you do get some people talking, well, the situation has changed, particularly some of our Eastern European allies they say well, those three noes are no longer relevant as we need to examine it. But from an overarching alliance standpoint i dont see any changes, certainly movement of those and from a technical standpoint it would havent any relevance, to be frank. But, again, thats not to say we arent continuing toour exercis. The Arms Control Association does a good job of announce those that we try to keep secre secret. If i could just describe, that goes back to 1997 incorporated in the nato russia founding act. But as a result of 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 just said about the importance of nato consultations on nuclear questions. The importance of burden sharing but i would argue i missed this part of discussion in october because i would have said we could reaffirm the nato three noes. It seems there have been suggestions in the last five or six months from some quarters here in washington not in the government but outside about maybe a response to russian bad behavior in ukraine should be to move american Nuclear Weapons to a place like poland. I personally think that wouù[;n unrise on three counts. First of all, deploying those weapons from their current locations to a place like poland makes them much more vulnerable to russian preemptive strike in a crisis. One missile can cover about twothirds of polish territory. Second, i dont mind in the current sense and circumstances abt being provocative towards russia. That would be really pro havingive the. Think 1962 in the cuban missile crisis. I think if the United States were to go to nato and say we want to move our b61 bombs and the delivery of the aircraft in poland my guess is you would have a large number of outlay, perhaps majority allies, saying are you out of your mind . So an idea that makes weapons more vulnerable really ticks off the russians and causes disruption with the alliance. It doesnt strike me as a particularly smart policy. So, again, this is where i think it makes sense in parallel with the three noes, nato also at the same said that again in the current and foreseeable security securities there would be no requirement for permanent station at substantial combat forces on the territory of new allies. I think theres a discussion to be had about that question but i think the three noes would apply because it buys you lots of problem problems. Take away those others, will it make us more capabilitiable and the answer is no. Four noes. The question right back there. Im with Georgetown University. Sharon raised the question of what do the russians think about the suspension of these working groups. I was at a conference several months ago and the ambassador was lamenting the suspension of these groups and he said that we, russia, would like to resume them but were not going to beg. I think thats your answer. Thank you. Im from Georgetown University as well. Peer Research Center released interesting results of its poll conducted in several nato countries, ukraine, and russia and one of the things that the polls showed is a very sharp divide within nato on the article v commitments and how do you what do you think . How does that affect further progress on limiting strategic Nuclear Weapons . I saw that poll, my guess is i can go back to the 1970s and 1980s and find very similar polls. Im not sure how much weight to put in them. I think nato governments very seriously understand what article v is about and i think they understand that supporting each other v is essential. And i think that is a totally separate issue. Hi. Gary sargent, a retired army officer by trade, i work for a small consulting company. Because were talking Nonstrategic Nuclear weapons, theyre hard to find so i wanted you hopefully somebody could expand on the Remote Sensing piece you talked about and two the second thing would be at the operational level who has launch capability, if thats even something that you guys can share or understand or believe from russia. In terms of authorization. What level . Is it down to tactical division, Army Commanders in terms of executing im always worried about mistakes because the army and everybody makes mistakes all the time. Well, its a very long if there was a scenario where we would contemplate the use of Nuclear Weapons then theres a process that we go through. Its actually interesting is that what youre talking about . Im talking about on the russian side. Do you know that . On the issue of Remote Sensing, you know, the challenge that you face with nonstrategic well, in arms control, right, the closer you get to the warheads the more intrusive monitoring is going to be so you can talk about nonintrusive monitoring and then Remote Monitoring. We did talk about im trying to remember the technology. Knew wan radiography. Were at a little bit of a loss. I think were all political scientists . Im not sure up here on this panel but. [ inaudible question ] oh, you need to ask them that question. But these are our National Labs have been involved in this kind of Technology Development for decades and the but the issue there is, you know, if you were to sign an agreement in 10 or 15 years you would already need to be starting that developme Development Today so there are long lead times. I know im not giving you a specific answer but i think Nancy Joe Nicholas described some of them in detail in the paper thats available on our web site. But the point is, you need to start that collaboration now and the earlier, if you do that collaboration with the russians then, you know, you all have buy in into particular techniques and approaches. There was one point in the october workshop where we had somebody from one of the u. S. Labs give a briefing on this muan radiography. And they showed a slide that said with this Technology One mile ray way you can tell if thats a Nuclear Warhead or not. I said please tell me thats one mile. And they said no, thats one meter. So were talking about limited technology. Everybody agreed on the american and russian side that there would be value in having a dialogue right now between americans, russians and others that said how do you develop verification technologies, looking to getting questions that go beyond treaties. How would you, for example, if you want to monitor a limit on Nuclear Weapons in storage, what would be the technology you need . And then putting time and effort into developing them now so if political circumstances reach the point where you can get that treaty, the treaty wasnt held up because you didnt have the verification techniques. To the extent that you could develop those technologies and techniques in a cooperative manner where it was not coming from an american lab or a russian lab but coming out of a joint effort, that technology in the end might be more acceptable to both sides. I think the state department in december of last year announced an effort to try to promote development of further technologies in the area of verification and to encourage universities to make contributions. What i dont have a good fix on is how much funding went to that. But they are beginning to think about how do you develop technologies so that you have things on the shelf and the absence of a particular Monitoring Technology doesnt prevent a treaty from going into force. Thank you, richard fieldhouse, former Senate Arms Service Committee Staffer now doing consulting work. I wanted to sort of provide a context and a question. And youve all explained under the current circumstances with ukrainian crisis left unresolved and the risks left unresolved with that and the fact that so many official dialogue have come down, i think theres wide agreement that this is not a time when theres going to be any likely progress on this issue and maybe if theres some political resolution in the ukraine crisis that would change dramatically. But there is an avenue that i want to explore and i know some of you have thought about this. The new start agreement, the new treaty, will come to an end at some point and there may be an interest both in the United States and russia in either continuing or doing something additional so there are restraints on both sides and Strategic Nuclear forces. I would point out from the senate standpoint, when the Senate Considered the new start treaty and in many communications since its been a clear and official part of the Senate Perspective that any future arms control with russia would have to include Nonstrategic Nuclear weapons and thats written into the resolution of advice and consent of ratification and would require the administration to make an official approach to russia to begin a dialogue on these Nonstrategic Nuclear weapons, they did, the russians werent interested, etc. But the question is can you foresee a time when that might be the avenue, if you will, to having serious official dialogue on the issue . Again, i try to be optimistic about these things. I do believe that even though you now have a difficult situation between washington and moscow that at some point, maybe 2018 or 2019 that the russians will have an interest in having a dialogue about what happens with new start. The new start treaty entered into force in 2011. By its terms it expires in february of 2021. Although the sides have the ability to extend the treaty by mutual agreement by up to five years. And while the russians have showed little readiness to go beyond start, i think they would want to have a continuation of some kind of cap on american Strategic Forces and a certain amount of transparency, particularly if youre talking about the time frame of 2020, 2021 when the when u. S. Strategic modernization programs with the ohio class of Ballistic Missile going into replacement, with a new strategic bomber, possibly with a new intercontinental Ballistic Missile, that would be a time when the russians want to have a cap. The question then becomes would an American Administration and american negotiators use that russian interest as leverage to say, o. K. , but now we have to go beyond strategic and talk about nonstrategic . That is a judgment theyll have to reach at the time. Whether that gives them the leverage to do something, i would like to see the next step in u. S. russia arms control move beyond limiting strategic and move to a treaty where at least one aspect would be a limit on the total number of Nuclear Weapons, deployed, nondeployed, strategic, nonstrategic and maybe with a subceiling on the deployed strategic warheads. I think we wont know for a number of yearsing in we get in on that negotiation whether russian interest gives us the leverage to get them to broaden the number of systems covered to pick up Nuclear Weapons beyond strategic. Andy, did you want to add something . Its an excellent question and my honest answer is maybe. Russia is prone to nonlinear developmentes so extrapolating where we are today in 2015 and and assuming that will be the situation in 2018 or 2020 is risky. I would say one key positive step, and this seems obvious to kind of get to this point where we would like stop there has to be a resolution of the situation in ukraine. That resolution with the swk situation has to include a broader discussion about European Security and then if theres progress on that then i think this could be more possible. But there has to be some facilitating conditions that happen before thats able to happen. We had a question up here and then over to there. Im with the International Center for tourism studies. You mentioned in your workshops there were some provocative ideas presented in connection with the safety and security of nonstrategic weapons. Was the were the ideas presented by the americans substantially different from those presented by the russians in their originality of could you contrast any of these . Mention some of the ideas that were presented . Sure. Actually, it was our european but thats okay. This was the topic that i assigned to him and actually the what i meant by provocative was just that at a time when youre even struggling to find venues to talk to russians, the notion that you could talk to them or have joint exercises or anything else about safety and security of these tactical Nuclear Weapons was a little counterintuitive. Thats why i said it was provocative. The recommendations or ideas that and it was oliver mier from the i forget what they call it. What is it . The Peace Research institute. Good german scholar, formerly with Arms Control Association. These built on things weve done with the russians already in terms of exercises but trying to push a little bit more. So there were six items and you can read about them in the report but just briefly joint assessment of the risk and you know if anybody has been following the Nuclear Security summit con connection you know that any discussions of risk assessments are very taboo. Were certainly not going to do that with the russians now because theyre not attending the Nuclear Security summit in 2016. You could also flip that around and talk about site security improvements. You could share best practices in a generic sense. You could have exercises focused on accidents or incidents and associated consequence management. You could develop Incident Response procedureprocedures. So, for example, you could consider im just going to read from the report, table top and joint exercises to develop and test procedures for responding to different crisis scenarios. Some of these things are borrowed from the Nuclear Security world. You could set up a a 1540, the u. N. Security Council Resolution 1540 joint working group to explore challenges specific to safeguarding Nonstrategic Nuclear weapons from access by nonstate actors. And then this is a hold over to the other areas, you could initiate a dialogue between russia to avoid this unintended escalation in military encounters. So i wouldnt call these necessaryive the provocative. The question is whats the hook to initiate or resume some of those things that have been done under the Nato Russia Council. I wanted to add something to the previous question. Let me more frank. Id be a little more pessimistic, frankly, about having a discussion with the russians about Nonstrategic Nuclear weapons. I mean, even if the conditions that i talked about happened, the structural situation, the structural security situation that russia faces and the asymmetry, the importance of Nuclear Weapons for russia, thats t no going to go away in five years. Thats likely only going to increase so i think from their perspective make that discussion perhaps even harder to make progress on. We werent able to make progress on that in 25 years. And the 1990s when it was a much more police us to political environment. Felicitous political environment. So i think the asymmetry, the strategic mismatch will be worse. I think it will be you have to. I would just add to that. Overwhelmingly after these two dialogues what i come away with and i think, steve, you said it earlier. You cant its very difficult to just put these Nuclear Issues in a box. When we said, look, you need to have a new dialogue or when these 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 that or concerns from both sides and i dont say this to be a pollyanna. Ive spent most of my career in the u. S. Government not outside actually doing negotiations in arms control. But there are some russian concerns or issues that are not going to go away. I mean, we cant simply keep deploying Missile Defenses and pretend like it doesnt matter or that there arent issues of concerns with that. We have our own security interests to consider, obviously. But so the real question is can you if you cant get anywhere on Nonstrategic Nuclear weapons in a pure lie nuclear avenue, are there other thing source there a broader discussion where you might make progress on that . And this is not simply the, gee, well trade tac nukes for Ballistic Missile defenses. Nobody is recommending that. But you have to at least have your discussions not in the press but face to face. Theres an antecedent to that, if you go back to when the United States and soviet Union Resumes Nuclear Arms Control discussions, it was done in the nuclear and space walks where you had a groupon Strategic Nuclear forces, a groupon intermediate range forces and a grew spon defense and space. So we also have to have a dialogue that covers our concerns about things that Cover American Missile Defenses. The defense and space walpeace confront the agreement. In 2012 one of the big helps for the Obama Administration was to reach an agreement with the russians about Missile Defense. That failed and i think it failed primarily because we werent really ready to talk about Missile Defense in the broader context of strategic stability where you bring in the role of Strategic Offensive weapons, Nonstrategic Nuclear weapons, precision guided munitions, Missile Defense, space weapons and it was my hope in 2013 when the administration was trying to engage in this again that at least to me success in those effort ises in the spring and summer of 2013 would have to me i would have set if we agreed to a framework for discussions about strategic stability for a broader framework, because i thought if were not able to do that i dont think we can make progress simply on looking at Nonstrategic Nuclear weapons off to the side. So i saw one last hand up. Im meg kelly here at csis. This was briefly mentioned but i was hoping you could speak a little bit further specifically about china as a factor in russias willingness to move forward with positive dialogue or possibly arms reduction . Well, the formal russian position as has been articulated by foreign minister lavrov is that the next stage in Nuclear Arms Limitation talks should not be u. S. Russia it could include at least britain, france, and china. I agree in principle at some point the dialogue has to be a multilateral one but i would argue and here im using hans numbers here so he can correct me if i get them wrong but if you look at the total american and Russian Nuclear arsenal, each of those countries is about 4,500 total Nuclear Weapons including strategic and nonstrategic. France and china would be the next largest at about 300 weapons so i would argue that you have to get into a multilateral dialogue but there is significant room for one more bilateral russianu. S. Negotiation. If washington and move could you agreed to cut theyre Nuclear Weapons in half it would still be stronger than the next country. But they say no, the next negotiation has to bring in third countries. There might be a half step you could do. I dont believe the chinese are prepared to say were going to be a commitment not to go above 300 when you are still at 2,000 or 3000. But could you ask the british and the china to undertake a unilateral political commitment. As a matter of the policy, we will not increase as long as the United States and russia are reducing. It is a great question. My discussion with russians over the years there is no question the russians are concerned about what china is doing and could possibly do in modernization and possibly expansion of the Nuclear Weapons capability. Over the years, theyve been frustrated, i think, in at least in discussions with me, about what they see as a lack of transparency in chp programs. Now the chinarussia relationship is a black box for us so you cant answer the questions with any certainty. But i think it was significant back in 2006 or 2007 the russians approached the Bush Administration of trying to multi lateralize the bush treaty and i think the response was like, sure, try. Good luck. I dont think that would be great. But there is not it was not really met with any interest. And i this it was the concerns principally about china that was motivating the russians at the time. And that raises an interesting question, which is that sometimes when you are at nato you forget that the rest of the world also has issues and interests. And that was brought home to me when i was had a visit about the japanese ambassador in brussels who had talked or heard about natos discussion with the russians about various ideas concerning nonstratigic Nuclear Weapons, and that discussion was take them west of theureals and not east of theureals. And that would upset the balance in this part of the world and that isnt a good idea. We should be talking about elimination. But one of the ideas floating around was to take them and move them so they are less of a socalled threat to nato. And so there is a concern there that you need to take into account, is that a broader strategic outlook needs to be addressed when youre dealing with the small issue of nonstratigic Nuclear Weapons, or not so small. Panelists, do you have any last comments . All right. So thank you all for your time and attention today to this important topic. I hope that even though or the fact that everyone shows up on a friday before labor day means were ready to come back from our strategic holiday and work on these important issues. Let me thank our external relations stap, my staff, yakkary yakka gucci and jack and steven baker for putting this together and finally help me thank our panelists. [ applause ] i hope you all enjoy the long weekend. [ proceedings concluded ] a signature feature of book tv is our all day coverage of book fairs across the country with top nonfiction authors. Here is our schedule. Near the end of september were in brooklyn to celebrate the tenth year n. October, the celebration of books in nashville. And then live from aust for the texas book festival and at the end of the month two book festivals on the same weekend. It is the wisconsin book festival and the boston book festival. At the start of november, well be in portland, oregon, for book stop and at the end of november were live for the 18 blg year in a row from florida for the Miami Book Fair international. That is a few of the fairs and festivals this fall on cspan 2s book tv. And were just a few minutes away from the live coverage of the House Rules Committee. Theyre going to consider and come up with the rules for the debate on a bill that would reject that agreement with the iranian government about the nuclear program. That should get underway around 5 00. Well have that live on cspan. And then the house can consider the bill in tomorrows session. Congress has until the end of the week to pass a bill rejecting the iran deal. And while we wait for the House Rules Committee to get started, here is a portion of todays washington journal where we talk to reporter Steven Dennis about what is on the congressional agenda in the coming weeks. Talking about congress now. With Steven Dennis of cq roll call. Thanks for joining us. It is great to be here. Lets talk about iran. Where does the president stand in the house and the senate and what does he need to make and finalize this deal. Well hes basically assured the deal is Going Forward because he has more than enough support in the senate to sustain a veto. The real question now is whether democrats with muster 41 votes in the senate to block the bill from getting to his desk. That is something that hes been very successful at during his pre press presidency. The only time something that appeared on his desk that he didnt want was the keystone pipeline. It is dicey whether they will get the 41st vote. And more importantly than that, there is also a effort by the white house to shore up support going into next year. They want to have as much Political Support for this deal heading into the next election as possible. Theyre trying to get all of the democrats lined up so they can also actually kill kill any veto override in the house. Theyve been successful over the august break. There have been very few defections. Only three in the senate among democrats. And there have been a few more defections in the house. People like Debbie Wasserman schultz, who was on the fence, the democratic chairwoman, on the fence for august and finally came out and said she is supporting the deal. That is a big boost for them and potentially avoids an ugly fight. And so what are they looking at now they have the 41 number . There is a small universe of people. The names dont really pop at the top of my head right now. But there are people who are like a joe mansion who said he will not filibuster but it sounds like hes leaning towards the deal. Theyre going to probably need somebody like a joe mansion to change their mind potentially to get to that 41 and say ill filibuster as well. But were down to about four or five votes that will determine it. On the house side, there is a discussion about a resolution of disapproval. Could you explain technically what that is. This is a procedure that allows team to vote against something and it still ends up happening. This is what is happening in washington a lit. You have divided government. Republicans want to vote against something and the white house is fine with them doing that because they can veto it. It is a resolution of disapprovalal and just needs a simple majority and you need 60 votes to get it to the president s desk and he can veto it. Republicans and scholars on the right are upset with this procedure and think it is basically about politicians avoiding blame. They look at constitution that said treaties are to be approved by twothirds of the senate and this deal isnt close to 67. So what ends up happening is the white house said it is not a treaty, even though it looks and talks like a duck, and it looks and talks like a treaty in many respects. But this allows everybody to cast the vote the way they want. The president gets the policy he wants and it ends up being an issue for the president ial election. Steven dennis joining us that talk about congress back this weekend and things they have to take. 20267088 thousand for republicans and the number for democrats. Talk us about the next two weeks. The house is going to vote this week on the iran deal. The senate is keying up the debate this week as well. So they want to get that done as soon as possible because they only have a few weeks now to keep the government open. They have a lot that they want to do. There is a lot of deadlines coming up in the next few weeks, the next few months. And the leadership understands this is not going to be successful. So they want to have their show. They want to make their case to the public and it is really a political argument now for the president ial election, more than anything else. Everybody knows that this thing is going to ultimately still be still go forward. So it is about politics right now. You have your oneweek show or maybe a little bit more than that and then you move on quickly to other things. The main thing being keeping the government open, the lights on, past september 30th. What happens then . Well i think what youll see is