we are terrified of certain people get them. and the people that terrify us may reassure some of the authors and so that kind of inequity in the double standards of who's a terrorist and is not a terrorist is a little hard to sustain and get everybody on the same pages of the idea any way is if we could get rid of them at least we would and that state use of terrorism and which we are implicated and we would have a solid footing. if that doesn't mean that it's too will however, and so i think the practical sought should be on an agenda where we still have nuclear weapons because the united states is going to have nuclear weapons as long as anybody else has them. and i think you can say the same thing about russia, probably could see the same thing about china. israel interestingly enough when you talk to the officials they could imagine not having them in a regional basis that doesn't

matter so much of the u.s. had them or somebody else had them. india and getting rid of them unless everybody else does. pakistan may be more tied to india because india relates to everybody else. so we are talking about a situation that people here are worried about us getting to somehow. one of these countries decide we are prepared to get rid of nuclear weapons it seems to me we know we are not going to do it if they aren't. they've got bigger problems than we do. they need these weapons in their own mind more than we do because they have fewer alternatives so it would obviously take a very long time and we would have to work through a very difficult situations. and the idea we haven't been a working on this has admiral mom wrote talked about and not taking it seriously i thought the iraq war was about wmd. that was a counter proliferation

war and part of the idea was to send a signal to the iranians next door this could happen. so that was the strategy as far as i could tell. whether it worked well or not i don't know. most people say iran's power has grown immensely since then but stay tuned. they could collapse also but it isn't like people were sleeping on this. that was a strategy. it's also the case when we talk and several of the speakers talk about north korea and iran and in the context of deterrence, and that's peculiar because the argument would be we've got to have nuclear weapons to the word martha triet order on and our policy toward north korea and iran especially iran countered dix deterrence because it is a policy intermittently that's been about regime change which violates the slides and understanding of the deterrence. u.s. assistance to to beat your, you survive, we have a workable relationship except the message

we've been sending is your government has to go. so it doesn't matter what your behavior is, you've got to go. that contradicts deterrence so what is the nuclear weapons are to bring it simultaneously the idea is changed behavior but at the same time we say your government has got to go. it doesn't matter to me because i think they can under contradictions. they are a contradiction but in terms of our own policy and trying to clarify what it is we are about, a lot of what we are talking about doesn't work if your strategy is regime change. so at least we ought to get clear when we are talking about deterrence and how woodworks what we mean -- how it works and what we mean. we've been focusing about from today to the next 15, 20 years, we are going to have so many

nuclear weapons and it's going to be tied to what others have but the difficulty of maintaining nuclear deterrence where it is appropriate and it works is merely trivial. it's one of the easy things to do. the problems that we have are in the challenges and delinks where nuclear deterrence isn't working and was never designed to work and probably isn't going to work in the future. we are fighting two wars right now, did what we might lose and people say our credibility is a great power depends. which nato depends on the outcome and afghanistan. nuclear weapons are totally irrelevant. the kinds of challenges for which nuclear weapons are relevant, major russian invasion of europe, chinese military aggression on taiwan.

those we know how to detour. not a big challenges. going to have plenty of capability to do it. but the other stuff is really hard. and nuclear weapons, tell me where nuclear weapons are relevant to these different problems that we really are grappling with. and if there are problems today when we've had thousands of nuclear weapons, they are probably not addressable by the nuclear deterrence, they are not the way to let me be specific in talking that extended deterrence because that has become the big argument in washington about the disarmament agenda. maybe we don't need nuclear weapons. we don't want them for ourselves anymore. it's the poor allies we know we must defend. so is because of our allies we have to keep our nuclear weapons which is a good -- at first we do have an obligation but it's nice and it's mobile except when

you start looking at the different environments and you look at europe and say what's the threat we have to detour in europe today? well one of them is o.k. we worry about the russian tactical nuclear weapon. fine. we've got lots of nuclear weapons. the tactical bombs on the soil of nato, which we won't use for good operational reasons. it doesn't make sense to use them. the military would like to withdraw them. they are obsolete and intractable but we've got lots of nuclear weapons if we got into that conflict with the russians we could manage. but that isn't the kind conflict there will be. russia sought down estonia with a cyberattack. russia threatened to cut down gas supplies going into europe. russia intimidates people by military exercises, political subversion. there are problems and threats that come from russia that have to be addressed and where our

allies want assurance that nato will back them up and prevent russian conversion. nuclear weapons have nothing to do with the assurance we can provide or the deterrence we could commit because they are not usable against the threats that nato is talking about yet when the germans say let's get rid of nuclear weapons on our soil everybody and flushes out to have a debate about nuclear weapons and no one is talking about what is article 5? what are the commitments to the states in the eastern european allies? what are our capabilities? dewey of conventional capabilities to make sure russia can't do it against poland or another state? we are not clear to go to nuclear war over that georgia had been a nato ally you think the american public would say let's risk the destruction of the united states to prevent

georgia? the discussion we have about the nukes and nato diverts us from that very issue. the same with japan. is japan worried china is going to invade it? it can't get their but japan can worry about china trying to take one of the disputed islands in the south china sea and do we have the conventional capability with the japanese? to make sure china doesn't occupy at and then present as a fait accompli? we ought to be worrying about that but i guarantee the u.s., chris and american people are not we to say if china takes one of those i lancelets go to war with nuclear china over this. it's not realistic. the same with the cyber threat with china against japan and others. real problem, absolutely real problem and of nerves become scarce with capital and scarce with three of life. a nuclear weapon a solution to that problem? is a deterrent problem among

many things but we spend all this time we will get nuclear weapons and have major wars. we have these problems now that are relevant but there are security problems. i could talk now become more about turkey in that regard. it seems to me we have a moral hazard and this discussion here was part of it. we are creating a moral hazard. it's kind of like what happened with the banks, what happened in the financial crisis is banks made lots of promises, risky investments, didn't keep enough cash in reserve and then count on the government ultimately to bail them out and we of these discussions about nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence where there's a similar moral hazard. you don't pay attention to the threats on the ground, the stuff that's really happening but we say the nukes will deter. they've detered for 50, 60 years. nuclear deterrence works you just have to calculate what the values and everything else and will work.

and we don't spend time on the diplomatic and other strategies to reduce the threat whether it is in europe, north east asia or the middle east and on developing the conventional capabilities yet to play the conventional capabilities and building the collective result to be to work and take action against threats of the level they arise. nuclear deterrence, why don't we have the nuclear weapons and do this ciro stuff the nukes will willis out but they won't and there's a reason we had a lot of wars while that nuclear weapons. they are usable only if the threat of national survival. anything short of a threat of national survival we are not going to use nuclear weapons because using the nuclear weapons puts our survival of risk so you don't do that unless your survival is already threatened. in all of the other conflicts we are talking about they are not threats to national survival so the nuclear weapons are not going to be what we use and deter challenge is to deter those kind of threats for which

and nuclear weapons are not ideal. and in our of we think that this is one of the unintended consequences of this year no idea it gets us chasing that in avoiding the real challenges which are not nuclear deterrence challenges so i would leave you with a plea that as far as this is that we not divert ourselves from what i think are the real challenges both armed forces are now confronting but the policy committee does, too. thank you. [applause] >> [inaudible] of the arms control association. thank you. >> is the microphone working? i want to thank ed and his team

for this. it's always bad being the last speaker before lunch. when i accepted this invitation to speak i told ed am i wanted to talk about the practical next steps toward a world without nuclear weapons and i think that george has helped bring us down to the reality and i want to take us a step further. i just want to note when the four states monroe their seminal of hid in "the wall street journal" in 2007 titled a world free of nuclear weapons i think some folks got distracted by the headline and it has taken attention away from the other important part of their message which is the united states has in the past stated its commitment to a world without nuclear weapons in the context of nuclear nonproliferation treaty and the sincere and concrete direction toward that goal efforts to bolster the non-proliferation system and prevent the use of nuclear weapons will falter.

as they put it, quote, without the bold vision for the actions will not be perceived as your or urgent without the actions division will be realistic or possible to read and likewise when president obama gave the speech in prague on april 5th and stated clearly and with conviction america's commitment to seek the peace and security of the world without nuclear weapons he also then followed the stigma of the vision with a series of proposals to take concrete practical steps to reduce nuclear dangers. so i think the cynics and supporters of the status quo focused on that in the goal, the division and it has drawn attention away from the wisdom and logic of these immediate and practical concrete steps. i want to bring back the focus and discuss a little bit the wisdom of those practical next

steps as president obama outlined them on the treaty with russia of reducing the role and number of nuclear weapons beyond the new start treaty and finally realizing global verifiable ban on nuclear testing all of which in and of themselves are in the united states national security interest. let's start with the new start agreement. it is clear in my view 20 years after the cold war and many others lower verifiable elements on u.s.-russian stockpiles is prudent and overdue. as most of you know the united states and russia still deploy more than 2100 strategic nuclear weapons at any given time today most of which continue to exist only to do toward nuclear attack by the other country. president obama, john mccain,

lugar, the four states and, kissinger, shultz and perry and others have argued deeper reductions in these numbers through a verifiable new treaty regime as possible and prudent and i have to agree. the new agreement that has been outlined by president obama and medvedev would produce but i would call modest reductions in the number of strategic deployed warheads. the expectation is that the limit the ceiling on the nuclear deployed warheads will be somewhere in the range of 1600 warheads which would be about 30% cuts depending on how you cut the current levels. they also agreed to reduce strategic nuclear delivery systems, the cuts in that category are likely going to be more modest and the united states to place about 100, russia somewhere between 600 to 800. the limit again is going to be

between 700 to 800 in my estimation modest but still modest cuts in the stockpiles. the other reason this is important as the 1991 start agreement has expired. it's over. the bush administration didn't make progress with russia in extending that agreement or negotiating the new agreement so we are today the first time nearly two decades without a regime to regulate the world's largest arsenals we don't have a verification system that allows each side to look into the other to better understand what each of our house in terms of strategic weapons so the new agreement is going to carry forward the most essential verification much rentals from the old agreement and introduce a new and innovative verification technique particularly with respect to verifying the strategic

warheads. it's going to be different but still effective verification system is going to be different because the limits on the new start agreement are going to be more streamlined and simpler than the old agreement that had a number of sub limits underneath the name of limit on strategic deployed i should say strategic nuclear delivery systems. now, there is a widespread support for start in the senate if you analyze the statements of senators, no senator has spoken up in direct opposition to the new agreement of course the devil was in the details. the agreement is not yet completed and not yet delivered to the setting but already despite the wisdom of a new agreement there are some who are saying that this treaty is not -- may not be in the united states national security interest and they are threatening to possibly delay

the ratification of the agreement with it jon kyl specifically for arizona and a few other republicans have suggested the obama administration should have extended start rather than rush to negotiate a new agreement. well i'm sorry but the new start agreement has expired. the opportunity to extend start existed in the latter year, the last year of the bush administration. that was not achieved neither the united states or russia were interested in extending the old start agreement and old verification provisions and we should consider if start had been simply extended the russian federation could have maintained more than 2200 strategic deployed warheads in the future. those are the limits of the offensive reductions treaty which provided of course no additional verification

provisions. some new start critics complain the treaty verification system may not be adequate. the devil is going to be in the details. we have to check and see what we have to remember one important thing. currently preus noeth certification on maw information exchange system between the u.s. and russia and i am quite confident our negotiators, the jay c. s. zantia for military will have negotiated agreement with the russians that is verifiable on the new limits of the treaty and it's very important for a number of reasons for there to be a verification system going forward in the future. member to come beyond the new start agreement have to offer a couple thoughts about the question how we can reduce the world's nuclear weapons and why in the mashaal security strategy has president obama said in the april speech of several times

afterwards this really shouldn't be controversy of whatsoever. from my perspective and perspective of many others looking at this it's clear that yesterday's nuclear doctrines are no longer appropriate for today's reality. george lee donato quite -- george lead that out quite well. we can't treat the weapons of state are an extension of the most powerful forces. in the real world they have been and must continue to be treated separately. no u.s. president has seen fit to use nuclear weapons even in the midst of the two protracted wars korea and vietnam. so, i am one of those folks who subscribe to the idea that given the united states overwhelming conventional military superiority in the 21st century and given the catastrophic effects of the use of a single

weapon and the globalized 21st century age there is no possible circumstance that justifies work requires the use of nuclear weapons to deal with a bond nuclear threat and as george outlined their useless in deterring or responding to nuclear terrorism which is extremely hard to understand where a terrorist may have acquired such material to build a bomb. so it's -- and second we also have to consider another 21st reality which is that the continued existence of a large number of nuclear weapons particularly tactical bombs increase the risk even if it's a low-risk terrorists may acquire nuclear weapons at some point. for those reasons and others it's important in my view and a

father's when president obama will sell the nuclear review in less than a month that the npr should narrow the world's nuclear weapons to a core mission that being the stigma the purpose of nuclear weapons is to be toward the use of nuclear weapons by other states against the united states or its allies. that isn't a first use pledge but that is a narrowing of the role and mission of nuclear weapons in the declaratory policy. the price up for what what the final points on the president's practical agenda, the test ban treaty. as has been noted appear on the podium already, it has been almost 20 years since the u.s. conducted explosion on september

september 1992. it is i think time to acknowledge that after the tremendous investments in the stockpile program advances made by the weapons laboratories there's simply no technical reason to resume weapons testing to ryckman team the arsenal as undersecretary tauscher said the military see no military reason to acquire a new military capability for the nuclear weapons arsenal and therefore no need for a new designed war for that purpose. we also have to recognize 20 years after the testing that our current policy is one that is severely penalized. we are in a state of nuclear testing policy limbo. we have assumed most if not all of the treaty related responsibilities but we can't

reap the full benefits of the treaty unless we ratify. the other thing to consider as we heard from undersecretary tauscher and tom d'agostino the obama's stockpile program in 2011 budget request increasing funding for proposing increasing funding around 10% for the weapons activities i think should dispel doubts that the nuclear weapons laboratories did not have the resources they need to maintain reliable arsenal to continue the successful programs into the future and it should dispel whatever doubts there are that we need to resume nuclear testing to maintain the stockpile. you're all from earlier, i won't go through, it's in the publication and my publication arms control today the findings

of the recent study about the program which i think is a very definitive and important set of findings about whether the stockpiles to worship program is working. succumb in conclusion i think as you for today there are many cynics and supporters of the nuclear status quo who believe action, perhaps any action in the direction of the nuclear weapons free world undermines the security or an exercise of wishful thinking or maybe both. but i and a growing number of others believe that simply a wrong approach and the fantasy is to export nuclear restraint and greater commitment to the nonproliferation from other states in the absence of pragmatic common sense steps on the part of the united states to verifiably reduce the cold war

arsenals to bring the end to nuclear testing and reduce the role of nuclear weapons to meet the 21st century realities that we've heard about with the previous speaker. let me stop there. it's time for lunch. i will turn over to libby. >> [inaudible] questions from the audience for the panel? miles. >> miles popper for the nonproliferation studies. question for art oral of monroe. in your presentation you said that there has been a -- russia reemphasized importance of nuclear weapons. i wanted to know you base that on because the recently published russian military doctrine d emphasizes the role of nuclear weapons including tactical nuclear weapons so what

is the basis for your assertion? >> i try to follow russian -- i try to follow his russian established policy, russian writings. i try to read the latest statements as in this case, and i think as the media reports those, you get from the same