through early 1990s this cold war period u.s., russia and russians built up their maximum capacity, a number of weapons that, as many nuclear weapons as they could produce in order to deter one another for what was essentially a political struggle, not necessarily for utilization. . .

which is going to be a very, very difficult agenda. it's a start on down that road. and then third we have the nuclear nonproliferation treaty review conference in may where all of the nonnuclear weapons states will say what have you done for us lately in terms of nuclear disarmament and i think he'll be able to point to that. i think the ordinary care administration is right. the signing of s.t.a.r.t. and the npr that came out today, not your npr and the nuclear security summit is going to be one long week of kind of nuclear, you know, discussion and repositioning. but again, i come back to this point. s.t.a.r.t. -- we always kind of knew where s.t.a.r.t. was going to do.

we don't know where this nuclear security issue is going to go. it's a lot more difficult. it's more expensive and more moving parts than just dealing with the russians. >> i think we're seeing u.s. leadership finally in keeping our country safe. in keeping weapons and materials out of the hands of terrorists that can harm both us here in the homeland but also our i think it's all part of this new nuclear security agenda that we're seeing. the u.s. take leadership on some part is s.t.a.r.t. and reducing the weapons. and part of securing the materials. securing them and then eventually eliminating them so they don't get in the wrong hands. and then hopefully eventually we'll see test ban treaties so these countries that already of these weapons a very strong demonstration of u.s. leadership moving forward. >> one thing i would say is that

we're never going to have sustainable effective security in russia. unless we build it in a partnership with the russians. and i think this -- getting this s.t.a.r.t. follow-on accomplished is a major element of rebuilding that partnership. and continuing with the reset of relations so that we can really focus on a real partnership-based approach rather than a sort of we're going to give you money and tell you what to do kind of approach. on the other hand, the fact that we have so much fighting over what is a relatively limited agreement as i think a clear indication of just how hard it's going to be to then move on and address the much more difficult issues in the next stage relating to warheads that aren't on missiles and tactical nuclear weapons. and so on. we've got a lot of heavy lifting in the years to come. >> in the back. >> thank you. i'm with china radio international.

i've got two questions. the first question is related to the timing of the summit. is it considered a critical moment now to deal with the issue of nuclear security? is there evidence showing that the nuclear terrorism is stronger now than it was before? and the second question is, will the summit be considered as the biggest achievement in the foreign policy of the obama administration? thank you very much. >> well, i think that it's not so much that terrorists are getting stronger as that president obama came to office and saw that this was a major problem. called for a nuclear summit, nuclear security summit and then it took a certain amount of time to put together and it's not something you can do overnight. but i think the reality is we do face a serious threat. the threat is ongoing.

and the critical need is to make sure that the security improvements get to these nuclear stockpiles before the thieves do. so that we can keep these materials out of terrorist hands. >> just this past january we saw -- i'm going to read this 'cause i want to get it right. the bipartisan commission on the preinvestigation of wmd proliferation and terrorism. as well as the -- yeah, it's long. as well as the former high ranking official at the cia both testified in january and february that al-qaeda is still actively seeking nuclear weapons. and nuclear weapons materials to use against the u.s. and its allies and it has since the 1990s. >> i think the timing is what the timing is. it's something that the president promised last year in prague. it takes a while to organize something like this. it's the kind of thing you want to do early in your administration because after the midterm elections, it's not clear what's going to happen. and after that it's on to the president's re-election. so i think that there's -- there's -- the timing is actually good. will it be one of the greatest

achievements of the president's foreign policy? i think that depends on whether or not we have gauziness and unclarity. or whether we have specificity and the working plan that is going to be very specific. >> and follow-up. >> and follow-up. you know, president -- i give him a lot of credit because he's a very bold -- he's made a lot of bold predictions in this area. secure all vulnerable nuclear materials if four years. -- in four years. we have been at it in 15 years and we haven't succeeded in one country yet. that's a very difficult thing. the budget is not adequate, frankly, for that kind of admission. and now he said, you know, that the communique is going to be very specific and not vague. you know, i think i'll wait until tuesday to see. but i think if by the end of his first term we've may not have achieved the four-year objective he set out but come a long way from today than i think it would be one of his greatest achievements, yeah. >> i got to thinking a couple

months ago in terms of the nuclear agenda. the things that were already on the plate when they came -- when this administration came into office was, you know, negotiating s.t.a.r.t. follow-on because it expired in december of look. -- . and the mpt treaty was going to happen whether they held a summit or not. i got to questioning whether, you know -- i think it was probably some speechwriter and the question of the midterm elections who said within the next year we will host this nuclear security summit. and then all of a sudden you have this nuclear policy pile-on that's coming this week and the coming months. but i think it was probably more related to, you know, a speechwriter putting that in and there being a political calculation as it relates to it instead of realizing, wow, we've got a lot of stuff on our plate. and this is a lot of balls to juggling simultaneously in terms of that. but i don't think the timing was related to the terrorist threat will be at a threshold and we just can't bear it anymore.

and this is what we have to do. but i do think there's probably staff people at the national security council and over at the pentagon who are like why did we commit to host the summit right in the middle of all these other -- all these other things that we're juggling? it's just a guess in terms of where that fits. >> i think people in many countries in the room -- to make the point that this is really a threat to everyone and not just to the united states. if a nuclear bomb went off in a major city, even if it was manhattan or washington, the effects would be global. kofi annan when he was secretary-general of the united states said that the reverberating economic effects around the world would push millions of people into poverty and create a second death toll in the developing world. if you think u.s. foreign policy was aggressive and annoying since 9/11 wait until you see what happens after a u.s. city goes up in smoke. this is really something that is

a threat to the security of all countries. including countries that don't even have any nuclear weapons or material on their soil. it's something that we all have to work together to address. >> other questions? in the back. go ahead. >> hello. i'm from the news agency from kazakhstan. so you know as you know kazakhstan was the first country to give up the -- it's nuclear arsenal and shot down the nuclear testing sites. the question is is it plausible to view our country as a role model for other nuclear states in the question of disarmament and why? thank you. >> i would like to see kazakhstan as a role model and as part of it being a role model they would get rid of the highly enriched uranium that is still on its soil. i'm at least modestly hopeful that an announcement on that subject may be made at the nuclear security summit.

i don't know. we shall see. i think a number of countries will be making announcements related to things that they individually will do for nuclear security. associated with the nuclear security summit. i think those announcements may turn out to be more important than the communique itself. because there's no sort of everybody has a veto process on that. but i think kazakhstan is not the only one that can be an example. south africa is another one which, you know, in that case built its own nuclear weapons. and, you know, of its own choosing decided to get rid of them. so there are today in the world more countries that started nuclear weapons programs and agreed to give them up than there are countries that have nuclear weapons. which means that our efforts to stem the spread of nuclear weapons succeed more often than they fail even once a country has even started down the path of nuclear weapons. so i remain hopeful despite all the challenges that exist today that 20 years from now we may

still only have the same number of nuclear weapons states that we have today or maybe fewer. and i think that should be our goal. >> great. let me remind folks that we have materials out on the table. so when you leave please pick them up. there's a fact sheet and top questions, faqs that you can pick up on the way out. go ahead. oh, shaun? >> the problem of nuclear security needs to be addressed on several levels. and one of the most important one is the governmental but there's also a lower level of nuclear industry. and, of course, the two levels are interrelated. so i was wondering if you anticipate any challenges when either implementing the communique or whatever happens with the nuclear industry. and what incentives there are to get the nuclear industry to cooperate? >> well, the nuclear industry is meeting.

they're having their own event specifically on what they can contribute to the nuclear security process. and so i think that's extremely important because i don't think that's happened previously. and then secondly there's a new organization which others at the table may know more about than i do called the world institute for nuclear security, which is specifically focused on working with the nuclear industry to make certain that they take the security responsibility seriously. and that they act on it. and that they -- at their board level view it as a priority that they fund in something that in the course of their management of their plants becomes a higher priority. so i think they are moving in the right direction. certainly both winds and the nuclear summit are advances beyond where we've been in past years, no question.

>> i think it's important to understand that the industry itself has tens or hundreds of billions of dollars at stake in the sense that if there were, you know, a terrorist nuclear bomb or a massive sabotage -- what i sometimes refer to as a security chernobyl that would really put the kabosh of the industry growing to be a major playing in response to climate change. i think the industry is slowly coming to feel that in the gut more than it did in past years. but i think we've got a ways to go. inevitably, it's difficult to convince anyone who hasn't had an incident in their plant in 20 years really they need to spend more on security than they have been before. sinclair lewis once said the hardest thing in the world is getting a man to understand that his salary depends on him not understanding. >> i think to another -- another

key player will be the nongovernmental community. and that's what we as the fissile materials working group hope to shine a light on -- make more transparent -- make more accountable the commitments that our countries will make prior to and at the nuclear security summit itself. and you can check out our website while i'm talking. it's fmwg.org. and on it it will have all these materials. it will have this today. it will have other resources for the press and also the public. as well as a follow-up to the summit. we'll be analyzing what the official summit outcomes are actually. and whether they're good or bad or, you know, explaining them. and then as well we will have our own summit live webcast as well. i have a question in the back. >> thanks, i'm carla from canadian broadcasting.

and i just wanted to get your thoughts on today's announcement about the npr. what kind of significant change in american policy you see or is there one? >> well, the two things that people are talking about or that seem to make the biggest splash is not using nuclear weapons to respond to chemical and biological attack which if my memory is correct, i think it is. was actually a function of the clinton administration change in doctrine. i'm not sure prior to that using nuclear weapons to respond to chemical and biological attack. so i don't see -- i actually don't see that as a significant item. and then secondly, no new nuclear weapon development. which, you know, we are spending 6 or $7 billion a year already on the maintenance of the arsenal under stockpile stewardship. and there's been no credible analysis that the monitoring and

the systems which have been in the technologies which are being funded under stockpiles stewardship are not adequate to maintain the u.s. nuclear stockpile. nuclear weapons are not militarily useable weapons. i mean, once you unleash a nuclear weapon, you're likely to unleash more than one nuclear weapon and you're likely to end up with an incredibly devastating situation. so i think they are the ultimate deterrent but they are not the ultimate useable military item. and i think that's a reality that the npr takes into account. and i think the carping about, you know, somehow the united states is not going to respond to some kind of chemical or biological attack by nuking the perpetrator most likely, which would be a nonstate actor. so i'm not sure we would even be able to identify who they are is not necessarily -- is not necessarily a credible -- a credible argument. if it's a state that is a rogue

state, you know, like what we used to call them, then i think it's, you know, something to consider. but a nuclear response to anything other than a nuclear attack is extremely serious business and i don't think it should be devolved down to a political football which i think is happening today. >> i think the review is a first step toward reducing the role of nuclear weapons. reassuring nonnuclear weapon states that we won't threaten them with nuclear weapons. and we are committed at least over the long term to moving toward a world free of nuclear weapons. but it's only a first step. and i personally wish that it had been a larger step. i would have liked to see a more fundamental shift in thinking about nuclear weapons this far after the cold war. the notion that we're still, you know, we're fighting over 50 or 100 nuclear weapons one way or

the other in the s.t.a.r.t. follow-on or what have you is a clear indication that we still fundamentally don't understand the nature of nuclear weapons in the new world that we're in. so i think if we're ever going to achieve president obama's vision or even start getting reasonably close to that vision, we need a much more fundamental transformation of our thinking about nuclear weapons and what it takes to maintain a deterrent and what it takes to get out of a situation where we need to maintain a deterrent. >> other questions? okay. well, i thank everyone for coming and we hope to continue this conversation with you in the future. [inaudible conversations]

>> all this month, see the winners of c-span studentcam video documentary competition. middle and high school students from 45 states submitted videos on one of the country's greatest strengths or challenge the country is facing. watch the top winning videos every morning on c-span at 6:50 eastern right before "washington journal." meet the students who made them and for a preview of all the winners, visit studentcam.org.

>> president obama travels to prague later this week to sign a nuclear arms reduction treaty with russian president medvedev. next week he hosts a nuclear security summit here in washington. that's expected to be attended leaders of over 40 nations. a panel now previews these events at a forum hosted for the center of strategic and international studies. it's an hour. >> i'm andrew schwartz. i'm vice president for external relations here at csi. i'm joined by my colleagues whom i'll introduce in a minute. this briefing will be available later on facebook today. it's also available video and audio and transcript on csis.org. and with that we'll get started. also for you itunes users, this will be on the beyond the campus section on itunes university. my colleagues andrew kuchins, sharon squassoni and janusz bugajski are some of the top experts in the world with this region.

and they've got a lot to say about various things that are associated with this visit. in addition, you'll find before you an example of our critical questions. and this is -- i'll like to introduce my colleague, dr. andrew kuchins. >> it's a great pleasure to be here. and thanks for joining us this morning. for our briefing. and i promise i won't talk about my personal over-under on tiger woods performance coming up on the masters this week. the s.t.a.r.t. 1 replacement treaty which is going to be signed in prague on thursday, i want to beware of overselling the importance of this agreement. but it is really significant for the u.s./russian relationship the so-called reset.

and also president obama's ambitious goals for nuclear security and further reductions in nuclear weapons. i don't want to oversell it, but a long journey begins with the first step. and if you didn't have this first step, then pretty much both of those agendas would be severely, severely hampered. and it was extremely important that this agreement be reached before the nuclear nonproliferation treaty in may. as well as, of course, the nuclear summit coming up here in washington next week, which i'm sure my colleagues sharon will talk about. you know, about a month ago -- it's also -- the agreement is also important for president obama's political capital both domestically and more so internationally. you know, when he was first elected my sense was that this guy had a chance to be either one of the greatest presidents in american history because of the circumstances or an unsuccessful one-term president. and about a month ago it was looking more like the former

than the latter. and with the combination of the healthcare bill passing and the s.t.a.r.t. 1 replacement treaty, he's looking considerably more successful in this political capital. not only important here at home but it's also extremely important for him abroad and how he's viewed by other international leaders. now for the u.s./russia relationship which i'll talk about mostly in my few minutes, for the reset there have been three key issues on security relations that have been driving the obama administration's desire to improve relations with moscow. the first and most important has been iran and the urgency of their nuclear weapons program. the second has been afghanistan. and the much larger bet that the obama administration has placed -- or higher priority the obama administration has placed on winning the war in afghanistan. and, therefore, the role the russians play in providing supply and transit of materials both lethal and nonlethal to our troops in theater.

and the third is, of course, the nuclear security agenda, which without making progress with russia is impossible to move forward on. i think there's no question as we look at, you know, the 15 months or 14 months since the obama administration has taken power that the u.s./russian relationship has improved considerably. it improved from a very low point. it's a very low bar. in fact, if the relationship had not improved, which it was basically frozen at the end of the bush administration after the war in georgia, there was the danger literally of a new cold war. amongst the achievements one of them which is not talked about so much and maybe i should knock on wood when i talk about this is the fact that there has not been another war in georgia in the last year and a half since the war in august of 2008. and i know my colleagues in the defense department, the national

security council, the state department -- they spent a lot of time on this issue. and ensuring that this does not happen. and i think when they got a call in the middle of the night a week ago about the tragedy of the bombing on the moscow met roadway, i think one of their first thoughts might have been whether another war had started in georgia. so i underline that as a significant achievement but one which is not often talked about. the relationship has also been broadened considerably with the establishment of the commission between secretary of state clinton and the foreign minister and the 16 working groups. and that's important. but most importantly probably aside from no war in georgia there has been progress on the three key security drivers, iran, afghanistan, and nuclear security in the relationship. as long as we have fairly modest expectations about what we can get out of the relationship with russia, we're less likely to be disappointed. and that's been my line consistently for the last 15 months.

particularly when you look at these three issues our interests are not fully aligned. i'm not going to talk about iran and afghanistan so much. let's just look at the s.t.a.r.t. 1 treaty. with we look at the reset button 15 months ago this was talked about the low-lying fruit. this was going to be the so-called easy achievement. well, the agreement was a little bit more complicated to reach than expected. and there was danger a month ago, i felt, the low-lying fruit might actually become the poison fruit of the reset but that's not been the case. now, why the length of the negotiations? well, you know, first of all, you know, for the presidents to agree on this in april of 2009, and try to reach the deadline of december 5, 2009, with the expiration of the s.t.a.r.t. 1 agreement, that's actually ambitious in the first place. two, i think the russians viewed they had some leverage with the obama administration. i think they view that for the obama administration perhaps this agreement was more important for them than it was

for moscow. and that led them to press hard in the tail end of the negotiations which for three or four months it seemed like we were 97% there and never quite getting beyond 97%. you know, three, and maybe this is the most important -- this agreement like any kind of agreement about security cooperation with -- between moscow and washington -- it brings into the debate the whole relationship itself. and i just want to remind you for the russians they are still operating under a military doctrine which identifies the united states and the west but principally the united states and nato as the number one risk or threat to their security. so our strategic outlooks are quite different. the united states -- i think we have moved from the cold war and we're looking at different threat environment. and for the russians it's not quite in sync and that's a problem. and i think if you talk to the americans that are involved in the negotiations it was clear that some political forces and

military and security forces were exercising or obstructing the agreement in the tail end. but we got it. the other point i would make for the role of nuclear weapons is there's an asymmetry for washington and moscow. for the russians because the deterioration of the conventional weapons projection capability -- nuclear weapons are more important in the overall military doctrine. for us the reverse it true to some extent. and i think that gets to the question of how possible or how difficult future agreements are going to be getting to a next round of reductions with the russians which i think are going to be considerably tougher and we can talk about more. let me just say more about the prague trip because it's my understanding that in the meeting between mr. obama and mr. medvedev in prague, the principle issue that's going to be discussed are going to be sanctions on iran. and it will be important to work out something closer to an agreement with the russians about the language and the areas on sanctions.