decisive vote to allow for companies to flexible in managing the network and fcc blessed comcast then practice of regularly network management among other ways by reducing the speed of certain customers or high bandwidth users to att essence of david over the years. -- essentially did that over the years. ..

>> without question. the sec's rules in the area are very much in flux when it comes to privacy are in our case section 222 customer proprietary information. aside from the decision the agency made last year, the agency said a certain small provider had failed to adequately detect what they consider to be personally identifiable information or p. iis. a much broader category than customer proprietary information. nonetheless the agency asserted jurisdiction over as much of the category and said we have the decision that finds $9 billion. but because your gracious with a limit that to $10 million. obviously i disagree with the

jurisdiction of what we don't have authority to do. in addition, the fact the numbers are a real spec are of uncertain enforcement and that is killer for those in the business world who have to execute a business plan and the line item for regulatory uncertainty we can't quantify is really to have two deliver cutting-edge service and products in the environment. >> what is your reaction to that? is there a possibility for this to develop into doctrinal confusion? >> well, i think there is potential for that and i will say the ftc and fcc affecting current decisions and a number of agencies and we had a memoranda of understanding to try to harmonize. the do-not-call rule we did jointly.

we have brought enforcement actions and we've done planning cases and night scene that all makes sense. where i really start to get concerned is the fact that what we should be looking at is where there is consumer harm occurring in the marketplace where no one is addressing it, where no one has the tools to address a peer rather than saying you've been pretty good. you've addressed it pretty well. the way we want to get in the game is maybe using some tools that really aren't well suited for. commissioner pai company mentioned time. by contrast, the ftc we have to bring an enforcement action and make the deception standard or the unfairness standard. we don't get science unless someone violated the rule and

most of the time we are not operating under nap roles so well he can get his consumer redress. but we look at is how we get harmed consumers their money back? we can't go in and pull a gigantic figure out of the air necessarily. we sent him space on how you calculate that more accurately. autonomists of our phd economist to do that. but we don't have that authority. the company maybe gives them regulatory certainty of some limits on what their liability may be. i also think our deception statement or unfairness statement which would develop in the early 80s have stood the test of time to have these ideas, to have these principles of how we decide it is unfair

and have a benefit analysis built into it. i think there is a little more certainty they are. our authority is to take reasonable precautions to sensitive information that we challenge depending on the questions they make. our authority was challenged in the third circuit in a pub in the case called wyndham hotels and on the merit but the question of whether the ftc had authority to challenge action center and fairness has been an held. when you operate in an area where the guideposts are more well known, where the type of penalty the company may be subject to come that they violate that is tied to something you try to figure out

and begin debate trying to say what the consumer arm is. that allows for regulatory and certain day. i do have concerns about having systems that they operate under very different pressures. >> i agree with everything in addition to that it's not just the ftc and the fcc and the financial protection bureau wants a bite at the apple. reclassification of broad in survivors opens the door and common carrier supplying the full panoply including the enforcement contacts. the possibilities for doctrinal confusion is multiplied in this environment. >> those are excellent points and i want to get to the best practices on how to manage the jurisdictional overlap between two agencies.

very quickly come the commission ohlhausen you mention guideposts. you noted a common carrier exception to the ftc act and that has been exported case law. how does the ftc definition of what a common carrier is lineup at the definition and are those two continents and what we look for guidance on that? >> that's a very good question does the fcc definition of what a common carrier is control the ftc's authority. that is not settled. one of my big concerns is the way this will be brought out. the way this will be figured out in the course creates a lot of challenges and uncertainty for consumer protection enforcement.

according california famine dead inside this is an activity standard therefore everything i do is coming here. and i think the challenge will be as everybody to the defendant has been entered definition isn't right. it struck me at an event chairman wheeler suggested this is a complex role. the two agencies can sit down and discuss them figure out. the thing is that it's not how this will, good even if we all held hands and said we all agree you will be decided challenge by

challenge >> commissioner pai, any reactions? >> in addition to that it's not only the fcc decreed february 26 that the fear of the common carrier, substantial proposition under section 332 congress has long said for certain wireless providers cannot be classified as common carriers notwithstanding the particular rulemaking. there's a statutory bar that has to be surmounted and litigated as part of the net a trailer to challenge and from a wireless provider i would raise that as well to reclassify this. stay tuned. >> for broadband providers come you may or may not be common carrier and may or may not be

common carriers of the ftc act. >> the ftc lent itself a lot of flex ability in the open internet to product the definition beyond my opinion. >> among other things invoke section seven of six which if you believe that matt h. reality there regulates everybody, not just service providers, but twitter, netflix, and if they were virtually anybody -- >> do you know if there were any prohibitions at some point on common carriers with respect to broadband services for the ftc, would that apply retroactively

to work with the ftc's authority done in the ftc's already donovan no-space? >> at least according to the district court in california that only applies prospectively with post-reclassification by the ftc. >> any existing content orders. >> would continue to round. one of the things, this also brings up interesting distance when we do investigations of combat, we can look back and say how long is the harm in going on? for the fcc have a statute of limitations. for example some of the behavior you can look back several years and continue crack this book for the fcc. >> for example the agency collected examples were a decade-old to justify the

application that depends on which hammer data to pound a nail and in some cases. >> commissioner pai company mentioned the fcc is looking into more privacy and i know there was an amount that and a notice of proposed rulemaking regarding the privacy rules under section 222. can you give us context for the and what principles might be guiding the agency's action in that regard. >> the question arises now because reclassification of isps as common carriers and the adoption of section 222 as one of the sections that will apply to isps raises the question of privacy. section 222 to protect what is known as proprietary network information. i love the acronym.

so it involves what kinds of services does the customer buy from a common carrier? what telephone number does not customer call, things like that. carriers on the telephone side to protect those rules have never previously applied to internet service providers. the open internet decision in february that we will not forbear section 222. but we will forbear for now the application of the rules upon which section 222 has been bombed. they don't apply to iis used because it internet service providers don't make any sense. we have a duty to abide by certain regulations but you are telling us that the regulations are. the agency said will put out

guidance. here is the guidance three months ago. among other things, the enforcement euro focuses whether providers take reasonable good faith steps rather than focusing on tech gold details. then it goes on to say the enforcement bureau intends to employ the protections in mind that the privacy policies or attended a privacy protection. has got the misfortune of being trained there. it makes no sense and in the interim between today and today the ultimately adopts under section 222 is completely unclear i wonder the agency is going to consider these regulations in how it goes after companies for the violation of court tenants if anything, the

agency is going to be extremely aggressive in pursuit of headlines and will go after combat it previously had not been sanctioned and that is a recipe for disaster. restartable making this fall the content of the rules adopted. one thing is for sure that everybody will be guessing for a long time what the rules are. >> have you seen any appetite to look to the court tenants of privacy protection to let the fcc has done historically? >> it is unclear because they simply don't have expertise in the area. we do in the narrow category but not in the vast array of commissioner lassen spoke eloquently about the agency wrestling for a long time with all of these privacy issues.

we have been applying trim 11 -- so it's essentially the wild west as far as the fcc is concerned with privacy and no indication will enforce wholesale or retail of the privacy protections. i hope we do so we have some foundational expertise. >> how do you view a potential for the privacy regulations or rules coming out to overlap with what the ftc is doing historically. >> i think it is a danger for a couple different reasons. first because we don't have expertise in the area so i tend to think we may not apply rules the ftc would've done based on its well-established precedent. we might have a different take

on an issue even if we apply the same rules. a comment might not allow us or vice versa to take an entirely different view as well. various summary put it in your date. >> commissioner transit, do you have any reaction to commissioner pai's reaction to the rules coming down from the fcc? >> i certainly agree with all the points he raised. you are coming here looking for conflict and you're getting agreement. anyway, one of the things that i think is a fundamental misperception in this area driving a lot of this, dat or isp has this unique window into activities as a consumer compared to other parts of the internet ecosystem. i'm not sure that's right.

the idea that say i'm going to face the and i get on the morning before i go to work for my wired internet access and then i check in at the stoplight, which i don't buy the way, and the network i check in on my desktop that is from my employers and late afternoon i get a coffee and check in again from the coffee shop over there. the idea that anyone isp gets a complete picture of my activity versus the website, the platform i'm going to come i just don't think it's the idea that the position holds up because it may be that platform has a much fuller picture at network all as

me around or maybe the traffic was encrypted to the highest p. isn't getting not much to where i'm going or what my communication entails. i think that really raises the fundamental question again about whether it makes sense to have these different stage of rules for isp versus everybody else in the ecosystem. also as a basic idea of regulation and good government again are we taking companies collecting similar information and treating them differently and i said make sense in effect investment down the road and innovation. the ftc in the winter.

on the idea of cross device tracking and looking at the bits and pieces we are sharing as we are moving from the multitude of devices we use in any given day. that is a more appropriate and holistic way to look at how consumers are consuming services and the possible benefits looking at it in the real world way rather than coming down with approaches of the isp versus everybody. >> thank you very much both of you. we have definitely explored and established there's regulatory overlap here, certainly potential for considerable overlap and also potential for possible doctrinal confusion or attention going forward.

maybe we can shift gears and talk about agency designed is the best track season ways you might be over the harmonize the dignity of the two agencies. first i will start commissioner ohlhausen, you said the ftc has agent he designed that makes it a superior enforcer for dynamic industries. would you mind elaborating on the position for a few minutes? >> as i mentioned, we are primarily a law-enforcement say. we don't promulgate a lot of rules and regulations and one of the benefits of that is acting in a space that's very dynamic and fast moving of what we are looking at his harm to competition, harm to consumers and tried to target those problems and address those issues rather than to have

soared a a very wide prescriptive rule to predict the future and say i think this is how the technology will develop and i may get ahead of that and say this is under the silo because all of our expectations have been set in a good way for the past 30, 40 years at this point. having a case-by-case approach is very focused on harm has been useful in this area. they have the investigative staff to bring the factions to identify them, investigate them in very fact specific. we have a policy that helps to

inform our enforcement approaches. i think the ftc act except for the common carrier exemption is very flexible and adaptable to changing technology. i mentioned her prayer of economics of our analysis on the policy side and enforcement died so that is really good a useful institutional future. i hope the economic reaction in our enforcement position. there is a lot of similarities. we are a bipartisan agency. we have a similar structure. some of our worst are different. we take sooner redress. primarily the fcc gets fines. we also have different oversight

by air commissioners on settlements and policies. everything has to be voted out by the sec so i think that helps keep a political check and a little more tight rein on what some of the staff level decisions are being made. >> thank you. as the fcc takes on an enforcement role presumably, do you have any general advice for your colleagues at the fcc in terms of how to approach that role of enforcer? >> the two things are first of all to focus on real harm from the real harm in the marketplace because it's hard to predict the future and hard to speculate not only to predict harmony future but also to predict the market developments, maybe some new

form of business model that will ameliorate that harm. to get in and try to solve everything now for the future when they don't understand it is very difficult in an enforcement approach focuses on harms occurring today and looks at traditional toolbox and says maybe we don't need a new rule if we can sue people for deception and the antitrust laws we don't need to come up with the regulatory structures. focus on real harm and see what tools you have in your toolbox. >> commissioner pai committee of any reaction to commissioner ohlhausen's comments. >> i respect her experience at the agency and she knows better than most this is something that served for the better part of a century as we embark this new space i would simply add that

the regulatory humility is absolutely critical. the sec has enjoyed for many years respecting an agency because of that expertise. we tend to undermine that respect and make decisions based more on political calculations as opposed to what the law is and what the facts are and that reduces judicial support for decisions we make. i would prefer to focus on stayed with our lane and promoting our broadband deployment than in those cases where the law permits it taking targeted action to promote competition. we generally have to embrace that you have regulatory restraint because i often talked

about the case from back in 2000-2001. we have an article that warns about the aol time warner transaction and critics at the time the combined entity would have an unbreakable monopoly been awarded the government coming in. i remember an article in 2006 about how myspace had an unbreakable monopoly in the social media marketplace and the agency didn't come in and investigate or otherwise regulate that we would see a cramped online marketplace. the question from a going forward we take enforcement action is not what is justice, but what is the effect of the decision going forward. any enforcement action can send signals to move away from business plans that consumer welfare and focus on what is

safe and what effect might be legal, may reduce your ability to the united states treasury. but it may not be what is right ultimately and that's certainly the approach to action going forward. >> sounds like competitive implications on how to proceed. >> especially the extent they apply these rules overinclusive and underinclusive and virtually every isp practice, even those that don't have anything to do with privacy in their underinclusive as marine said. a huge economy depends on monetization of private information in is that a bad fingerprint thing. the fact the sec is focusing on

isps and neglecting everybody else look at potential to create distortion to >> you see room for improvements from a process reform gave that might address these issues. can you give us your top few? >> i would ask congress to give me three votes. obviously something with a partisan support. more seriously the agency needs to focus on concrete guidance to the private sector, whether the form of rules that are specific or guidance that gives examples of what is forbidden and what is not. whether enforcement actions kicks in the letter blog says what is prohibited and what is not. we need to be much quicker and more responsive and that means more internal deadlines for herself. a thick application for review

for over a decade because they have no internal deadline. a lot of times the party will say tell us something so we can go to court. i think we should incorporate sunset clauses. a lot of times the agency is left with rules on the book in the analog era because we don't have an obligation to revisit every time. one of the first votes are cast as commissioner 2012 was by the telegraph division in 1936 sitting on the books forever and no one said is this really necessary. among other things we have a congressional mandate that the biannual review and a lot of communications regulations and determine which are necessary and which are not. historically that has been an

exercise of a mouse in the office of general counsel of my job was staff recommendations that go nowhere. finally be more transparent to the outside world. commissioner ohlhausen, john q. public cannot know how the agency is doing across a variety of metrics and how many for reconsideration or pending, what is the meantime for responding to consumer complaints in the best issue than a consumer complaint. that's why creating fcc dashboard, anybody could see how the fcc is doing. the mere fact the online spotlight is in china would give us a strong incentive so those are a few ideas that would make the agency more responsive and more project is. >> thank you very much.

while we talk about agency design, are there things you might consider changing in the fcc focus on things that might change and are there lessons imported from the fcc to the ftc. >> i think you guys have a much better neighborhood. >> is one area we will disagree. certainly getting rid of the common carrier exemption would be at the top of my list. commissioner pai mentioned this is something we talked about a lot for a good government how much you need transparency, and predictability and i think the ftc has been transparent and a lot of things that does but there's been recent action on an

unfair method of policy statement that i dissented on and one of those reasons was process. for something so important we should've put that out for public comment and got more input on that. we should have a better process internally as well. the fcc is scheduled monthly meetings. that would be beneficial. for both agencies, one of the challenges of the law with good reason has had some deleterious effects is very difficult for commissioners to get together. i see a fellow cf. pb commissioner nodding. staff talks to each other in their finer wonderful people but it can send us be a game of

telephone for the message gets garbled as it goes to a series of different advisors. i suggest some changes would be beneficial for all commission across the area. >> what specifically does the sunshine act require? >> basically a core of commissioners get together to assess the policy enforcement issue. we can get together and say g how are the nationals doing at people's retirement parties and things like that. unless they have a formal meeting to discuss a policy by the agency, we can't have informal discussions. we have to get together. their amendments, secretaries, all kinds of careful

administrative barriers set up around that. ultimately makes it important issues with colleagues one-on-one as long as there is not -- if there was a matter were three commissioners were voting, she would be petitioned so that could be a problem. generally we can do one-on-one discussions but we can't get around the table and work something out unless it's a formal meeting which is again why i suggest would be better for the ftc to have more formal meetings. >> commissioner pai come the sunshine act cuts across agencies think you have any additional thoughts? >> assert is a problem and we have the same problems commissioner ohlhausen has described. can you

my final question is a number of people are some people have criticized industry specific or industry focused agencies, regulatory bodies as potentially ripe for regulatory capture by the industries. so other people push back and need expertise in understanding to efficiently regulate it. what would your reactions the most is there a possibility of

having to agencies in a particular space could have some effect on that? >> that's a good question. obviously this is a theoretical problem long identified. recipe is not that much regulatory capture so much as a government deciding how once the market place to be and take regulatory action to make it so and whether the agency preemptively tells companies don't bother merging or require the condition to an agency warning we will adopt the industrywide rules to make sure companies x, y and z have a fair chance to compete and those of us who champion the free market and regulatory stability. that is much more of an issue than regulatory capture. this in my interaction with the

colleagues previously, none of them has been captured by any company or segment of the industry. we are not captured by the kids come the kansas city chiefs and on occasion a karaoke machine. no one else. nothing else other than the public interest. >> i do have one. one of the things i've seen is when you have government play in such an in-depth role in structuring industries and deciding who is allowed, was not allowed and those different roles, it is really an opportunity in antitrust terms racing rival costs. you get in and say there's really a big problem here and

you better be really strict on this market. and then the other part of the market so i do think the more the government isn't orchestrator of the market, the more incentive there is for companies to get men and try to skew the rules or raise the arrival caused or what we see sometimes as an insider to say the rule should be strict here. i've got the money to do that. so that is a problem we see in a lot of industries intends to be a problem in professional life seen in other areas so i think a more in-depth role that government plays, the more opportunity and payoff there is for companies to do this. i also want to say appreciate commissioner pai.

humility is a favorite topic of mine and something we should keep in mind as they try to grapple with important issues and we have to be really careful about our ability. >> really quickly can't tell you how many meetings we have were party will say i'm in favor of a free market. if this case though, the flipside if you need to set aside x y e. otherwise they'll go out of business. consumers will be worse off. is somebody who shares this pitch everyday is so critical to come in with a consistent philosophy because that is only opens the door to special pleading and arbitrage and one of the reasons not to be too hyperbolic as a lot of americans have lost faith in government because it's on the connected

corporations will be able to get regulatory favors while the consumer's writ large are left in the cold. >> thank you both for such insight on thoughtful remarks. at this point i will turn it over to the audience for questions. we have microphones circulating if you would wait until a microphone which is due before asking your questions and identify your name and affiliation. thank you. >> fellow portland -- president obama indicated he wanted the commission to act. the commission did act and has created a lot of notes and unknowns and we will have another presidential election in 14 months.

there's a possibility the white house could change to the other party. if there was a president with a different point of view, can the commission go back across the rubicon and say we made a mistake or said something that that can only happen legislatively and if it either can't or is not a good idea, with the best thing to be not at dinner to simply not push the envelope and provide guidance if the impact is minimal and clarifications are made to what the rules are. >> that's a good question. there's a number of ways they could be reversed in to invalidate legislation but the operative language that would get rid of these rules. the third the agency could revisit the question. so long there is no reason procedurally why the agents be

cribbed her back and say for these reasons we think we made a wrong decision. they open the door to future commissions are agencies future commissions or agencies make a determination so long as there's a reason explanation about whether the agency would do that i can't predict. the problem is you have a tremendous amount of capital on the sidelines urbina simply underlines the fact that regulations are in place now. companies are restructuring now because they has to. fast-forward two years from now if the agency were to come back you wonder how much capital is diverted, how much effort is wasted. the long and short is we have to

see. >> american media institute wondering about, could you elaborate on the potential court challenges you just mentioned, particularly with the idea the fcc exceeded itself extensively to managing scarcity doesn't seem to be an issue here. >> correct. there are two basic arguments that companies and trade associations are challenging the order. under the administrative procedure act the agency never formerly teed up as this proposal. the late or postal was very different from title ii common carrier regulations. only after the president made this amount meant that the agency was reportedly considering title ii in the agency never did anything subsequent to make title ii

issues raised by virtue of title ii for public comment. from a rule-making give i think another people think the issues the court would have to wrestle with this subsequently huge number of issues for companies and associations challenged the fcc from 330 to which explicitly says providers could not be classified as common carriers. for example it does not have telecommunications service. if you look under the communications act is very specific and unclear when i click on a link on my screen whether the transformation of information is something that needs the statutory definition. a bunch of issues like that the courts have to wrestle with.

>> right here, please. >> by nana sharyn kovac, voice of a moderate. attacked a small business owners with the overlap and you create the rules and regulations and enforce them. companies can't afford legal assistance for questions that affect day-to-day business. you also have tsa as an example and you create a regulation that is hard to change it. i spent 10 minutes arguing about bringing the buy watermelon on a train. once these regulations are in place it's hard to pull them back. we are talking about people's businesses, their livelihoods. you're supposed to get on but you can't get along because of the sunshine act. it's fascinating that i'm

grateful for what you're doing to interact with the small business community of all industries. one regulator scares them, too terrifies them. >> you raise a good point. one thing we've tried to do his average to small businesses, small started. silicon valley a couple times of year i go to developer conferences because a lot of times when they start these great new innovative products, and they are thinking about consumer privacy or hatteberg together. it's important for us to give them the information. they are not hiring a washington law firm for bias so we have consumer education materials but it does bring to mind an area were a reason they did this and for my colleagues on a case that

was a start up company that offers service to retailers about tracking consumer cell phones to show where consumers when. it didn't say who it was. five minutes of the latest apartment and left. so one of the things i thought the ftc did their was hold them to too high of a standard of liability when they hadn't harmed in the consumers. they had given a global opt-out if the consumer didn't want this type of collection are tracking the happened and they said or you can go to the retailer. it turned out to retailers weren't offering a knockdown that they had opted out at a higher rate than they normally opt-out. there wasn't any indication that there was a tumor harm.

not only do we need to give small business guidance, we also don't need to come down on them like a ton of bricks because what happens is there's not consumer harm they weren't doing it to get benefit for themselves as an oversight. we discourage them from trying to make promises and give consumers extra choices. it's a dual approach to give them information but also use our prosecutorial discretion not to hold some small company that didn't cause harm to simulator coding standard. >> commissioner pai. >> let me add i agree with everything commission are trained to excess. there's 4462 internet service providers and the majority are relatively small.

you try to kill the layers of the onion. what they are concerned that isn't the service provider blocking content but the fact they want more choices and competition and better prices and that the reason i've been so perplexed of title ii regulation because they ironically enough squeeze out competitors. one of the industries over the last three years has been a wireless internet service provider. see provided alternative. the other guys use unlicensed back around and are sometimes literally a mom-and-pop string together infrastructure in rural areas. we have heard in an evident now that a lot of the smaller wireless isps are holding back investment in rural areas because of the uncertainty generated by rules. virginia is reducing its

investment and slowing down upgrades because of these regulations. we don't have the money to hire an attorney and accountant so to do so will not expand beyond our current coverage area. this is all evidence the court is considering. it's unfortunate set of focusing on broadband competition the entire market is anti-competitive will cite these regulations on everybody which ironically enough only the big players are able to comply with. mark my words five years from now we will be back at the table. we don't have enough choices where we are. we'll may have a big telephone company will point to these rules there would be competitors in assam where were you when

competition was within our grasp. >> things. larry spyware -- i would like to thank the two of you for next-line issue that just came out. shameless plug. in terms of the privacy is and thank you are coming to our event a couple weeks ago. it seems to me there are two policy problems coming out. one hand we have the massive regulatory symmetry with anti-regulation on one segment of the system at the fcc and ex post regulation on everybody else even though the functional equivalent raises two policy problems. first is restarted again about

the internet of things, we are still in the early stage of developing the privacy framework and it was seen to want to have a flexible industrywide solution do that. the first question is how do you develop a solution when one segment under the heavy hand of government. the second thing and this goes to something you just mentioned, the internet has become more commoditized and a lot of and a lot of it comes that market forces but also net neutrality rules for your not allowed to differentiate yourself. price competition goes up, profit goes down and it seems to me the privacy policy with other things represents another example to transfer profit from the core to the edge. these are two direct positives and i was wondering if you two could comment.

>> why don't i take the first part. talking about the privacy approach is to move into this new area of the internet of things and everything interconnect did, the fcc did an internet of things report earlier this year that i concurred in. i have a few concerns about the missed opportunities. we didn't come up with an internet of things specific recommendation. one of the things on which i deferred with my colleague was what i recommended is we start taking a hard look at the previous information prior to his principles approach that was focused on collection of information and moved much more towards a user harmed approach.

that is the way forward should really focus on harm of consumers and that is where we should bring their regulatory focus. again with the principle of regulatory humility is hard to predict the future. so i went to a that could be a unifying approach across the two agencies. if we had a similar approach, that would help minimize disparities you've identified them as we have some under a strict regime are not allowed to use this and others. the business models can be developed so i would very much recommend we think about moving towards what information is being used in a way that harms consumer. >> i would add the potential for distortion here is great and

we've seen some disturbing port since they will pursue regulation of certain segments of the market and to the exclusion of others. to anybody who remembers rabbit ears for a sketchy tv signal, we do live in a golden age of video. on the big screen, laptop, smartphone, all great for consumers. created an online service with an alternative to my company. the agency has now said it will regulate certain parts of the online video marketplace. that creates a tremendous distortion or business models are in flux. some people talk about cord cutters speed in the future. why shouldn't it be preemptively regulating moral legacy part and make everybody else alone.

that could massively disrupt how capital decisions are made and so forth. all of this is to say i agree with commissioner ohlhausen with obviously differing legal machines have attila terris effect on the marketplace. same thing with respect to privacy. different machines have a tremendously bad effect that a lot of other companies whose entire business model is predicated on the information consider quite private by a lot of kids tumors. >> it looks like we are unfortunately out of time although we could continue discussing this all afternoon. let's give a round of applause. thank you both very much. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] ..

>> [inaudible conversations] >> again we're live and waiting for start for this discussion on the iran nuclear agreement and its implications for the u.s., israel, iran at the middle east. this is hosted by the center for

strategic and international studies. we expected to start momentarily. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> good morning, everyone. i'm sharon squassoni, i directed proliferation prevention program here at the center for strategic

and international studies. and it's my pleasure to welcome you. i know it's the friday before labor day, so i really appreciate your time and attention. just a few administrative remarks. we do have a system of common plan of action, whatever you may call it in case there's an emergency. so in the back him if there's a problem, turn around and she is reading her hand. we will follow were. please turn your cell phone off. it creates a problem with our sound system and it can also be distracting to our speakers. i am going to introduce our panelists first before we launched into the substance of our discussion today. everybody knows we're not talking about iran, right?

it's kind of a throwback to the past here to talk about nonstrategic nuclear weapons and the u.s.-russian relationship. i am joined today by three experts who all participated in both of the dialogues that we conducted with the russians, first in october and then more recently in june. on my immediate right is andy kuchins who is director and senior vote of the russia and eurasia program, and well-known author and i think we didn't overlap the carnegie endowment. i think you were there before me, and in moscow also. next to andy is ambassador steven pifer who directs arms control and nonproliferation initiative, and steve is a former ambassador to ukraine. all in this experience both in ukraine and elsewhere during foreign service career have been

invaluable to our discussions. of the next to steve is guy roberts was a former deputy assistant secretary-general for weapons of mass destruction policy at nato. we go back a long time -- not that long? okay. in the nonproliferation and arms control seen. i am going to try to limit my remarks. i'm just going to set out how we did this dialogue, what were some of the conclusions. and then we are going to give each of our panelists a couple of minutes to give their impressions. i asked them, tell me what you thought about this dialogue from what was different, how we changed from october to june and also if that were some of the most interesting outcomes from it but i think i need to set up this whole thing for you. so i didn't put out reports in

deference to the environment but those are the links, and they are all on our website. there's a long report from the first workshop in october confidence and even longer report from the second workshop in june. this project was sponsored by, technically by the navy. it was a product on advanced system combats for combating deputy. response a lot of strategic dialogue. here's the important part. the grant was awarded for the fiscal year 2014, right? in about october 2013 things were a lot different than they are to the entrance of these russian relationship. the objectives of initially were to explore really verification modality. if you were actually able to sit down officially with the

russians and negotiate an arms control agreement to limit nonstrategic nuclear weapons, how would you think about it, what verification would you think about? of course is changed over time. and initially first agreement was sort of set the groundwork and the second meeting was supposed to look at every hard core issues of an agreement. instead we had was russia's annexation of crimea. the u.s. state department verification and compliance report were the first official allegations of russian violations of inf treaty. read sanctions as you well know, and all the while new start implementation was moving along, maybe a little bit more slowly. and so because of this because of these increased tensions, but

we decided in october was okay, let's focus on confidence-building measures. what can we do in terms of political and tactical confidence-building measures. so in october we met in vienna. with seven russians, 10 americans and one european. we quickly realized that we do need some final european voices in this dialogue. we didn't do much better. we had to europeans in june but i think if we move forward in this process we will include several more. answered in the october workshop we had three different sections, session. we look at political factors, tactical confidence-building measures and then political confidence-building measures, and we spent an afternoon for broke up into working groups to come up with specific recommendations. i do want to overwhelm you with all thall the details. they either in the report on the when to give you some examples but in october it seems were we

sort of rally around a few things. one is that arms control is never easy and in times of crisis it's not easy, but it is still an important venue if you can use it to build transparency and trust. in october all of the participants, well, obviously limits, official limits on nonstrategic nuclear weapons are off the table. interestingly enough in october our russian counterparts were quite clear. they said, look, you know, crimea is about european security come is not about global security, this is not a new cold war. definitely not a new cold war. in june that down have changed quite considerably underwrote 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, and so we talk very specifically about verification technology and that was one of the areas that we believe could be fruitful, even if we're just looking at longer-term technology developments. and we also talked about confidence-building measures in terms of lab to lab cooperation, limited data exchanges. and then, of course, the kind of existing dangers of cooperation like the proliferation security initiative, u.n. security council resolution 1540. so we really kind of cast our net widely. the next few slides are a long list of things that we talk about. i welcome into q&a session if you want to ask specific questions about them. obviously, the russians are

really big on historical data exchanges on the presidential nuclear initiatives. you go back to the 1990s. so the idea if you have a good baseline of what nuclear weapons, non-sticky nuclear weapons are out there, then you can move forward from that baseline. they were a little come as will where we i guess a little squeamish on sort of more square mesh data exchanges. enact over we said, we really cannot reaffirm what we call the nato three miles, which is about we have no intention, no plan and no reason to deploy nuclear weapons on the territories of new weapons -- three no's. sorry, no new member states of nato. and we could not commit to know

modernizations. so these were topics that we discussed at length both in october and a little bit engine. on the tactical confidence building measure area, we have the basic exception that multilateral confidence-building measures were the hardest. bilateral at the moment were probably desirable but not so ey to accomplish, and that unilateral measures might be okay. so that's a very narrow avenue for doing things. but we still talked about possibly having expert visits to former sites danger in thinking about some of the things we've done in the past with the russians, for example, the trilateral initiative between russia, u.s. and iaea on kazaa

materials. -- fissile material. and the longer-term the idea was to focus on cost-cutting technologies, things like information, transformation, barriers and soften the focus away from verification and more on sort of monetary. there's a lot of things that we've 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's like we talked about political and tactical confidence building measure. let's think about tangential opportunities. that group kind of just brainstormed. came to the conclusion that we need a broader dialogue about european security but probably not possible right now. but i think everybody agreed we really need to create some stability and transparency. in our june workshop, that was a

heavy focus i would say. so i really am going to try to breeze through the next few slides. in our second workshop, what we tried it is an okay, we had a list, a menu of ideas, let's drill down on that. so i asked each participant to come up with two specific ideas. i say put some meat on those bones, circulate it. we came up with a call-in ideas paper. that is on our website and it's in this package for the second workshop. in those ideas i asked folks to focus on military doctrine, transparency, technology development, and in safety institute of nuclear weapons. and this was kind of a surprise topic i think for a second workshop, which is its kind of counterintuitive if you are

having can't get your relations are not the best at the moment, can you really talk about sensitive topics like this agency could have nuclear weapons? what we decided to do, what we decided was it's worth a shot. we have a lot of focus on nuclear security these days and there has been a exercises in cooperation with the russians on the past in some limited ways. we have a menu of potential cooperative actions we could take there. so this ideas paper you can see we have a lot of ideas in the transparency into the freshman end of it. pretty evenly divided every day. can go through all of this here because i think it would bore you, and there's a lot of language on those slides. but i think suffices to say that, and i know steve is going to 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, you know, lower officials, we need to clarify some topics. and they feel the same way, for example, on ballistic missile defenses. the transparency we had a lot of, and i apologize that this is sisa dark. it didn't 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 we talked about at length in june was the alleged violations. i know we will discuss a few ideas that we had for being a

little more transparent about those alleged violations on both sides. technology development, lots of stuff emanating from our labs. i think in the future if we did this begin i would get some russian laboratory experts as well. there's a lot of work to be done on authentication of information. there was a lot of interesting remote monitoring techniques. and fundamentally for nonstrategic nuclear weapons you have a lot of definitional issues, which have an impact on the kinds of verification that you can explore. going through this on safety and security of nuclear weapons, a few of the ideas that came out what to do a joint threat assessment of the risk of terrorists penetrating a storage site. you can also flip that around and do a joint assessment of

site security improvements. you could do some exercises that build on things that were done with the nato-russia council on recovery, you know, how would you recover a nuclear weapon that was stolen, those kinds of things. so that's the sort of set up for the workshop and now i'm just going to highlight a few of the themes that we explored. to more slides. fundamentally u.s. and russia needed new basis for transparency. they all the bases don't work, and that is in the 1990s russia was looking forward 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 don't know how well that works anymore. on the uses of transparency, we suggested that the russians need to clarify the status and the relevance of de-escalation concept. in other words, are they really contemplating the use of nonstrategic nuclear weapons to avoid a big reward or a conventional incursion? and we talk specifically about some 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 actually mean in terms of counter, i think with ash carter, in terms of countervailing measures in response to inf. you are some, there were some surprising misunderstandings given 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 short-term actions are generally. fundamentally i think we agree that u.s. nato and russian military officers and policymakers need to meet to review implementation ofurrent agreements designed to avoid misunderstanding. so one of these is the incident at sea agreement. there have been i think over 40 incidents between military forces, and i think right after

our meeting the american -- i'm trying to remember -- admiral, and the russian admiral met in naples to actually discuss some of that. we believe that it needs to be even broader here we suggested that we should expand the vienna document confidence-building measures to include exchanges of information regarding nonstrategic nuclear weapons high precision conventional weapons and air and missile defenses. and in the short term, we had a list of things we thought were urgently needed. we need more information. we were told it exists on a classified basis but we said, russian experts, you really need to publish articles on this concept of de-escalation, and whether, we were told it's not a part of official russian doctor

and. we would like more confirmation of that -- russian doctrine you're one of our participants recommended that the u.s. government should consider some transparency measures to demonstrate that the missile launcher for ages cannot contain or launch surface-to-surface missile. this is one of the allegations that the russians have made. we recommended that nato and russian government should reconvene joint activities regarding this agency could have nuclear weapons, or exchange such collaboration to include an exchange of best practices. sorry, the wording is a little off. and then i finally we said maybe a special verification commission under the inf treaty should be reconvened to talk about the allegations of violations 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 exchanges on avoiding misunderstandings. we think we should resume u.s.-russian activities related to developing better technology 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 the items from these two dialogs, and i'm going to stop there and welcome my colleagues. i think we're all just going to sit at this table. you can do it however he would like, to provide their insights on these two rounds of talks. thank you. >> good morning.

thank you, sharon, for inviting me to speak today at also to participate in the two meetings that were held over the past year, october in vienna, and in june here in washington. i'm going to make some brief comments about what 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, sort of déjà vu all over again, in having these discussions. as a young aspiring slobodan -- in the 1980s i cut my teeth on meetings and discussions like this, through the 1990s dealing with a nuclear legacy of the cold war was very relevant

and even urgent topic i think for a lot of us. and then something seemed to happen. the topic, the topics of nuclear security, nonproliferation, arms control, et cetera, seemed to some extent to lose the urgency i think, at least from my perspective, and their relevance. i was thinking about this, talking about yesterday at lunch with sharon, and what happened? well, okay, 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 and negotiations, et cetera. whether one agrees or does not agree to was the withdrawal from the abm treaty.

there was the so-called moscow treaty which was basically a bone thrown to the russians because of the russians wanted a piece of paper in may of 2002, so they got about three and a half pages of paper in the moscow treaty. too. [laughter] thank you for the correction, steve. russian is a complicated language, so it might be three. 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, renamed on hair trigger alert, remained in 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 the 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. something deeper was at work. it seemed to me like we kind of, week, i mean to some extent the policy community in the united states, i mean, when on a strategic holiday. and we seem to forget to some extent and nature of the existential threat that these weapons present to ourselves and to our planet. yeah, we had the unipolar

moment. yeah, we had the eurasian land wars in iraq and afghanistan. yes, much more discussion about global warming or global climate change, global jihad, global financial crisis. mr. obama t did become infatuatd with the idea of global zero, momentarily, to i think he and his administration relies presumably the virtual all of the other nuclear states, existing and aspiring, had the 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 a strategic holiday is over.

the ongoing war in ukraine, sharon alluded to, reminds us that we never did successfully resolve the challenge of building a new european security system in the corner century since the end of the cold war. in thousands of the strategic and nonstrategic nuclear weapons that were used to agonize over, they are still around. and putin loves to remind those that are still around. and that yes, russia could incinerate europe and the united states on a moment's notice if they so chose. now, mr. yeltsin used to make bombastic, pun intended, remarks like that, but we were kind of tossed it off and say that's old boris. he's had a few vodkas and he's

not really serious. but when vladimir says this, you know, we kind of look at each other. this dude, he's not really serious, easy? i remember -- is he? 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, 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 to give him any ideas. no, on. now, seriously, here we find ourselves in a situation today where russian military forces

are violating airspace, see 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 were come into much closer proximity to each other, as we often did during the cold war era in terms of the new cold war, it is already a cliché, whether you agree or not. what happened? that's not the topic for today. i've explained that in my next book. but the place i want to emphasize 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 industry about the technical issues involved, is indeed relevant and perhaps urgent. and that is why these two meetings as sharon organized were so important. conversations that choose to happen so frequently with

russians 20-30 years ago, maybe even more years ago, we have to some extent forgotten how to have. and warring and to me, the cadres trained to use of conversation on this topic have diminished. 20 or 30 years ago i was one of the youngest guys in the room in such a conversation. today, i still remains one of the younger people in the room in a conversation about this. and guess what. i'm not so young. so i think this issue of training a next-generation of experts to understand the technical, the political, the historical details and facts about these weapons, which still exists 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 make, just 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, i'll provide a little bit more than that. recall in the spring and summer of 2013 when newly reelected president obama, he wanted to pursue and we set to come if you will, with russians. and the focus of that was on arms control, hopefully another round of strategic offensive reductions, and yes, possibly a broader discussion of strategic stability, including the roles of missile defense, precision guided munitions, and space-based weapons, et cetera. i guess mr. snowden, remember him, he did complicate things in the summer of 2013, basically the reason why that discussion

tended, in my view, is the russians were not interested at the time in pursuing a discussion or at least not in terms of which of the obama administration wanted to. and as you recall the summit meeting that mr. putin and mr. obama were to have on the sidelines of the chief when meeting, or actually were in moscow right out of the meeting in st. petersburg, that was canceled. 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. i do think the reverse is true for us your one problem i think we face, a larger, sort of general way, mr. kennedy strategic mismatch. it's a greater extent today

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 anti-americanism. it is the principle problem i think in his political legitimacy authority building strategy with the russian public. and so we just heard this over the past several years this growing chorus of we are the enemy. we seek to weaken russia. come on, let's be serious.

the cia, the nsa, the state department, all of the ngos that we support, we can't hold a candle to the russians themselves when it comes to the task of weakening russia. sorry, but i have to say that. but i think the point to mr. putin is that most of the time he has been leader, de facto and/or treasury of russia, it has been economic growth and prosperity which is been the principal backbone of his lyrical popularity. that has -- over the last few years and is now this anti-americanism, antiwesterni antiwesternism, which is so much more important for domestic political consolidation. now, that's an obstacle. it's not a suitable obstacle. we have had important instances of cooperation with russia over

very important security issues. what point do first of all the removal and disposal of the entire declared chemical weapons arsenal in series a which took place in 2014. and, of course, without the important upgrade on iran which for the first time mr. obama in his term of presidency had something nice to say about mr. putin. so this is, it is possible, but i think in conclusion, i'm concerned that to me rush is more unpredictable and potentially more dangerous today than they think at any time in the last 30 years. my colleague over at the american enterprise institute, leon aron, wrote a good article, a provocative article in the "los angeles times" about a year ago arguing that vladimir putin is the most unconstrained and heavily armed leader in world

history. it's an interesting thought. stalin was pretty unconstrained, didn't have the weapons that are available now. brezhnev, khrushchev were more politically constrained in their domestic legal context, et cetera. but i think, some climate today and russia may not be so conducive to progress on the issues that we've been talking about, but it is essential that we continue to talk about them. i also think it is essential that we don't take the approach of cutting off our nose to spite our face. you know, to discontinue a lot of the activities that were done in the context of the nato-russia council, to me that's, that's backs of cutting off your nose to spite your face. because we don't do this as a favor to the russians your we did many of these cooperative things because we think that

helped to alleviate the security dilemma, the security challenges that we face. so i've gone on too long. let me thank you and turn it over to the next speaker, steve. >> first let me thank sharon for inviting me to participate today but also, including me in the workshop that took place in october in june. because i would very much, these sorts of conversation from these sorts of channels are very important, ticket at a time of war difficult relations between the west and russia. i'm 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 utility of a discussion about nuclear doctrine. i first might make a comment on something that sharon alluded to which to a lot of steps, a lot of things that you can do with regards to non-strategic nuclear weapons that particularly in the second session we didn't talk

about. it was that we were unaware. it's just they didn't seem to be issues that had much prospect of just about to go through them the most direct way to do with non-strategic nuclear weapons would be to negotiate numerical limits on them. you can't resolve a series of verification issues. one idea i think did, it is in june was does it make sense now that this distinction between strategic and nonstrategic. maybe you're too much a situation where you limit all nuclear weapons, period. but beyond limits there were a range of confidence and security building measures that we didn't get into much detail on. one would be transparency, an agreement that the united states, nato and russia would exchange of data on numbers, types and locations of weapons. and as sharon suggested in her opening remarks, maybe you could start with unilateral reductions in washington and moscow

announced in 1991-1992, because exchanging data on historical things might be easier. other ideas out there, if the united states and russia might announced a new entries commitment to both countries are modernizing arsenals but it doesn't look like either side sees a need to increase them. another idea is this idea -- indicates of the u.s. non-strategic arsenal were utah but one weapon, those are not mounted on aircraft. as we understand i it most perhs all cases on the russian side, and nonstrategic warheads are physically separate from the delivery system. could decide to aggressive practice they would commit to continue that, keep the warheads and delivery systems separate. another idea that has been discussed, relocation, consolidation of weapons. there's a fairly rich menu of ideas on confidence-building measures in addition to numerical limits.

i think is a good reason we didn't spend a lot of time in october on this question because the russian government has made clear since the new s.t.a.r.t. treaty introduced in 2011 that it has little interest talking about limits for confidence-building measures on nonstrategic weapons. the russian position is it would be paired up a conversation about the system only once the united states had withdrawn all of its nonstrategic nuclear weapons undoubtedly to be about 200 nuclear bombs in europe. destroyed the infrastructure for them in europe. the position i don't think is acceptable to nato. it also turns out to be more reluctance on the nato side when you talk about these questions. there has been a conversation on going for a couple of years with the nato on the types of confidence as he could building measures that nato might be prepared to talk about. that's been a close conversation

but when we on the outside get a glimpse at it it seems like the list of measures seems to be shrinking. i will try one example of difficult sometimes this can be. i took part in about two decades ago when we had a mix of government officials and non-government experts from nato countries on the russian side which is nongovernment experts. one of the ideas, perhaps an easy confidence building measure our nonstrategic to the weapons would be to say okay, you can go to places where we used to store non-strategic weapons and verify that they're not there. you are not giving away much information on stockpiles. this seem to be an idea this group felt hats of interest. some of our german participants said let's do the next conference in germany, germany of course during the cold war when it was divided into east and west germany had been hosting both american and western germany and soviet nonstrategic nuclear weapons in

eastern germany, and i did was with at have this workshop take place in germany and have a field trip and go and visit former american sites and a former soviet site. and that i just had a lot of interest in children into the wall posed by american commentator and chairman secretive procedures. we have yet to have those visits. so i think the workshop particularly in june we set let's focus on more modest and more achievable steps with regard to nonstrategic weapons but also in their current circumstances particularly with the big carrier ration that's taken place largely since the russian seizure of crimea and russia military action in eastern ukraine. what can we do and what is necessary. and the one area we focus on and this was to nonstrategic weapons was an urgent need to avoid accidents and miscalculations. and since early 2014, since the type of russia's illegal seizure of crimea, you had significant

increase in the number of instances where you have nato and russia military forces, aircraft ships often in close proximity to one another. nato now reports in 2014 in the first part of this year, they're intercepting russian military aircraft near nato airspace at a rate three to four times the rate of 2013. the european leadership network came out with a report that talked about 40 potentially dangerous interaction between nato and russian military unit. there were two cases that were particularly alarming where it was aborted the russian intelligence aircraft operating in international airspace but operating in or near civilian airplanes were operating with their transponders off which meant they were invisible to link our traffic control. for the potentially most disturbing this was last year were an airliner south of sweden had to take evasive action at the last moment to avoid a midair collision. i would argue neither side wants

these miscalculations. there is a significant body that they can build on to try to avoid this. in his cage of the 1972 incidents at sea agreement and jeff in 1989 dangerous military activities agreement. a membe number of nato countriee parallel agreements with the russians but not all. there's a blanket agreement that covers sort of all nato forces and russia forces. but agreements like incidents at sea and dangerous military activities were designed to set rules for a military forces will operate. so, for example, an incident at sea agreement once that was centralized, american navy pilots were told that if you're intercepting a russian aircraft near an american aircraft carrier, this is a specific angle you approach. the agreement would set things like safe aircraft cannot overfly ships of the other side and all did the within such and

such. into dangerous military activities agreement, units at the tactical level set if something is going on the other side and it's of concern and ambiguous, here's a radio channel you can call and see what's going on. the whole point was to reduce risky situations, reduce ambiguous situations and provide immediate means for the forces involved to clarify so do you do not have an accident. so i think we came out of the discussion ingenuity i did that it would make sense despite the ratcheting down and nato-russian military, nato-russian context of the nato-russia discussion that would look at these agreements, update updating andn tried to negotiate agreement that would cover all nato and russian military forces. we thought this agreement, neither side wants an axle public would be in both interest to the one question that came up was to the russians really want

this? if one of the things the russians are trying to do with this uptick in russia military backlash is to intimidate, create concern in the west. if you want to take the edge off these sorts of activities? i think it's important ask, go back to the case with the airliners last year. what would've happened had the pilot not take evasive action and had, in fact, been a midair collision between airline and russian military aircraft with its transponder off a kick butt impact on russia's image but also think about the pressure that can public would be appointed nato military forces to be much more aggressive in terms of intercepting and escorting russian a technocrat. this is something neither side should one. another idea is that although there have been lots of tensions, he took a couple of documents in europe that have worked to begin the document on competency could building

measures and the open skies treaty. the question is could you take those documents and improve them? the vienna document on confidence as he could building required to notify exercise over a certain level. could you lower that level so that nato and russia are notified to each other so you avoid a situation. likewise open skies could you negotiate an increase in the number of bytes because these could contribute. one suggestion was could you begin to expand coverage of some of the exchanges to include things like nonstrategic nuclear weapons? i think the group recognizes that would be difficult but there may be some interest on the russian site that the united states is prepared to talk about things like providing data on missile defense systems which are now being deployed your. those are some of the ideas we talk to reduce the risk of accident miscalculation. we thought it was quite evident

utility begin discussing nuclear doctrine. looking at the two sides. nato has made clear it remains a nuclear alliance. but even look at the role of non-strategic nuclear weapons play, it's significant less, significant reduced from the time of the cold war. you see this from the fact the number of american nuclear weapons in europe over the last 25 years has been reduced the difficulty. we used to have a number of different types of nuclear weapons. that whistling to b61 gravity bomb. nato cold war practices, quick reaction alert, time through the cold war you actually had new aircraft with nuclear weapons on them prepared to launch a very, very quickly. i think i saw a nato document as it would take a number of weeks to recover the status. has been eradicating down. i think it's true when it is thanks to nonstrategic to put weapons in europe, it's in terms of deterrence but also

assurance. they are a symbol of american commitment to defend your that i think a simple that has become more important the last couple of years in places like the baltics region and poland and central europe because of concerns about russia. and diffuse, i think nato doctrine says that nuclear weapons are nonstrategic nuclear weapon would be just it would be used less for the military effect than for the political effect. a signal that nuclear weapons would sin by being used with mean this conflict has reached the point where it is in danger of spinning out of control, and it's time to stop. if you look at the russian doctrine, at least the unclassified russian doctrine, it doesn't seem to be so problematic. rush has tested both in its 2010 and its 2013 doctrines that they would use nuclear weapons in cases, one commit nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction were used against russian a russian ally, or if

there was a conventional military assault on russia where the existence of the russian state was at stake i look at those and i said that doesn't sound that much different from nato's policy from the 1960s, 1970s and '80s. there are some questions. we don't know what classified russian doctrine says. there is this notion russians talk about the escalation, the idea of escorting the use of nuclear weapons to stop a conflict which can sound like it might be similar to flexible response except that's not clarity about the doctrine. for example, what is the threshold for nuclear use of the doctrine sees? how low is that? some description seemed to suggest de-escalation, and there was a bit of general confusion to it was interesting i think to the american participants in the june discussion to virtually all of the russian participants said

de-escalation is not a part of russian doctrine. which seems to contradict what we've been reading a lot about what russians have been writing about nuclear doctrine for the last 15 years. i think one thing we came out of this was it would be useful to begin to talk about doctrines to have a better understanding of how the sides of you these. it was also really good read through from the june discussion that when russia looks at nonstrategic nuclear weapons it is looking at these weapons as an offset what it regards as nato and american advantages in precision guided conventional weapons and in conventional and general purpose forces. my own belief is when the russians look at nonstrategic nuclear weapons and it may be that political and correct to say this after president putin's visit to beijing yesterday but i think actually a big factor in this is that chinese factor it out with the russians do not

understand, do not see if they could cope with the conflict with china, sorting out the conventional level. but again what came out of this discussion was very hopeful that the better understanding of nuclear doctrine on both sides and maybe some sense of having that conversation would be easier than talk about specific confidence-building measures or limits on nonstrategic nuclear weapons. finally, we chatted about the role of nuclear test in which and what has referred to. nuclear issues has become more prominent publicly the last year because vladimir putin talks with nuclear weapons so much. in march there was a documentary put out on russian state television about the crimea crisis in february, march of february, march the 2014. at one point mr. putin says i was prepared to put our forces on nuclear alert. i think the reaction was what? because if you look at that crisis, how it played out, there

was no evidence that nato was prepared to take military action can no nato nuclear alert. nato took steps only at the end of march after the crisis had reached its people and russia had annexed crimea. so there are a lot of questions will be to have good. why does mr. putin talk about nuclear weapons so much? i come up with a four, a couple ideas at nine. one reason may be is that he likes to think of russia as a superpower. if you look at the measures of superpower status today, really don't pay that russia can be this nuclear weapons. and other areas the russians, i think still believe that they have some areas where they lag behind china in terms of conventional forces. part of the reason to talk with nuclear weapons is to remind the world look, if we beat pashtun if we keep -- if we get the conventional we still have nuclear.

he sees some value to a getting a little crazy, albeit unpredictable when you talk about nuclear weapons, particularly if it's part of an effort which i think we are seeing in some ways intimidate the west. the most worrisome suggestion to some of his language suggests that mic nuclear weapons not as instruments of deterrence but as instruments of coercion and that would be worrisome. some kind of discussion that would allow us to understand this would be useful. what came out of the june workshop with the are some veryy important areas of a conversation where discussions between nato and russian military officials would make a lot of sense even at a time when nato-russia relations are at a very low point. i guess the question is can nato and russia have a productive exchange on these issues in the current political environment? >> okay. well, thank you very much. it's a pleasure to be and also pleasure for me to participate in these workshops.

the problem being last speaker means that would have sent you have said everything i want to say so i have very little to add. but the one thing i do want to emphasize is right up front is i think all of the things we did in these workshops, the most important aspect of these workshops was the fact that we held them. in fact, we engaged in a dialogue that at present we don't 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 continued to a dialogue and not to discuss these things i think is a dangerous opportunity for miscalculation. it's 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 one of the people that was negotiating the moscow treaty. after we finished signing the treaty i was tasked to go to geneva for the first consultative group meeting, and have a dialogue with the russians. i have bought into the fact that cold war was over and that we no longer have an adversary and we were strategic partners or competitors at worst. the i do to fully in arranging the room for the being said that two heads of the delegation at the tip and delegations down the site. the russians went crazy. absolutely said no, no way. it's got to be across the table. and we wouldn't do it like that, as a collegial kind of relationship. and then went out delicate started talking about the fact you are no longer to remember

the heads starting to turn red from that kind of attitude, which clearly indicated the trend is going to treat russia just like they treated any other country in the russell walker this same status, subsidy. a couple years later in 2005, and i assumed my post at nato, it's hard to believe now but in actual fact we are served to talk with nato, i mean russia becoming a member of nato. ..