reykjavik contributed one because there was no way the only way that he could get sdi that was absolutely the most threatening weapons system into the role into an take it away at a proportion he took the first address as a soviet leader did after for a meeting on the night he got back from t11 but sdi is a threat to the very existence american tree and to mankind everywhere. but in the pentagon that may

someday show somme promise and he blows it up as the threat of all time. he could get reagan to give up sdi if he gave an offer on reduction of nuclear weapon but it totally failed. and then to reform the soviet union. and once he started the reforms they were vastly accelerated with the meeting and then the next year was a party conference that implemented these reforms. that is my thesis. i know marvin will disagree but we can talk about that

later. two or three points. to have the great background i learned never pick a fight with of moderator. [laughter] at what i would disagree with khomeini they feared the nuclear attack and because of the succession and ideas to share birthday with robert mcnamara and then make the same point every year to show you how effective that was to always come back from moscow and

said basically a blip scared out of its mind putting nuclear attack. i said the last time that i checked the older bombers are lined up bunny their field all of the submarines are in the port at any one time. we never had 50 percent of the bombers on any airfield

that was pretty standard i did not believe that for a minute. hi billy looked if he was sincere and that it was just propaganda. and to be the first soviet leader to believe that. but it did not come from gorbachev but ronald reagan. that reagan comes up with the idea. but he is the push her but i never suspected he was.

and the last point is why reykjavik was the failure. and from the breakup of the soviet union. in with the reductions of strategic arms but neither are expected. to go to zero for the ims systems of course. with although strategic gains. and then in dow laboratory. but this was in his ada to get that done. it was good news. unless you go along but that

is what sent sunday into a tailspin. >> actually may have run the risk to go to far with the description because there isn't much left in the book. although to have a blow by blow. but we actually do know because there is a lot of material from the cia in the intelligence security. and even from the spymaster who talks about the kgb and the counterparts were hounding him.

with those that are out there. and to prepare for that nuclear war we can talk about that. >> even with that material is assisted steven there's a lot of people. >> so why don't they take action? you have to be careful because the robbers are here. that i would lock my door. >> but they don't want to turn this into back-and-forth because it is important to appear if it

was a genuine fear. but it was just as real in the soviet union. so the questions of where they lead was very important. >> so we will turn to the future and we want to rekindle. but as it was on the table for this discussion a very piece of background that goes back one of the reasons the of the new round jeff for the soviet union was a robust antiballistic missile system that we, the united states of lyndon johnson to

beat over the head on why the seemingly perverse principal that defense is an ad and destabilizing is a critical way to the u.s. position of a long time to limit that antiballistic missile system. and the soviets bought that. and while president reagan sincerely believed it was out of danger just plain wrong including some who were there with him in reykjavik that sdi would be

stabilizing and would not work. >> the russians were concerned. they tried to head office sudden appearance of the sdi system. it could not be developed over time. but their concern was really in the minds of the americans. in taking roughly the same place at the same time. and what did they do with that? to make it easier for them to lose four more difficult?

but of those armaments of today as you know are among our best friend in afghanistan. where is sdi today? does anybody keep track of that? . . >> nothing than the u.s. soviet relationship or for that matter in terms of arming the world for

an armageddon. reagan was the one who use that term, armageddon in 1983. it was in his my and in the 84 presidential debate i asked him about that. he sorta backed backed off and made the point again and again, a nuclear war cannot be won and ought not to be fought. he was very much opposed to it but he could not bring himself to the end of the day and historically and forgive me for going back to my disappointment that to me stands out as a huge moment when we could have gone one way but ended up going another. >> thank you. i think the next panel will be checking this further. certainly of missile defense has

come up during two of the administrations of bush and obama. also in many respects -- i would like to bring in the audience for some questions. we're going to pick up the questions and the more detail with the second panel. oh take two or three and they will come back. please identify yourself. >> i'm retired from the u.s. government. i remember the economist ran a cover showing reagan and gorbachev dressed as peace demonstrators, peace signs, love beads and the whole thing. underneath it was titled the specter is haunting europe. the theme of the story was, abolishing strategic weapons would make it a higher risk there would actually be a war in

europe, either conventional or limited nuclear war that would be confined to the battlefield. then about a year later freddy and others published a report which gave concrete expression to those fears. so what i would like to ask is, what role did that play in raising the concerns about the credibility of extended deterrence and heightening the debate over inf and short range nuclear weapons and europe in the 1980. >> that's a great question. >> one quick point, i think it bears on the question of how we should now regard what happened, at the very last session, the session that ended without agreement there was a proposal on the table, it had been put in

writing and in these matters proposals in writing have to be given precedence over the chatter that surrounds it. that proposal, which gorbachev could not accept, it was an american proposal, that proposal called for eliminating all offensive ballistic missiles over a decade. at the end of the decade with all offensive ballistic missiles eliminated both sides would have the right to deploy a defense if they had a defense capable of deploying. the reason why this is important is that if you want to claim that fbi sank the summit you have to explain what the objection of sdi would have been after the missiles that it was uniquely tailored to shoot down had been eliminated. it was this fall and the soviet

argument and i've had this argument a dozen times, the soviet side could never give an adequate explanation for why sti was relevant in the absence of offensive nuclear weapons. >> thank you. the lady over over here and then in the front. >> i'm with the university of washington. marvin, you talked about the importance of two men coming to change the nature of the confrontation really, but have there is a push back from their respective militaries and the political advisers. i think this is very important to highlight the relations in both countries. if you can reflect a little more, the three of you on how much there is for individuals and presidents in the united states on national security and foreign policy versus an

institutional continue a day that comes from the military having their own views of what is important and what is not important and the fbi be in a case in that. if you can tell us more about what the military having the small research program, what they saw in that or the political advisers as well. >> let me just take a few more comments because we only have 15 minutes left. >> thank you very much. i write the mitchell report and i wanted to just say that this discussion is a to me an important reminder of the power of world history. listening to that story and the bet stories from the participants is powerful. this is not something i would say anybody in this auditorium

is going to forget soon. so i really cannot thank you enough. >> stop right there. why would you want to go on. [laughter] >> i have a list of things. this is probably a rhetorical question but let me pose it anyway. what is so powerful to me about this among other things, is these two people, in a place called iceland, in a very small building, managing the future of the world over the course of a couple of days. i say to myself, is that is that ever going to happen again? can that happen in the age of twitter et cetera? and that is really what you have left me with.

thank you. >> i'm being told we can have a little bit extra time here. so i will go back to the other questions and comments and see if there is anything that we would like to and. >> thank you very much for being here richard thank you very much for -- i think you have made an important point and reminded us of why the soviets were so scared of sdi. and, why they were not ready to sign up to the elimination of all ballistic missiles. they saw american technology in general and military technology in particular is a black magic that we had and they didn't. they felt inferior in their

technology to thwart sdi. they never never thought they would get in sti anywhere near capable as the american sdi, with the regard to the prospect of eliminated ballistic missiles that would still leave the united states with non- ballistic delivery systems such as cruise missiles with stealth. for years i have heard that i would be surprised if you did as well. >> so the young lady raises the point of the military budget and the role of the military, i cannot remember president eisenhower leaving office making

a very specific point about the power of the military industrial complex. here it comes from a man who is a general who fought in a war so he was not, he did not catch a cold when he dealt with military people, he knew them. yet, in terms of the relationship of the military as a power in the united states, measured up against the diplomacy, the congress and even the president, there is an enormous strength there. there is kind of not fear but awesome respect that people have when a guy in a uniform auxin and he has a lot of metals around him. so if two men had an opportunity as gary was saying before, if two men had an opportunity to do any number of things with arms control but one of them was the possibility of both of them addressing that single issue, then you get to a point where

sta he comes terribly important. it isn't today but it was at that moment. and you say to yourself, what is the russian position on this? they were ready to buy and we wanted both lap and outside. think about it in terms of proportionality. think about logic, think about the power of history and the lessons of history. i will go back to that moment and i know that you may be unhappy with me saying this but -- had very little to do with the end of the soviet union. the end of the soviet union was created by the system itself. it was dreadful. it died because it deserved to die. it had very little to do -- but

if diplomats feel good having participated with him saying we held off a fantastic russian adventure they may have done awful things, they were falling apart. we should have recognized it at that time. but our intelligence was woefully inadequate on the collapse of the soviet union. thank you. >> marvin is going to ask you about the credibility, what is your sense was at the idea of people later but there has been this move to get rid of nuclear weapons and getting back to richards. >> people mentioned that who now believe those who were alive that getting rid of all the nuclear weapons really is a fantastic game and we all are to do that and they have now all pledged to do that. why didn't they do it then? what was it that was so important about that extra moment of sdi that you cannot

make that. i still don't understand it. >> okay let me just start with a last point that marvin may come i think it's most important point to tell you the truth and then get back to sdi and the talk of no new. the relationship between rhetoric and the end of the cold war, the end of the soviet union, marvin makes a point that is talked about in the past and i think it's conventional was dumb right now that the soviet union collapsed of its own weight. as marvin said it was a lousy system. they were very poor. it had to collapse. why why did it have to collapse? we've had poor countries for long time, they didn't collapse. go around from country to country, they are not collapsed. north korea. north korea is now -- people are

eating grass and bark, there's no revolution there is not collapse. cuba has been under -- since 1959. he gets nine. he gets poor and poor, there's no collapse. they raise the and the rise and fall of the roman empire, this intolerable situation lasted only another 300 years. they were intolerable. it was bankrupt and it lasted 300 years. when you look at the data that what was going on in the soviet union then, now this i will open up a can of worms of controversy but the cia estimates in 1986 at the time was that the soviet economy was growing at two and a half%. now you can say marvin, i know. >> that's my point.

>> they could've been wrong, they could've been right, it wasn't a desperately a desperately wrong estimate, people were making fun of it at the time but it was thought to be respectable that they were growing. you can talk about the conversion all you want and that is a very hard thing of knowing how much it would cost to build the military and there's a wilderness of data on that. i think the cia was better to in relative prosperity and relative decline of the soviet union during those years than it was u.s. soviet -- in any way the cia was reporting and 86 and 87 until the reforms really got underway that there is a growth between two and a half and then it jumped to 4% and then it came to two and one percent. this is not precipitous decline. this is not depression, this depression,

this is not one third reduction. and at least in terms of again the cia estimate of per capita wealth in the soviet union, soviet citizens, at that time it was higher than where americans go to vacation every year. higher than israel, italy, ireland, it had a it had a per capita income of $8000. so this idea that the soviet union was so poor and so out of it and getting poorer all the time and empires that are real poor have to have a revolution, have to have a total dissolution like the soviet union i don't buy it. i don't think you can see evidence in history. the empire look lost in years and decline. they go on and decline. >> so i didn't break up? >> up? >> because gorbachev wanted to

compete with the united states in terms of technology and just what you said, there's no way the high-tech of sdi could be matched by anything in the soviet system. therefore he had to change the incentive and he had to change the way the system operated. and as marvin said, perestroika was a mess because he could not imagine how you reform. i don't blame him. at that time we had about 30 countries who had gone from communism to capitalism. but not one country had gone from capitalism to communism. but not one country had gone from communism to capitalism. there's no roadmap. he wanted communism with a human face just like in 1968 there is no communism. it was a mess that he had no clear idea of his path.

and much to his detriment it was a raging success because he opened up in the close pages of our pass. when you open up the close pages of the past you have two big headlights in your face one is called london and one stalin and neither is very pretty at all. >> i hate to interview but i feel like i have to. intervention is one of the reasons the soviet union collapsed. use short on your last picture on the slide that we might be able to put up a reference to yeltsin's. and there was a considerable number of books an article on boris nelson. there are several people in the audience that are scholars of russia and the soviet union who are shaking your heads is your beginning to speak. one of the precipitating events to bring something down was

really a decision first of all by a group including -- we mentioned to launch it cool against gorbachev. not because what he did related directly but because he is trying to have a new union treaty which decentralizes soviet union and then a decision by force yeltsin and a number of other republican leaders within the soviet union. mostly boris yeltsin to actually get rid of the soviet union behind the scenes. >> now they made those decisions for different reasons. i like to try to get back. i think it played something of a role because many people in the military and elsewhere were not happy about gorbachev negotiating with united states in such an open way. gorbachev resigned and he signed himself into history.

>> thank you for mentioning the coup attempt. >> so very quickly there is a few other important people in the audience so a couple people want to jump in here who i like to bring back and then we can get into the next. >> could you tell us about the reaction of president reagan's principal advisors to what was on the table. richard perle i think alluded or suggested his comments suggested that the delegation tried to come up with variants that probably some strategically minded advisors were less destabilizing. >> a gentleman here so we'll get a microphone back to you.

were getting two microphones. >> i was a young italian musk out correspondent. in your discussion you mentioned margaret thatcher, edward -- all the western europeans they are very seriously enemies of any kind of america. maybe they are much more conservative. and i remember they were conservative to any change to the system in europe at the time. i just remember after. so much german that would have two germanys rather than one. so could you talk about the european.

>> okay it will come back to that. >> i want to thank you so much for a very stimulating discussion. bob schadler with american foreign policy council. one of the things that came to mind with the discussion was how much people got it wrong throughout and at the time i was at the u.s. information agency and the jab we had was to explain to form publics who reagan was and what he was trying to do and what it was all about. it also has i guess in trying to connect the dots of this year where it seems every intelligent informed person has been wrong about most everything regarding domestic policies. so it should not be surprising

that most everybody, including reagan's closest aides and his worst enemies in the press and elsewhere got things pretty much wrong both about what reagan wanted to do and what was going to be the result. just ask for some reflections on how the informed audiences should try to screen out the quick impressions of people who are very close to what is going on and highly intelligent and informed as they try to inform the rest of us in the way that u.s. ai was supposed to do when it existed. how should we screen out what is going to be terribly wrong such as how long the soviet union is going to exist.

i have a very fickle volume of testimony in 1989 before congress and all the russian experts, almost nobody saw a glimmer of its demise. >> is a student at that point i decided -- i was very upset in december december 1991 when my newly minted degree disappeared on me. i went back to study history. so on the european front as our colleague who was also there from italy noted there was quite a different view on the part of the europeans. i'm sure there are not very happy about what happened on the saturday morning, a lot of sunday morning proposals on europe. >> you're absolutely right. we all remember and were there and traveling in europe at the time. had the deal gone through, our

year. i lies seen basically the nuclear deterrent posed by the united states collapse. it was that simple. as for the speculative question, i occasionally, particularly in preparation for this conversation have gone back to see how close actually it did come on several occasions including i can imagine the soviets actually picking up the last or maybe even the second to last american proposal that might have, if the president had allowed it, if reagan had allowed it to keep the adm treaty in place for another ten years while sdi was developed.

imagine what the world would be like now if that had gone through. by the way, there would have been a great deal of angst on the part of our allies and our nuclear priesthood, but the two presidents had the ability to sign a treaty like that. it would've been with the another set of anxiety and controversies different from the ones that we are dealing with here. >> that's a fascinating question. if they had signed it in the french and the british had established they wanted their independent nuclear force, so what would we have done it would been difficult to persuade them but that idea that the two big boys simon and how does the rest of the world adjust to that signature?

would they have objected and done horrific things? may be. the likelihood is they would've come on board eventually. these things happened in stages. the man who raised the question about how you get this information out, keep reading history because you're not going to get it up front very often. you get headlines and that's what we journalists do, provide headlines. we. we do it day by day, after a while, actually we do describe what has happened but it is with perspective that you really can pick up things and biographies. for to these these two men really think? the gorbachev story is still one having read his book and books about him i still have a feeling there is a great book to be done. if gorbachev had accepted reagan's proposal -- would've

gotten on a separate plane and flown back. >> we are going to talk about think that the nuclear powers in the next panel. they've written an article about -- plane is an issue and now we have the north korea dimension those [inaudible] the agenda. i like to thank our panel is very much for the time, they're giving us the most spirited vivid recollection of the 2i hope you have left plenty of other stories to read in the book luck with your trip i'm sure your colleagues will be putting on a good reception for you there. i going to get a chance to stay

another night, come back. and thank you very much for also giving us that real-time recollection i hope people get coffee and come back for the next session. >> i think the house is going to be haunted by gorbachev and

>> the second panel, we have a very interesting and enlightening first panel. i am angela, the the director of the center for european studies at georgetown university. i'm also a nonresident fellow. i have to say that i am very before we get into the question about what is happened since the collapse of the soviet union to

make brief remarks about 1986. one of looking floor, and the question why the soviet union collapsed. when gorbachev came to the united states in the early 1990s after the soviet collapse he gave it talk at the library of congress. and the librarian of congress and said what was your biggest mistake? and he said, i underestimated the nationalities problem. so i problem. so i do want to come back to what he'll set at the end. the collapse was the inability to work out an agreement between the center and the republics of the soviet union. that was related -- but in the end it brought the soviet union down. and the other brief reminiscence about 1986 to show how gorbachev had been through a major transformation before he left

president reagan was that i arrived in the soviet union in moscow three days before the chernobyl accident. i had a fellowship for one month at the institute for world economy and i had with me a one-year-old 1-year-old son. and that is relevant to what i'm going to say. i had been there two days, i'm listening to the bbc radio and that i realize that some catastrophes happen. in terms of a nuclear accident. in the next week, a few days later i gave a talk at the institute and tried to be forward leaning and talking about the importance of improving u.s. soviet relations. the person who hosted me then started attacking me for the quote unquote lies that the united states was telling about chernobyl. there have been no accident, nobody would had been killed. that was one version. by the way after my talk i have people privately come up to me and say what's really going on. in the three subsequent weeks gorbachev had a complete

turnaround after first while denying that something happened he went on television and admitted that something happen. unfortunately by then it was too late and so some of the children who have been playing soccer were the first with radioactive dust, anyway just before i left the soviet union on my last day, the very, very man who attacked me when i gave my talk came up to me and said take you very much for being here, terrible tragedy has happened and we have to work together and cooperate, the united states and soviet union to make sure this doesn't happen again. so this was a transformative moment. when you hear things emanate today about who's responsible for what and the downing of the malaysian airline and everything else it's a little reminiscent of what it was like in 1986 before gorbachev admitted what happened at chernobyl. so the first thing i like to say

is even though we do not succeed completely it was the beginning of an important process. something like that is hard to imagine to happen today. it was so much based on the personal relationship between these two leaders who, despite their differences got along well. we are at are at a point today where u.s. russia relations are worse than they have been since anytime since before gorbachev came to power. the personal relations between the two presidents are almost poisonous, but very negative relations. we know that yesterday a few to help mention this briefly in her introduction, the kremlin announced that russia was withdrawing from this agreement that they had with the united states on the disposal of weapons with plutonium. the

united united states was blamed for that and putin when he announced the said that the reason rushing was doing it was the emergence of a threat to strategic stability and a result of on friendly actions by the united states of america against the russian federation. he is now tied russia rejoining this to three conditions. one is that nato should withdraw forces which are in russia's neighborhood, what we have been beating up our forces to what's happening in ukraine. secondly we have to end the sanctions that were imposed after they annexed crimea and launched a war and then thirdly, congress has to aggregate the -- and this shows a continuing lack of understanding in the kremlin about the separation of powers in the united states or how our system works.

those are the three conditions. i mean they won't be met obviously so russia will not withdraw from this agreement. so the purpose of the panel today is task wise it being so challenging since the soviet collapse to reach and maintain, and increase arms control agreements between the united states and russia. you would've thought with the collapse of -- the end of the soviet union it would be easier to reach agreements and has been pointed out, and and every presidency since the collapse the president has started out rather hopeful and then in second terms for not talking about george h dubya bush administration but in the second term of clinton and george w. bush and obama, these arms control agreements have really stagnated and been frozen. they haven't been able to proceed.

this is tied to a broader scene which is that in the past 25 years each american president has come in to office or in george w. bush case he was in office seeking to improve relations with russia. there would be sections try to have a better relationship. all all of these have ended in disappointment because we have a different understanding of what our productive relationship with russia would look like. what has worked in the past 25 years has been issues where russia feels we are treating it as an equal and it feels respected and where our interest in those of russia nearly is coincided. one of those has been what happened in the fall of 2001, the cooperation with russia and in the case of the war of afghanistan the initial defeat of the taliban where russians were very helpful and cooperated with u.s. because we had a

common goal. the u.s. russian cooperation in disarming syria of its chemical weapons in 2013, the discussion we had with the agreement with iran and the arms control agreement. in arms control in general this is a field where the u.s. and russia deal with each other as equals. we are the two nuclear superpowers and russia usually feels it is being respected as a role player because we come to the table as equals. so more reason to question why it's been so difficult to complete and sustain these arms control agreement. we have two excellent speakers to discuss with us today. i'll i'll be turning first to steve, the principal, former assistant secretary of state dealing with arms control issues in the george w. bush administration. he has worked on capitol hill.

and then of course stephen, former ambassador to ukraine, having dealt with various levels of the state department and national security council with arms control issues. he is a senior fellow at brookings and director of the arms control, non- proliferation initiative and has written widely on these issues. i'm sure he will have a great deal to stay. i'm just going to say a few words about the background to win george w. bush came into the white house about what had happened during the current administration in terms of arms control agreement and then we can move on to see what happened since then. when president bill clinton took office in january 1993 he inherited two nuclear arms control agreement from the george hw bush administration.

one, and two, two, we heard about the background. one reduce each side to know more than 6000 strategic warheads on 1600 strategic delivery vehicles. and start to which had just been completed before the first president bush left office further a reduced each site to more than 3500 strategic warheads and also from the u.s. perspective very importantly it was supposed to ban all heavy icbms with multiple warheads. now start one entry into force was held up by an issue that were reminded of today that was the question of ukraine and its readiness to give up its own nuclear weapon. so when the soviet union collapsed ukraine was was the third largest nuclear country in the world. in the clinton administration

and the george wh bush administration worked hard to make sure russia was the only nuclear state. and that involved ukraine being willing to transfer their nuclear weapons to russia. anyway, i give great kudos to the clinton administration. they managed to do it both ukraine and russia were ambivalent and reluctant for different reasons and they signed the agreement in 1994. of course four. of course i was tied to the infamous budapest memorandum which gave ukraine assurances that if it relinquished its nuclear weapons its territorial integrity could be guarantee and it had security insurances which it course included the russian federation. in 1996 the senate ratified the start to agreement. then there were problems with moscow so

. . . cause of the deteriorating political relationship. particularly in the later part of the 90s the russian military was not happy about giving up on the multiple warhead and having icbms. then you have the beginnings of the disagreements with russia about nato enlargement in the later part of the 19 nineties. then in 1999 with the nato actions against serbia over kosovo with the bombing and so then you have delayed gratification of the agreement. so in 2000 and tied it and this is where we come back to star wars and i know we'll hear more about the missile defense but whether it then tied it to saying that the senate had to

ratify the 1997 agreement of the abm system. start to then which have been ratified and signed into law by president george h to be bush was then pulled back by vladimir putin when the united states announced it was unilaterally withdrawing from the abm treaty at the beginning of 2002. so by then you have these missile-defense issues which are now intruding on the arms control agenda. with that brief background i'm going to turn to you and we will look for to your discussion of arms control in the george w. bush administration and whether you have views about why, discussions on arms control did or didn't impact on the ability of the united states to cooperate with united states and

russia. >> well thank you angela and thank you for inviting me. i'm going to throw an idea on the table before i get into the discussion of the bush administration. in 2009i wrote an op-ed that was published in the wall street journal and give it the title why democrats fail at arms control, that was their title not mine. but the issue that i looked at was paradox. that by reputation republicans are deeply skeptical of arms control and democrats are deeply enthusiastic. yet if you look at the history of bilateral strategic arms control between the united states and soviet union and russia, the scorecard is astonishing. the republican presidents have a lot of accomplishments they can

point to. when i read the article in 2009 who was the case that no democratic president had negotiated or ever negotiated and brought into force the strategic arms control agreement with the soviet union or russia. why is that? how can it be that the guys who are skeptical and more success at this than those who are so. you can offer theory. one would be some of the democrats had bad luck. i think it was jimmy carter, it's not his fault the soviets invaded afghanistan so maybe you can excuse his inability to bring up the ratification of start to. in my article i put forward a different theory which was is kind of common sense among people, among a lot of us that in the negotiation, and we negotiated in our personal lives all the time. excessive enthusiasm usually is not conducive for getting results.

you're buying a car, even if you find a car that you really want, or especially if you find a car you really want i think you all know the last thing you to do is convey to the seller that you've made up your mind is that car no other. because if you convey that they become award aware that your demand for that car has been inelastic in the price goes up. the negotiation becomes prolonged because this seller thinks i'm not going to leave money on the table. i'm going to get as much out of the transaction as i can. and that's common sense. in our personal business transaction. for some reason i think some of our presidents not just democrats, think george hw bush and and the weapons convention was to enthusiastic and ended up

getting a bad deal too. for some reason many of our presidents have failed to translate what is common sense in any business transaction we might negotiated a personal level that the same applies between nations. in negotiating with the russians and conveying excessive enthusiasm can backfire. that that is my thesis in the piece that i wrote. those in 2009. president obama succeeded 2010 in ten in negotiating his arms control treaty with russia. though i would argue that negotiation became prolonged because of excessive enthusiasm on his part with that background i turn to the bush administration which has been accused of many things but never of excessive enthusiasm for arms control. so what was the record of the bush administration? they came to office more or less committed to abolishing the adm

treaty and have become an obstacle and also given the security environment that existed, committed to reductions in nuclear force levels. but not at all committed to the idea that it needed to be negotiated and agreed between the united states and russia. so the first thing the administration did was in december 2001 it aggregated the termination of the entry. now for approximately preceding decade every issue of the magazine arms control today had written in an editorial about how the adm treaty was the cornerstone the strategic ability and without it the entire architecture of arms control would collapse. the inevitable result would be a

new arms race between the united states and russia. in december 2001 this was put to test. five months later bush signed in arms control treaty with moscow providing reductions i think the first nuclear force level under the existing start treating was 6000 warheads and it was reduced to no more than arms control had firsttreaty y successful strategic arms control negotiations between united states and russia that took place in the wake of aggregation of the treaty.

what happened was the bush administration did an interview review and determined a nuclear force level that they prowght was appropriate in the security environment and announced it would reduce to a new level. basically came knocking on the door and said they are happy that you're reducing nuclearre forces but we really need a treaty and because it's very important psychologically to lock them and make them mutual. it's really important to us. we really want this treaty.. if it's that important to you, i guess we can signed the treaty.

here is what it has to say. we are not interested in yearsoi of negotiation and brought all the issues. we will sign this. the arms control industry mocked the treaty. i think somebody prohibited it in the front and back of a index card. it was a short treaty. this was a treaty you could print out in an index card but did require reductions by both sides to more than deployed nuclear weapons. so it was interesting that confronted with the administration that was basically indifferent to whether we got an arms control agreement or not, sudden the russians were not the obstacle. they were essentially insisting on agreement and the u.s. was in the position of saying, oh,he ae

okay, but it has to be on the terms and the russians said, yes, to the terms. so it was actually the first success in arms control in more than ten years and maybe in the q&a we can talk about the clinton administration, why it didn't necessarily want a very large nuclear force. it was prepared to do reductions too but it had some problems getting agreement with russia on what it wanted to do. basically trying to preserve the entry and the russians took advantage of that and the effort to negotiate arms control agreements during the clinton administration it was only by terminating the treaty that the ground was clear such that a bilateral arms control was possible. that's how we started in the bush administration, things as you suggested angela, thingsn.

kind of went downhill specially towards the second term. where did things go wrong. i was astonished. he interviewed lots of russian. near the top was the memorandum. i can ask for a show of hands how many people know what the code of memorandum and the russians were bittered by the way the bush administration handled that. nato involvement, the decision of missile defenses in poland, supporting the georgian government. i these are the traditional

answers but it's actually much more complex than that. so i think it became difficult to maintain that momentum andnd had to do with president putin and his effort to return something like a role it plays in the past. maybe i will stop there. >> steve, do you want to take up the story? >> i think if you look at how arms control has played in the obama administration and relationship over the last eight years, there's sort of threed it phases. it was pretty clear that when barack obama became president, he wanted to do something big on nuclear weapons and we saw this in the speech in april of 2009

where he embraced the goal of a role without nuclear weapons but also said, look, this may not happen in my lifetime. we have to have a deterrent that's secure and reliable. going back to the first panel, you know, obama and reag when were the first who had a passionate about getting rid of nuclear weapons. when the president went to moscow of july of 2009 they already had the guidelines of what it would look like. and that reflected, i think, a return to a more traditional approach, i think complaints that i heard about the bush administration when i was out of government talking to russians, yes, we understand the american desire to limit war heads only, but you limit deployed war heads, you don't limit reserve war heads and you don't limit

missiles and bombers and how does that not create a huge breakout potential. i think the russians were more comfortable in the obama administration indicated of going eliminating war heads but also vehicles and bombers. new start gave a boost, early progress was good for the u.s.-russia relationship. reset was a success. i think small a decreasing number of people but i see that as success in terms of what i understand the purpose was but to get out of a hole that we are in with russia in 2008 and get the russians to be doing things that the obama administration early on defind as u.s. interest. that was a strategic arms agreement, more help on ending

iranian nuclear program and helping in afghanistan in terms of getting supplies and forces easier to afghanistan. and on those areas in the first couple of years the obama administration can look back and achieved important things. by 2011, may or june, reset had run its course and declared reset a success and come up with a new term and that term would have failed. he wanted to go beyond new start and not only further cuts to strategic weapons but also none nuclear weapons. for the first an idea that you may have negotiation on i everything and then you see russia hold back. trying to figure out is an interesting question. we can speculate. they were content with new start at least at that point in time were not prepared to go beyond it. i think part of the reason waste the russians look at nuclear

weapons as political tools above and beyond strategic value and it gets into moscow's self-perception as russia as super power and really the only way they can compete in the world is with lots of nuclear weapons. another part and this maybe changing, the russians still saw themselves with significant gaps vis-a-vis nato and military forces and they saw nuclear weapons as part of the answer and was nato's policy during cold war. a part was also missile defense and the conversation that came up in the first panel about just how much the russians feared sdi and i was posted in the embassy in moscow from 1986 to 1988 and you would talk to soviets about sdi, there was the possible fear in ten years the americans are going to put us out of the ballistic missile business. it's interesting how much faithm

russians have in american technology. in '87 people like sardeov, look, loss, this is really rocket science. it's hard to do and as the leadership in moscow understood that i think made possible to linking that was prepared to go to the start treaty when there was no give on the american side on defense and questions. the technology on missile defense still applies today. i go back to a comment made by a russian deputy prime minister when he was talking about the european adaptive approach.ster yes, we know there's going to be 4, 5, 6 and 7 and so there is, i think, in moscow this fear that somehow the americans are goingg to be clever to come up with something on the missile defense side that really will change the equation. on missile defense, it actually started out as fairly a positive

issue between washington and moscow and in september of 2009, the obama administration announced reconfiguration of missile defense plan for europe, replaced the bush plan with adaptive approach and originally that seemed to be approvedproved in moscow. and so at the end of 2010 you even had a nato-russia summit. they met with nato leaders and they agreed, let's see if we can come up with a cooperative nato russia defense for europe. in 2011 what i heard from both american and russian participants, there was converged and thinking. there can't be a single system because nato doesn't want to work for russia and russia doesn't want to work for nato but two system that is would interact through demand centers, what would be a data fusion center, you take data from nato sensors and from russia east interest, bring it together and enhance product back to both sides n. the second center, the

threat to europe and how do you deal with it, but kind of with this, the russians would also begin talking about they want legal guaranty and treaty that american missile defenses would not be going against russian strategic forces and then they said, well, it has to be objective criteria. when they asked where is objective criteria, we want limits on numbers and locations. it really was resurrection ofs the treaty and the obama administration didn't even pursue that recognizing that there was no chance that that kind of treaty would have a consent on the hill. and so then i think in 2000 where arms control begins to drift a bit, you see the russian position on missile begins to hardened and they bring ore questions, we can talk about nuclear reductions but solution on missile defense. we have to deal with conventional strike weapons,

conventional arms -- in europe and they begin sort of make all the linkages that make it very hard to unravel all and then you have two things happen both in russia and united states you have presidential elections and arms control is on hold from late 2000 to 2012, the result of that is that instead of obama mdveda you have obama and putin and the chemistry there is there but not good chemistry. [laughter] >> there was on the part of the administration.on they put forward a new idea but got no traction from the russians and i think part of the problem here is in moscow the context had changed is that vladimir putin when he came back, announced he was going to run in september 2011, that really was i'm going run but

also going to be the president, the election was nearly a formality, but mr. putin really then begin to talk in terms of russian nationalism, russia is a great power, russia reasserting its place in the world stage and a significant a bit of antiamericanism mixed into that. it looks like that really is a part of now how russia looks itself in terms of regimeitics legitimacy and arms control doesn't really fit in well with that. so that becomes a problem. the third phase comes really after 2014, follows russia's illegal seizure of crimea, arms separatism in ukraine, you haved u.s.-russia relations crash since cold war. the administration moved to isolate russia politically and moved with europe union to apply

sanctions on russia and ratchet down diplomatic differences. but there really was no engagement on that. also in december of 2014, you had the questions arise over the intermediate forces when the u.s. made public conclusion that russia had tested a ground-launch missile in violation of the inf treaty. the russians responded with charges of american violations so here arms control now is becoming a problem on the agenda and again you hear, i think, more and more russian complaints about missile defense. so arms control which at the beginning to have administration is a positive and continued the relationship by the last couple of years has become a negative. in some ways just to close up, it seems to me that this is something both like clinton and the bush administration's experience is that the beginnings arms control, even though you say arms control wasn't on the top of the george

w. bush list of things to do, it did do some things in the way that were positive early on in terms of the u.s.-russia relationship. in the second term, clinton administration, the bush administration and in the obama administration, arms control issues related questions like missile defense had become problem issues that had contributed to a more difficult relationship. >> thank you both very much. before i go to questions, i wonder if we could just say -- both of you would like to say of what happens if we now decide that the russians have violated inf treaty, what are the implications of that? >> well, we have pointed a finger at the russians -- >> right. >> we determined that russia's -- is testing missile and therefore these tests are illegal. i'm not aware that we made a

finding that they are deployed those kinds, although one would suspect that they're testing, they're certainly holding out that option of deployment. the -- you know, during my time during the bush administration i had conversations with russians where it was very clear, they are unhappy with this treaty and in fairness to russians, they have some legitimate complaints. this is a treaty that forbids missiles of a certain range but the only countries subject to prohibition are the united states and russia and some other states to the soviet union, you know, iran is not subject to it. north korea is not subject to it, india, pakistan not subject. so, you know, if you're russia and all the countries that are free to deploy these -- these missiles and some of them are deploying, you start to wonder, you know, why -- how are we

supposed to respond? we are forbidden by this treaty from a different time with a party that's pretty far away from us. you know, is this really durable over the long term? and, you know, i guess relations are getting better with cuba, but if cuba were deploying inf-range missiles, how much patience would the united states have with the idea that we can't reciprocate because we have treaty can russia from 1988. so it's been my sense for a long time, at some point the russians are going to pull out of this. you know, it seems to me that what we are seeing is them taking steps of getting ready to do that. i guess, my advice would be let's not do the russians a favor of terminating the treaty ourselves if we can avoid it. they just terminated the plutonium disposition agreement,

was it yesterday or this week? so, you know, they took the hit on that, let them bear the onus on that decision and like wise on inf, should they perceive to deploy inf missiles in violation of a treaty -- i would hope that they would terminate the treaty in accordance -- in respect to that decision f they don't, our hands are forced. i don't think we should make it easier for the russians to deploy inf-range missiles. in the meantime, i'm all in favor of talking to them to trying to persuade them to step off of the ledge. it's probably not realistic to expect the russians to live under the inf treaty over the long-term. >> i think i agree with what a lot of steve points. i do understand the russian position where you look at the countries that are developing range missiles and they are

closer to russia than the united states. when you look at other russian forces, conventional forces, it's not like they need a missile to match with what the chinese have. that would be the first point. if the russians decide they have a problem, the way they do it is not to cheat on the treaty, exercise the provision which was built from the treaty to withdraw from it. i think steve is right. the russians don't want to do that. they don't want to bare the responsibility for killing inf. just to comment on the obama administration's response, so far the charges that russia has tested but not yet deployed. as long as they haven't deployed,ia cautious response makes sense. if they do actually begin to respond the missiles, the going to change the game. one of the reasons why i believe the obama has administration has been cautious at least on the military side, there's non

requirement for building response. when we did deploy, missiles and along with that and sources here. it was a pretty painful process. we ended up doing it and t deploying missiles in europe was sun of the key reasons why we got the inf treaty but i don't know anybody on the other sidere of the atlantic that wants to go through that experience again. [laughter] >> you know, the question is if we we wanted to build a range missile, where do we put it? i don't think we could put it anywhere that we could allow to reach russia.

>> you've written a book about this, i think a lot of this isit hearing, was this a major issue -- [laughter] >> could you give -- i was students that i would normally be teaching. i want them to listen to this too. [laughter] >> there may be a quiz. [laughter] >> thanks, maybe i don't know, congratulations or commiseration. you know, the argument in the book is the russians took the -- what they took is disrespect and really embarrassing their president. >> could you maybe explain what happened with the home ran do you -- home memorandum thr

negotiated and at the time sent down to parallel the osce negotiations for transsettlemens negotiations that i was heading and i talked with kozak and couldn't get him to join the efforts because claimed that they wanted to do it separately. the mondovan told me that the russians wanted to the id separately. key was probably that the russians really desired to keep a pretty meaningless troop presence as political hook, but on moldova as a whole and ukraine, being down southwest of ukraine.d then to but they rushed through the memorandum just ahead of the osce presenting an agreed memorandum to the two sides and the one that they showed to me

to get western approval did not have three key articles in it which had to do with a long-term russian troop presence in the country. when the version with the true presence was leak today me, i sent it back to a couple of places. solona was able to call himself realtime. i think his words you can kiss moldova's european future good-bye if you sign this. signed the memorandum and called him about 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning. the russian press is already on the plane. putin was prepare to go fly down and this happened two days after

he was carried out of the georgian parliament on live tv and moldovan citizens protesting outside the presidentialand wi building. in any case, the russians took it very seriously. the russians, the point of the book the russians take the near abroad much more seriously than we do. missiles in cuba or russians in cuba, you remember the cuban brigade in '78 or '79. the fallout, it was about that time and whether it was georgia, moldova, all of them together, it was a clear turning point in what had been in my perception on the ground out there for my own fox hole of a russia that we were able to cooperate with on some -- at some point or on some

things and russia that was more suspicious and less willing to let westerners of various sort,, sorts in. the attitude whether this is accurate or not but certainly as week later, ivanov schemed at us, stating when you intervene in the balkins we didn't like it but didn't stop it and we get an agreement, settlement in our area and you wreck it and things went downhill from that time. but, you know, as you pointed out, they go up and they go down again. they go up again and go down d again but they remember it farup more than we do because it is really in their backyard. the position of kazak was equivalent to steve, so you can imagine what would have happened had there been an appropriation mirror image. in any case, it's a part of an

area that's sensitive to them,aa remains sensitive as you and others have noted. and one, that we sometimes don't appreciate the importance that they attach to these countries and we saw that again in ukraine in 2013-2014. >> thank you very much. >> footnote. >> you would like a footnote. >> the way the president came to us was he told our embassador, i have this memorandum, i propose to sign it, i would like an american endorsement. he apparently was asking the europeans to do the same thing. we took a look and our conclusion was it's unworkable because it basically gave break away piece the ability to veto foreign policy, security possibility, had moldova said,

it's not our place to tell you not the sign this. you can sign this but we are not going to endorse it and the sense of the embassy was, hers wanted to be able to go to population because he thought there would be domestic pushbacks saying the americans and europeans are making me do this. [inaudible] >> first version is the one you looked at and came back and we told him that osc did the same thing and we couldn't support it but we fell if he was going to sign it, we couldn't steer them off because you had not seen tha portion or the article where is the troop presence and there was a two-part-thing. he definitely wanted western, both u.s. ofce and eu approval of doing it. he had told the russians this allegedly he told me later that

the russians told him that the osc had been approved, which was not the case. it's clouded in stories of each participant who claims that they did it one way or another. at the end of the day with putin sitting in moscow, kozak at the airport angry and veronan wondering who he had done and you have resentment on both sides on something that had been that close to settling and had failed similarly. sort of like other things that are being -- yeah. [laughter] >> here we have the narrative problem vividly explained. we do have time for questions on arms control, other aspects ofqu u.s.-russian relations from what you heard.we wil >> can you identify yourself?

>> hello, my name is jeff hon. i wanted -- in the last panel they discussed summit in great detail which is fascinating and i was wondering about the legacy specifically of gorbachev and relation on putin and any future russian leader because gorbachev is despised in russia today and i believe any future russian leader would fear looking weak in subject of arms control. do you feel that it negatively impacts relations? >> that's a good question, who would like to take that up? >> i don't have any great insights into sort of the russian side on that issue, but, you know, do i think we need to understand. russia is going to do -- it's a great nation. russia is going to do what's

it's in its national interest. conventional wisdom, countries that feel weak in unconventional terms, terms of conventional forces, often fall back to nuclear weapons as the safe guard for their security. that was what we did during colh war when we felt inier forconventionally and the worst able to deployed. today clearly the the role is reversed. they feel weak relatively to nato. and so, you know, i hope this doesn't come as a shock, obama's agenda, abolish nuclear weapons from the face of the earth, that's a nice aspiration but you will find zero support for moving in that direction.

i don't think we are going to find takers in russia. now, is that because of the gorbachev? no, i don't think so. hard-headed calculation of leaders and where the security lies in global environment. maybe i will go further, a big part of obama's problem is he has set objective, putin has embraced, it's his objective but obama's success is being measured with reference to how success he achieves in realizing the objective. to make progress, he needs to sign agreements with russia. so, you know, if you're the russians, that's a source of leverage. obama wants something and you're not really enthusiastic. it's sort of the flip side. they were enthusiastic, we weren't. so we got to impose our terms.

today what obama faces is he is the one who has political need to sign new arms control agreements with russia and the russians don't really have that need. they're basically satisfied with the current arms control regime. new star will expire and we can deal with that later. i don't think the russians want a nuclear arms race but they don't need nuclear reductions, to make obama happy they'll probably be prepare today agree with some for a price, but, you know, it'll be a price that we would pay and not a price that they would pay. that's obama's frustration. of course, russians are trying to make a pay price. >> i think the legacy was actually much more in the short-term with despite the initial sense that the summit

had failed within, what, a little bit over a year, you have the inf treaty banning an entire class of nuclear weapons. it's pretty significant achievements. now as i make the point, it did make thinking about going to zero respectable. i personally think -- i support a world without nuclear weapons. it makesceps as u.s. policy goal. i don't know how we can get there. that's based on two reasons, one is i worry that nuclear deterrence will succeed in cold war and came close to breaking down and the result of a breakdown would have been 40 million dead, so the question is do you want to live with that risk? i think actually given -- if you could have a veriable none nuclear war, for the united states given geography, alliance structures, given american conventional power, the risk of that are less than a nuclear world. i think mr. putin doesn't buy

into that at all. he looks at his situation, wait, i am the leader of a declining power with the stagnant economy. i have 1.5 billion chinese next door. nuclear weapons are about the only way i secure my security and that's going to be, i think, why getting to -- even moving in the direction significantly is going to be difficult because the russian perception from their security is very different from the way we look at it. >> okay. at >> i got the impression from your particular comments about the inf treaty and the possibility that russia may in one way or another find itself outside of that treaty or, you know, not necessarily back out because of the political

consequences but break it. it seems to me that then it does have russia -- russia does in this case has an interest in maybe an update of the treaty as opposed to backing out of it and update to include the circumstances of today's world and the -- the presence of nuclear weapons and other actors that are not included in the treaty. and it seems like on this particular issue they may have more interest than some of the other areas and i was wondering if there's any possibility that that could come out? >> well, in terms of, you know, modifying inf treaty, the one idea that you'll often hear>> wp suggested is instead of getting rid of inf treaty, why don't we globalize it, address russia's

concerns of expanding it, the group of countries that are subject to its restrictions. in principal, that sounds like a great idea, you need to talk to chinese, indians, north koreans, how many of them are interested in doing that. i think opponents of that idea argue that proposals to globalize -- proposals to mount an effort to globalize the inf treaty will probably translate in practice to the abolition because the effort will be mounted and fail and then those who try to globalize it will have a good excuse for explaining why they decided since the west of the rorld has expressed no interest in the treaty, why should we keep it. that would be a conclusion one to draw if the inf treatywith tr collapsed.but i am n

in terms of globalizing, russia can have inf missiles. you know, missiles of that size are mobile so russia has them in one and could move them to another in a crisis.th i'm not sure that it would be a. modification that we would be very comfortable with. >> i think in 2007, 2008 thel russians made a proposal at the un which u.s. governments supported to globalize imf treaty. there were no takers. it hasn't been pushed since then. >> okay. over there. lady in red. >> cristina, i've supported u.s. nonproliferation programs for about ten years.it i was just curious with the elections coming up here and

recent elections in russia, what nonproliferation arms control goals would you recommend for the next administration? [laughter] >> good question. >> well, i guess you have enough panels about the iran nuclear agreement. maybe i shouldn't take us there. >> take us wherever you want. [laughter] >> you know, with russia i'm not optimistic that great progress is in prospect. in fact, i honestly think the united states look kind of ridiculous coming in asking for deeper reductions for nuclear weapons when russia is in places like ukraine. russia is going to look at us from another planet and we don't quite get what is going on, but set aside, russia for the most port, the biggest problems on

the horizon are iran and north korea. i think specially if the hillary clinton administration, there maybe consideration given to some sort of diplomatic initiative to try and replicate the certify seefed success. with iran on the korean peninsula, i'm skeptical -- anyn negotiation with north korea basically involves bribes and history the last of the 25 years demonstrate that is the north koreans are very happy to accept bribes. they are not actually happy to deliver on their part of the bargain and i don't know why the different outcome -- the clinton administration tried that, the bush administration tried it. to its credit the obama administration hasn't tried it. they recognize that -- fool me once, shame on you, full me twice shame on me, and fool me a

third time -- that's basically where we are, we start trying to bribe north koreans again to give up nuclear weapon's program. iran, lots of people celebrating how we solved that problem. i think we put it on hold for ten years. it'll be back in much more form with us having signed off on much a robust nuclear weapon's infrastructure if that's what they want to have. >> the next administration is urgent issue is going to be north korea. russia is really kind of a big player in that. it's not that they have huge influence what the north koreans, i'm not sure that figures on u.s.-russia agenda. if you go back to some kind of a dialogue between united states and russia on arms control, if g you wanted to move forward,

you'd have to reconcile, i think, two very different approaches, what has opinion in the last eight years, american desire to move to further reductions but also bring nonstrategic weapons and the russians desire, conventional strike and there maybe ways to bridge those differences but will take quite a bit of work. >> mayra, university of washington. i was fashion -- fascinated by the way negotiation and enthusiasm and the element affects negotiations. i would like you to reflect a little bit more on the moment oc unilateralism at this period of un time and unilaterally the united states find one thing and russians come and put it in a treaty, treat us as equal

element and that somehow there's a change in context in moscow and the national context in moscow and that there is more aggression moving forward. so if you can piece these two episodes together, do you see that that moment is a reflectiod or response to a moment of more strength on the united states part affording unilateralism and now this is the time to pay the price you were talking about, but kind of justified or rational price? >> yeah. i think if you look at how putid , there's part of what's driving him. domestic politics. it goes to 2000-2008 putin was good at economics because the economy grew and living standards rose.

this is what regime legitimacy is about. when he came back in presidency in 2012 the economic situationon was much more complex and that's where you see this appeal to russian nationalism and restoration of great power. that's been a big part of it. another part goes back and this goes back to both the bush administration and also the mini clinton administration is putin has this huge chip on his shoulder, the sense of grievance that the united states, the west mistreated russia and he cites nato enlargement. in his version of nato enlargement, nato enlargement organized by the united states, britain and germany to containy russia to bring military force up to russia's borders. i think it was very different. it was designed to respond to appeals by central european countries who basically said, ws want to be full members of europe.. ap like wise, look at the way he talks about the arms revolution in ukraine, the georgia u these

aren't manifestations of populations that say, wait, our election was stolen, or we're unhappy with bad governance. again, putin describes it, these are western plots, american plots against design today promote regime change and ultimate target is regime change in moscow and talks about it so much that he actually believes it. i think the reality is very different but from his perspective he has a sense of grievance. he has a sense that he's defending an encroaching west and that may explain things why he's most interested in arms control and worries aboutan missile defense because he has defense that i personally think is wrong but perception can be a reality. do you know ..

but it was not ever that decision. >> get was unilateral. with the decision of the reductions and also h. w. bush for those non-strategic weapons. and division and the whole. and they would match the. and then what would happen with the non strategic weapon. i'm sure they were frustrated because they like using the

treating negotiating process to try to limit the u.s. on other issues like missile defense and conventional strategic weapons. i have a whole list of things they want to try and slow the advance their interests by taking arms control negotiations hostage. that was the history of the new start negotiations took much longer than it should have because the russians kept trying to link it to other issued to see whether obama's enthusiasm to get this treaty, was prepared to make concessions. >> cannot encourage the panel to comment on the proposition that the intellectual architecture or arms control as we knew it during the cold war is, in fact,

an anachronism today? and arms control as we understood it in the past is not very important, not very relevant, and no matter whether we attempt agreement or choose not to attempt agreements it isn't going to make mucherence difference. >> steve pifer first. >> you will give the supporting argument. >> i think that's largely true.. the history of arms control was we were in a nuclear arms race and that was the kennedy, johnson, nixon administrations. the first goal of arms control was to stop the arms race and then under reagan may be given to try to roll back weapons levels. we do face a different security environment today. there's no nuclear arms race, no

country is going to spend billions of dollars to try and gain nuclear advantage in the current environment. and a lot of ways and to improve relations and especially the way for the russians they said that we can. if you have the weekend and you better play that pretty well. to achieve those confessions .

and much better off we will do it if it makes you feel better with those other issues so we don't want to talk about in geneva. he has this agenda to abolish the nuclear weapons so that invites the russians to pay a price and that is what they need to do. >> and do think there is value to reduce the number of weapons and the united

states but that doesn't make sense to produce some transparency what better support of notifications that you know, lot more using your own unilateral means. the bush met administration said yes to go down at 2200 and thence we will stay at 6,000 there is a continued place for arms control. with a competition but the risk is a smaller break down.

and i do agree with the obama and frustration. to extent of the role of nuclear weapons. wit and with those advantages. >> and undergraduate student at georgetown. so of great difficulty of future are control agreements that russia perceived it is not a reality the u.s. had. if you want to avoid making concessions how would one approach into the idea of these numbers is important. >> as i said earlier it is a

great power. nothing makes them angrier than what is in their interest. they really get mad. and then to have of better deal and how to deal with the reagan, -- i ran we have to be careful that progress will be possible on arms control when it is then rushes interest -- russia interest. but right now talk about transparency or verification finally it is more important

to russia because we have much better satellite surveillance capabilities and an idea of what is going on than they do so the transparency under arms control is why it is astonishing. because that was a way to stick it to the obama administration. and it is a tribute and obama needed that deal more than they did politically. but it is in their interest

then to approach those negotiations and then to get a better result. under the new s.t.a.r.t. treaty and then to play strategic nuclear warheads and in summer retreat for 2,005,000. that never allows them to feel comfortable of pakistan or saudi arabia they don't need to have the involvement by these other countries. but it is very, very difficult to come up with a negotiation that where they

come down like tied them with unequal limitations. and with another agreement to make a unilateral commitment but you cannot get much n terms with united states and russia and nobody else above 300. pdf. >> a fellow with the woodrow wilson center. i have the question not necessarily arms control but on the modernization.

but to reduce the numbers and looking at their proposed $1 trillion i believe? and to modernizing the weapons potential for nuclear arms troops. could you bring us to the russian perspective with some modernization of their own? but if that $1 trillion plan will they match this? >> an ounce at $700 billion plan and what they talked about on the strategic side is with a 10 year . to build 400 intercontinental ballistic missiles. ill looks like it was to

have those elements of the new s.t.a.r.t. treaty that what we're doing is getting new missiles with the inventory now that would have been replaced 10 years ago. it is not the level of the new start agreement. modernization is always hard to talk about so they are building new submarines new intercontinental ballistic missiles all lots of that is necessary i question certain aspects of that but when you

have the pentagon to say here is our plan or how we can build this is a time bomb many years down the road or with any long-term stance of the of modernization program. that is just some of the numbers. with a long range cruise missile that has advanced capabilities. but we have to come to grips and deal with those questions otherwise to be in a position of uh continental ballistic missiles and i don't think the pentagon has come to grips with that. >> if you're with president obama and you think we are onn

the cusp of the abolition of nuclear weapons hopefully during his lifetime, the yardstick he put out, then these investments make no sense. why spend all this money to produce weapons that will then dismantle? if you don't actually think that goal is likely to be realized, that's the category i'm in, of course you to spend the money because we are going to be in this business for a long time to come. weapons systems, b-52's built in the 1950s. they are not going to last forever and you need to be replaced and replacement is going to cost money. i do get exasperated at this trillion dollar figure. that's the 30 year cost estimate. i don't know what the 30 or cost estimate was for obamacare that we never heard it during the debate because a lease from the proposed of obamacare because i would've been such an enormous number iwo