like something i could do, not because i had formal education but because i need to learn algebra and i will buy a book and i will turn it. i didn't do an amazing job but i barely got through. i kept going with that and i think yeah, my parents took it too far. i arrived at the university underprepared and i once raised my hand in the class and asked what the holocaust was. i had never heard of it. people thought i was denying it and i had never heard of it before. i wouldn't say this is the ideal education i would not say that. >> watch "after words" sunday night at 9:00 eastern on tv on c-span2. >> joining us for the next 45 minutes or so is former energy secretary and the obama administration, artist, now the cochair and ceo of the nuclear threat initiative. thank you for being with us this morning. you are a man who lived through the nuclear threat of the cold war and can you compare what

that was like to the potential threat that we are aware of today in the world iran, north korea, other areas. >> guest: at the end of the cold war in the early '90s i think a lot of people were hoping that the whole issue in the specter of nuclear weapons use was behind us but unfortunately today i would have to say that the possibility of a nuclear weapon been used is probably higher than any time since the cuban missile crisis and our concern is less on intentional use in a certain sense as opposed to an act of miscalculation, a blunder that provides faulty information, for example the president of the united states or president of russia andid leads to nuclear u. >> host: is this a feeling you are feeling while you were energy secretary? >> guest: yes, indeed. although, i think it has gotten

worse in the intervening. for example, with russia let's face it our relationship is very forward and much less medication that was going on even with the cold war and that is what adds with the mistranslation is what could lead us to a very bad outcome split your leading the nuclear threat initiative and what is that organization doing to mitigate nuclear threats in the m world? >> guest: it's an organization that has been in place since early 2001 established by ted turner and sam nunn. what has distinguished the organization and led me to be excited to be able to move in to that ceo role is that the organization is a thing take to a certain extent but more than that it operationalize its programs. for example, going to the early part of the organization helps move very dangerous nuclear materialge out of serbia during

the hostilities there but more recently just last year we cut the ribbon on what is called the lower iranian bank that provides security of supply to discourage countries from having enrichment technology. the organization tries to get stuff done on the ground as well as present new policies. >> host: when you look in the new times was there opportunities missed to come back the threat that is now further developing in countries customer. >> guest: i think first of all in the '90s there were very, very strong efforts done to control and illuminate clear materials in nuclear weapons. then it's not nuclear directly but indirectly issues with russia began to build. for example, nato expansion was something that russia had a lot of problems with to put it mildly. these things have been building up but clearly the issues around

ukraine in 2014 exacerbated the relationship and now we are in a situation that is very dangerous in not having sufficient communications including military leaders so that we know what we're doing and understand what each is doing and we don'td blunder into a nuclear confrontation. >> host: if you're joining us this morning in the wake of the top imaginations release of their own nuclear posture review and your participation in the munich security conference recently and p what was that conference all about? >> guest: it's a legendary annual event that brings together leaders literally presidents, prime ministers, defense ministers, foreign ministers and of course, others from the private sector once a year to discuss a full range ofr security issues. you mentioned the nuclear posture review and it was certainlyy got attention at munich and to be honest there was a lot of concern. if i may say the first thing

about the nuclear posture review the ministration put out is it does have a lot of continuity with the past and it does endorse continuing moratorium om mclear testing for example, it maintains a deterrent posture of nuclear weapons and the like but two areas of concern that have been raised is that on the one hand it seems to expand the field of use of the weapons including nonnuclear attacks which appear to include things like cyber attacks and secondly, it does talk about putting a new class of low yield weapons on submarines that most of us think will move us in the wrong direction in terms of this calculation as opposed to the right direction ... the negative

political dynamic between nato includes regular >> has been bearing today given the uncertainty that has engulfed the trumps a administration's relationships with nato and russia. and you write that forward deployed u.s. nuclear weapons in europe increase the risk of accidents, blunders or terrorism and invite preemption. given these add risks it's past time to revisit whether the forward-based weapons for military deterrence and political reassurance. the trump administration's national security strategy of december 2017 commits to discontinue deployment without considering the analysis that liegers from a hard look. do you think forward deployed weapons should not be there? >> guest: basically, yes. of course, what we're calling for is a re-examination.

let get it on the table. but i have to say that i think there's a consensus, including among military, they frankly the weapon does not satisfy any military objective. secondly, we have a very capable and very flexible nuclear deterrent without them. third, it's very difficult to imagine a u.s. president thinking that the first use of a nuclear weapon would come by our having a plane and a pilot from some other country be the delivery vehicle and then let's face it. we have a new world of terrorism. we have some instability, certainly on the southern flanks of nato. turkey and syria, for example. and i think the -- at a minimum, a very serious analysis about what are the risks of matched up against -- no, no military best interest we can see is there. we recognize that at a time of difficult relationships with

russia it would be difficult to address the political -- the geopolitical reason for that deployment, but we say, look, it's time to start doing serious analysis and balance the risks. in the end, frankly, i think we should be pulling those weapons back but making it very clear, again, our absolute commitment to nato and our absolute nuclear commitment to nato. >> host: was this an issue you ever raised in obama administration in development of the nuclear posture of that administration and, secondly, what is the role of the energy department in overall nuclear strategy when it concerns the military? >> guest: the obama administration, was done in 2010 which is before i was in the administration, but the -- president obama certainly had very comprehensive and i think forward-looking viewed on the nuclear deterrent.

let me make it very clear. the president always said, as long as we have nuclear weapons, they have to be safe, secure, reliable. secondly, the president did in fact put forward the modernization program in terms of saying, look, we're relying on a nuclear enterprise with facilities, 50, 60, 70 years old. we have to reinvest to have a reliable deturn. he put forward the correct approach to saying we have to keep working to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our military tragedy. and never lose our absolute deterrent to prevent use. second part of the question, the department of energy -- especially through our national will beer toes -- is responsible for the design and maintenance of the nuclear arsenal. that is not a policy role

technically but the secretary of energy is on the national security council and when these nuclear issues are discussed, and then the secretary has seat at the table as i did and my pred seeser toeser toeser to --r and my success you. >> host: let's up the phone lines. >> host: robert is on a republican line in brook brooklyn. >> caller: can you explain the israeli government ability to build nuclear with a -- and like to ask the second question is, there was a -- israeli surprise

-- [inaudible] -- israel and israel going into the laboratory and bring them back to the united states. those two questions, please. >> host: relationship of israel and germany in terms of nuclear weapons. anything you can comment on that? >> guest: well, germany does not have nuclear weapons, although they rahr member of nato, and there's no -- to my knowledge no specific relationship of germany and israel with regard to nuclear -- the nuclear deterrent that the united states -- i should also add, the united kingdom and france, supply for european defense. in the middle east, obviously, we are working -- we work -- i work in the administration and i continue to work on trying to enforce nonproliferation norms.

we don't want to see nuclear weapons spreading any more than they have unfortunately over the last couple of decades. >> host: travis on the democrat line in vermont. >> caller: hi. good morning. first of all, mr. moniz, i want to thank you and commend you for your work in negotiating and securing the iran nuclear deal. secondly, my question has to do with your former role as energy secretary. i was wondering if you can speak to the risk to the electrical grid that solar flairs pose? and do you feel that hardening out electrical grid to solar events should be a priority. >> guest: well, let me say, first of all, more broadly, i think that hardening the grid, if you like, i would say making

it more resilient against a number of threats, you mixed solar flares and extreme circumstances those certainly are an issue, but i'd like to say at that time frankly, i would say cyber threats are probably a greater present danger, but in general, what we need to do is we need to get a much more resilient system. we need to continue the deployment that was started nearly ten years ago now, in terms of much more able sensors that can detect disturbances and isolate part of the grid with problems. and it's not only on he high voltage system, the transition system, but also when you get to the distribution systems, the lines going into people's houses and the like, and start hooking

up all of your internet addressable appliances at home to the internet, we are creating the possibility of tremendous new services for consumers are but at the same time we are elevating things like cyber risks. so i think it's an integrated view to looking at the whole spectrum of issues. the -- we can never forget the electric grid is like the lifeline of all lifelines. every truck, financial and more, depend upon reliable, high quality electricity delivery. this is an area that is absolutely critical, and i might ad, the administration, of course, put forward a couple of weeks ago a framework for addressing american infrastructure. i think that the program, first of all, many of wuss agree, we see it every day, how we need a new infrastructure but i would

say, i would really elevate very much in those discussions the energy infrastructure, and most especially probably the electricity infrastructure, again, as our key lifeline network. >> host: the caller asked -- thanked nowor your role in iran nuclear deal. want to show this tweet by president trump in wake of the administration's opposition to that deal and their evidents to mitigate or undo the deal. 2010, never gotten over that at that time obama was abe toty 1.7 billions in cash to iran and nobody called for an investigation. i wanted to get your opinion on what you think the trump administration is trying to do in terms of itself view of the iran deal. >> guest: well, first of all issue don't want to go into detail but the issue of the payment, that was payment of a court ordered settlement of resources that were appropriated by the united states back in the

iranian revolution time. let go on to the agreement. i think that's more relevant today, clearly. first of all, i think that there has been a misconception from the very beginning, in 2015, in terms of the agreement. the principle criticism was not of the agreement but of what the agreement is not. it was never intended to address missiles, to address yemen, hezbollah, human rights. these are all very serious issue and we have a lot of problems with iran, obviously in the region, and now syria as well. so, i think all of us believe that we should be pushing back hard with our allies and friends on these issues, very concern about the security of israel, for example, with hezbollah, and iran's support of hezbollah. so, let push hard on those. i might add, in the obama

administration, after the iran deal, additional sanctions were placed on iran for reasons that were not nuclear. the deal takes the nuclear weapons threat off the table. it does not relieve us of the need to address all the other issues. the second issue is that now we hear a lot about the sunset of the agreement. i want to make it very, very clear, this agreement does not sunset. there are restrains on iran's nuclear activity that good away, some in ten years, some in 15 years the like. however, the core of the agreement, the most important thing, are their verification measures put in place in the agreement. after all, let's face it, what are we most concerned about? the enit's not about what iran is telling us what they're doing. it's about covert activity.

transparency, the ability to go anywhere in the country, with a short time frame, to look at anything suspicious, that is what is critical. that never sunsets. this is a permanent, unique, verification measure. that is the strength of the agreement. i we were to break the agreement while iran is acknowledged to be in compliance, we never get that back and that would be a terrible blow to our and our allies' national security needs. >> host: on our independent line, bob, go ahead. massachusetts. >> caller: good morning. thank you, c-span. you do a great job over there, guys. for this. >> i would just like to see -- this is all i'd like to say -- you were part of the very worst administration that ever, ever governed our country, and history will record that, even though right now all the democrats live with the denial of what you people did to our country. you were the worst

administration ever. now, everybody that died in iraq in that war, after mr. obama pulled everybody out so he could create isis -- well, he didn't create them but day were create because of his actions -- now all those people that are dead, that blood is on his hands. he could have stepped in the arab spring and stopped the syrians from being slaughter bid aassad and did nothing. then the russians landed. you have the very worst international things going on that i've ever seen in my life. >> host: all right, bob. any followup? >> guest: well, this would take a long time to answer all of these assertions. if you'd like to talk about foreign policy issues, i invite you go back to 2003 and talk about what a great year that was for u.s. diplomacy. >> host: here's the republican line, john.

>> caller: yes, sir. i spent 20 years in the united states air force and 26 of that i was a pilot in the strategic air command. so i was kind of on the pointed end of the spear that was going to wage nuclear war. global nuclear war with the soviet you. union -- soviet union. there's a little humor that comes with the job because it would drive you crazy irnot. why is the department of energy the grocery store for nuclear weapons and we would always conjure up, okay, we've got this nuclear weapon that we got from the grocery store, and we're going to use it, and i'm sure there was a hand receipt when we got it, and when we got done with it, i wonder if we would have to account for where we put that thing. but on the serious vein, that nuclear deterrence worked. the job i was doing kept the soviet union and the united states out of war, and as you

well know with there was also china and korea involved in that, in a peripheral way-not to next the ground war in europe. that policy, that tactic, that thing worked for many, many years. i think a lot of people, for whatever reason, in the 1990s, want to just forget that, like it never happened. there are lessons there that could be learned and used today because nuclear war is nuclear war. i it's nasty, horrific, but it is something that the united states and the soviet union were willing to engage in, and we would have won it. just thought i'd toss that out as somebody who has been there done that, got the t-shirt on the pound end of the spear. >> host: thank you. >> guest: if i may comment, i don't know if you war b52 pilot but i did fly in a b-52 on a training run and it was very interesting and the

professionalism of the crews, et cetera, extraordinary. so, i thank you for all of that. let me say that the -- its absolutely the case -- i'm hoping that your statement about nuclear war will be bad, doesn't actually come to pass. the idea is we do need to maintain a very, very strong deterrent to avoid that from happening. i would also add, given your experience, that the strategic bomber fleet, which of course is not just bombs but also cruise missiles, remains a core to our deterrent, and so, again, thank you for that, and, again, the obama administration -- the current administration, i think everybody administration, has remained committed to a strong nuclear deterrent. >> host: how can we deter north korea and what can we learn from

lessons like john, our caller, talked about during the russians very the u.s. and as a different scenario with the know, yorkan -- the north koreans. >> guest: north koreans had a very effective deterrent before they ever did a nuclear test in the sense of holding seoul hostage to the artillery pieces aligned along -- >> host: traditional -- >> guest: traditional alterry. and now hey have dome machine straighted nuclear weapons and some degree of missile expertise. so i think in my view the reality is, we have to maintain our commitment to a nuclear-free korea, but we also have to be realistic-not going to happen very fast in my view. so, deterrence is part of that, and with our military, not only nuclear military but the conventional forces, we obviously have a lot of

deterrence for north korea, a war there would be horribly destructive. but i believe and we have written, that frankly we need to have a broader discussion of the entire security needs of north korea, south korea, china, japan, united states military posture, russia had some involvement as well, but i think we need to broaden it to a security context and not simply a nuclear weapons focus. >> host: on nuclear weapons and north korea, what do you know of how quickly they're able to develop nuclear technology and how far do you think they've come? >> guest: the reality is they've come a long way. although we should emphasize, there may be a misconception that a lot of this happened in the last few years. this has been a very systemic program going on for a quarter

century in terms of developing nuclear weapons and missile technology. so, we cannot hide our heads in the stand. it's a reality. they have nuclear weapons. they dish doubt they have the able right now to deliver a weapon, let's say to the united states homeland, but we should not forget, we have commitments to our allies in south korea and japan. we have enormous numbers of american military personnel deployed there so i would say we are in a deterrence situation and we need to keep working at it with china, with japan, with south korea, to ultimately get to a denuclearized korea. >> back to call us. robert in greenville, north carolina, independent line. >> caller: yes, sir. think you dade wonderful job with your -- everything you did to help us deal with iran. with the current administration, look who they replace you with?

rick perry. they're on the wrong track. you dade wonderful job, and congratulations. thank you. >> guest: well, thank you. >> host: ronald on our republican line from virginia. >> caller: hi. thanks for taking my call. i'd like to know where the difference is between the agreements that we made with north korea over the last 25 years, how that differs from the deal that we have made with iran? i think at most all we've done is slow them down. still testing missiles and to think they're not studying the nuclear program, i think is just ridiculous. also, i'd like to ask, why did we sell uranium to russia? all i here at russia is how bad and evil and mafia-like they are. why did we sell them uranium? >> guest: let me first comment on the korea-iran juxtaposition

that you raise. totally different. first of all, iran does not have a nuclear weapon, number one. number two, as i said earlier, we should remember, the agreement is not about missiles. it's not about yemen. et cetera. it's is about taking the existential issue of a nuclear weapon, verify by off the table and that verifiable is credit cal. the most important part of the agreement and that guess on forever. with -- so, in iran, we now have, frankly, the most intrusive verification regime anywhere in the world. north korea is exactly the opposite. a very closed society and one of the problems, frankly, with previous deals was it did not provide the kind of verification tools that the international

inspectors could use to find out what was going on anyplace in north korea other than the places where north korea wanted them to look. the iran agreement is an enormous step forward in terms of the verification to make sure that they are in fact not developing a nuclear weapons program. >> host: he also asked about selling uranium to russia. president trump and others tweeted about the role of the administration in favoring this group, uranium one. what actually happened. >> guest: well, let me say, i'm not terribly familiar with this. this happened before i was in the government. but frankly, i have to be honest, there is not a security risk here. first of all, russia has got a

lot of natural uranium and this was about natural uranium, and my understand is not an enormous amount. i don't know the details. we have a well-developed process in the which the government looks at foreign ownership deals that could jeopardize our national security. it's very, very thorough. the department of energy plays a big role in that. i'm sure that the department of energy would have been involved at that time, if this sale raised any national security flags. but really that's really all i can say. >> host: let me get back to the nuclear posture of the administration. they write in part of that over the past several decade u.s. nuclear weapons infrastructure suffered the effects of age and underfunding. over half the infrastructure is over 40 years old and a quarter dates back 0 to the manhattan project era and talk about the

u.s. must have the ability to maintain and certify a safe and secure effective nuclear arsenal and lists a page and a half of projects, new some renewed projects for infrastructure in in the u.s. in general do you support that sort of effort? >> guest: yes. let me start actually, go back to the issue raised by the air force pilot. the nuclear service. just -- he raised the issue of i think what he called the grocery store of getting weapons from the department of energy. maybe it's worth saying, they rope that it is so critical that they department of energy continued in that stewardship role of nuclear weapons is because fundamentally, the job of sustaining those weapons is a science job, and the core of that is the three big so-called

nuclear weapons laboratories. it's a science job and i thank that those laboratories working in the science and technology culture of the attend of energy, is why they can do such a good job of that. then we also run the production sides. now, on the production sides in particular, on your question, these are indeed, let's call it half a century year old plus or minus. i as secretary of energy, frankly, had a big concern about safety of our work force. these are high hazard operations, as you can imagine. working in these conditions. look, i'm going to say this is not classified. we had things like ceilings falling down inside of high hazard operations. >> host: at these labs. >> guest: at the so-called production sites. the three labs and then also the site that actually do the work

on the weapons themselves. so, for example, in tennessee, in texas, in south carolina, there are major parts of their production enterprise for these weapons. we can't have people working in, frankly, ancient facilities. strongly supported the -- it's probably an 80 to $100 billion price tag to modernize those department of energy facilities. >> let's good to democratic line. >> caller: thank you. it's an honor to peek with you, ernest moniz. >> guest: my pleasure. >> host: we had a caller before and they always start criticizing obama and everything is his fault. i remember when george w. bush first took office, the south koreans and north koreans had a meeting, very friendly meeting they were going to look forward

to. it was something under the sunshine laws. and george w. bush came out -- i think he was only president a month -- and he had colin powell on one side and i think cheney on the other and he said, don't trust them, they're -- so of course they called it off and they started the program because they were called part of the axis of evil. had a really good plan going. i tell you, we saw trump doing a sword dance with the saudis about six amongs ago. how fast people forget, 3,000 americans died a horrible death, 15 of the 19 hijackers were saudis, and they had safe passage that day, 9/11. there was some of them right near this country, saudi officials, george bush gave them safe passage out of the country. >> host: that's kelly in

florida. also off the topic but thanks to the caller. let's go to robert in oregon on the republican line. go ahead. >> caller: yeah. thank you for taking my call. first, thank you, c-span on your program. you're about the only thing i trust for verification. a couple questions i have in regards -- a couple previous guests before had made the example that the north korea and the iran agreement are completely different. well, i tend to differ with you. back when clinton negotiated with north korea, it was very similar to what obama has done with iran. i believe. i could be wrong. secondly, he said that the iran verification of nuclear weapons is undeniable. well, how can it be undeniable when we do not have access to the military sites? and i await your answer.

>> guest: very good el. , first of all own the second part of your question, we do have access to military sites. despite what you hear, any site in the country for which there is of there is a legitimate suspicion is open to international inspectorsors ande same thing was said before the agreement was implemented dish. >> we take you live now a discussion from the commission on security and cooperation in europe about doping by russian legitimate athletes. >> ranging from mail tear affairs -- my name is paul, i'm the international economic policy adviser at the commission, responsible primarily for anticorruption and sanctions-related issues.