and also, one of the arguments for the replacement warhead is that we need to keep our nuclear experts -- keep giving them the opportunity to design new weapons? does this allow to keep them fresh? >> general cartwright described the definition that we had which is a design that uses nuclear components, designs that have not been in the stockpile but that were tested before. the and not a stock -- the united states over period of years has conducted many hundreds of nuclear tests. most of those have never been in the stockpile. but we learn something from them. the idea is what do we learn, how do we take that learning from the tests that we've done in the past and applied them in

the stockpile management program? advancing the safety and security of the stockpile, no underground testing, being able to facilitate the reduction of total numbers of weapons that we might have and the total number of types. . stages to try to advance as much as possible of what congress asked us to do. and then create a position or a point in time. if we have to go to the replacement category because we think it is one of the only waste to achieve safety, security, and reliability, then we have the flexibility to do that. the president will have an opportunity to look at that.

that flexibility, in my view, is exactly what our scientists need. they need to be able to do that. that is the path forward. >> yes? >> i would like you to talk about this new emphasis on conventional response. beyond the conversion of the boomers to carrying conventional warheads, what else is being planned to make the u.s. conventional response more robust? given the fact that the united states has such a lead in terms of its conventional response and ability to target points around the globe, why would a country that is thinking about nuclear weapons not continue to develop those nuclear weapons given the fact that it does not have the ability to develop the

kind of conventional strike that the united states has? >> we are currently looking the long-range strike systems. we're coming out of the review and the npr. in that study that is now under way, we're looking at penetrating bombers, standoff bombers, cruise missiles, potential global strike capabilities, as well as supporting electronic warfare. after having a hard look, we decided that we wanted to pull back and have a look at the broader portfolio and the family of systems. that is now under way. we expect that to inform the fy 2012 budget. we do have r & d under way and money set aside for these

capabilities. from a policy perspective, when you think about the perspective of a potential proliferators, in this npr, we're trying to give them incentives. and to ensure that they do not have incentive to go the biological weapons direction. i do not see the possibility that any of the countries we talked about would have the ability to compete united states with united states. our second to none, and we have no question about the commitment to do that. >> a follow-on, for that reason, given there is no spot -- no

prospect to compete on conventional weapons, why would they not have an inducement continuing to develop nuclear weapons. >> the inducements we're trying to give is the other direction, that if you are a country considering cooperation, you put yourself in a different category with respect to our nuclear capabilities. as we continue to develop conventional capabilities, the missile defense capabilities and our abilities to -- the states will see less and less of an advantage of going down that path. >> one question on npr and terrorism if i could. >what new programs are needed ad required? if it is not russia and china

that is a major risk, how do you still defend the warheads? it seems like a very odd number. >> let me start with the warheads. that number was a product of negotiations with the russian federation. the npr did extensive analysis of the requirements with respect to the united states. with respect to both warheads and delivery vehicles. that number is one that is associated with product negotiation, and while parity is certainly not as important as it appeared in the cold war, we still believe is appropriate with respect to deployed strategic systems to make sure that they're not misperceptions

are misunderstandings on either side. that is the sense that as we go down a new start, following ratification, we ought to do it working to get there. do you want to speak to the specific programs? >> absolutely. the npr makes clear that this is not just about warhead, but it takes the totality of the administration in the executive branch to move forward. our proliferation programs are the largest nonproliferation program in the world. we have significant increases on bringing materials, securing materials at the site where they're located, installing radiation detector equipment to make sure that they were there,

and the gentleman asked a question about exercising scientific capabilities. the scientific capability does not take care of the nuclear weapons stockpile. it is essential for nuclear counter-terrorism, intelligence analysis, emergency management. they are indeed supported by the foundation work on the stockpile itself. that is why we have that capability, that is why we see such a tremendous investment to bring up overall in the department of energy a very significant growth from fiscal year 2010 the fiscal year 2011. it is clear that the administration really understands this problem. >> let me go to the back here.

>> how will that impact the future and structure? >> the president has directed that we study the potential next steps in arms control following the ratification of the new treaty. that will include a number of steps including the consideration of the overall balance between deployed and not deploy forces. those that are deployed and non deployed, we could bring in additional weapons. it will depend in part on our excess -- success getting congressional approval for infrastructure investments as we figure out how to hedge for possible technical problems, one that keeps the war had offline

to think that we have confidence in an infrastructure that is able to work on the warhead to make sure -- the air force is looking at their proposal for a future airline cruise missile, and we need to bring these together. this is an analysis that is under way, but it is going to take a bit of time to complete. >> to go ahead. >> could you walk us through a look on the practical steps that need to be taken at strategic

command to operational lies policy changes? [unintelligible] >> this will be distributed and everyone will get a chance to read it. that way we have an understanding on what the guidance is -- we will go into a policy perspective on guidance so to speak. that will manifest itself in direction of attributes would be part of the -- when you start talking about targets and things like that. that will lead us into a revolution associated with what

we're going to do with these weapons and these delivery platforms, and how they will be used. i suspect that will take us in the neighborhood of one or two years. know that it will take seven years to come into compliance with the numbers side of this equation. i expect that each year will revisit and it will be a set of milestones that iis a journey that is consistent with the policy and the attributes associated with realizing it. >> i would like to thank them for the time of day and you for your aunt -- independence topic. think you very much. -- thank you very much. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> now look of the upcoming

security council. leaders met at washington to discuss strategies for keeping nuclear weapons out of the hands of st. -- terrorists. this is 40 minutes. okay. >> ard germ man radio. i don't know who i want to direct the question, how >> how well do you think the u.s. likely would it be someone in this country could get their hands on it? >> i think the u.s. nuclear weapons and the u.s. nuclear weapons complex are among the best-secured stocks of materials in the world. that's not to say that there aren't continuing problems and issues that need to be addressed but, if i were thinking of about the things that i lose sleep over,

likelihood that a nuclear weapon is going to get stolen from pantex is not high on my list. if everything was secured the way they are secured i would probably move on to other topics. that being said, there was the incident in belgium very recently peace activists climbed over a essentially a short chain-link fence onto the grounds of an airbase where u.s. nuclear weapons are stored. went they noticed that offense and a secured area was opened, so they went in there, and no one bothered to arrest them. they plastered their stickers all over the bunkers. those were not the bunkers were the nuclear weapons were stored, but still, it reveals its financial difficulties with -- it reveals substantial

difficulties, which is shocking, since in 2001, the belgians arrested an al qaeda operative for attempting to bomb the same place, and he testified in court of canada had received photographs of the -- in court all kinda had received detailed photographs, -- al qaeda had received detailed photographs. within the united states, i would say the thing i think is the biggest area with the work needed to be done is the nuclear reactors. they are exempt from nearly all the physical protection rules and exemptions attempted to evade -- intended to be temporary in the 1970's. to the department of energy's

credit, they have been helping the reactor is voluntary ily update beyond what was required, but we need securities. plutonium whether in the united states or not in the united states or whether at a research reactor or not. if i could just put a little plug, alex mentioned securing the bomb. this year's edition will finally be coming out on monday. so, look for it, should be available on the internet, both at managing the at tom.org and nti.org on monday morning i would think. >> great. thanks. let's go to the back there. the gentleman in the back. sean. can you raise your hand, sir. great. thank you. >> john barry, "newsweek." thank you for interesting

presentations. i have two questions. one, the effort to secure nuclear materials around the world has been ongoing for, what, decade, 15 years? tell me what successes you would point to. leave aside kazakhstan. leave aside the big three of the old soviet union, other than that what success would you point to. and secondly, what is the logical international body, if there is one, to oversee this effort presupposing that the result of the summit is a more focused international attention on it? is it the iaea or do we need something else. >> thank you for the question. >> do you want to start? >> i'll start. i think in addition to the big three, i'm assuming you mean ukraine, kazakhstan and russia i think pakistan. the united states has been working with pakistan since after 9/11 to improve their security and, i think they have made a lot of strides in that direction. and if you look at what was

developed particularly under musharraf, there is now a command structure and there is personal reliability program and there are improvements in the physical security as well. nothing is going to be perfect. the country is imperfect but at the very least, the most stable element in that country which is military is in charge of the process and they ever engaged. now i think that there have been periods where the military has gotten quite irritated because people keep pointing out their security is woefully inadequate and i can't account for their peak but i can tell you, based on what i know, i think that, that in that case security has improved. the second area i would point to is where highly-enriched uranium has been removed back to russia and back to the united states so it is taken out of a country so it is not vulnerable. the second question, what is the appropriate international authority?

the iaea, and non-proliferation treaties don't have jurisdiction over nuclear terrorism issues, right? so what we is patchwork of agreements which libby laid out, most of which are not obligatory. you can join or you can't join. some are coalitions of the willing with and i think what we need to do is move into the direction of having a new international framework that brings together the existing elements and the new elements and new ideas and packages them in some way so that we can have in one place a framework that people say, okay, this is what the international standard for nuclear security should be and, i certainly hope that, after this summit, there's going to be a focus on moving beyond the existing mechanisms. and moving in this kind of a direction. >> i would second what ken said. there are research reactors in over a dozen countries i think that are now substantially more secure

than they were a few years ago and there are scores of research reactors that no longer have any highly-enriched uranium present at all. so, the only way you can be absolutely certain that nuclear material will never be stolen from a building is to make sure there is no nuclear material there to steal. these represent in a real sense bombs that will never go off. i would like to mention this disk as an example of both the progress we've made and remaining problem. so, at a place in russia about an hour and a half's drive out of moscow they have 80,000 of these disks are made of weapons-grade plutonium and weapons-grade highly-enriched uranium. when we worked with the russians. each had no label at all. this one by the way is just aluminum. and, they, they were, they have no detector at the door that would set off an alarm if someone were carrying out nuclear material in their overcoat. they weren't, you know, in a

sealed vault or anything of that kind. today when they're not in use the disks are in a vault with a huge steel door. there are multiple detectors that you have to go through to go out from where that door is. and, a bar code was put on each and everyone of the 80,000 disks. but then over a period of time as they were using the disks, the bar code started to wear off. and so then if you couldn't find disk number, 8482, you didn't know whether that was disk number 8482 was missing or whether because the bar code had rubbed off. then they had to go back and do laser etching of bar codes on each of the disks. there is this whole issue of even once you've put in place good security measures, will the country put in place the resources, the rules, and the incentives to that will lead to those security measures being sustained for the long haul? that's one of the key issues that we need to work on.

we need really a broader approach to security upgrades that involves more upgrades, in more countries, and combining u.s.-funded upgrade with up with grades that we convince countries to do themselves. we need a broader approach to consolidating so there is this, these stocks are in fewer places so we can achieve greater security at lower costs. that means consolidating more kinds of things, not just etu from research reactors but also warheads in fewer place places and plutonium in fewer places and more kinds of incentives and more policy tools. we're trying to convert research reactors so they no longer use highly-enriched uranium and but there are a lot of research reactors that are not needed. it would be quicker and easier to give them incentives to shut down. for example, give scientists contracts to do would not require research reactor in turn for a agreement to shut the research reactor down.

we need to move as libby said towards more stringent global standards for security. we don't necessarily need the same level of security everywhere because there are countries like pakistan where threats are higher, they need even more but we need a baseline everywhere given we're facing terrorists with global reach. >> go ahead. >> circle back to the second question about institutional oversight. iaea on voluntary states can request iaea come in and help them formulate their nuclear security, sort of a road map or plan but again that is all on a voluntary arery basis without a baseline that is ad hoc anybody can assess what threat they think is prevalent in that particular country or region on. and just to, but i do think that the iaea is the right place to focus. and of course they will need a much-expanded mandate and greater capacity if they will tackle that aspect of the agenda as well.

i want to circle back to matt's point on sustainability and it's a little bit of a profile in terms of the 20 years of efforts to deal with the wmd threat in general but the u.s. has been very good at funding a lot of very expensive equipment and not so good building into those capacities indigenous to that country and getting security culture revamped in terms of a form that would really support the follow-on. comes with the buy-in and consensus. a lot of iterations u.s. would go in and say, we think you're substandard. there is a bunch of high-tech equipment you have to maintain and turn it over to you. when funding sunsets it is your responsibility. we create that transition, if you have not got buy-in terms of value and assistance from that host country, you're kind of nowhere in terms of sustaining the longer term aspect of what needs to be in place over, to keep things running and insure that you have the personnel capacity to maintain the equipment and what have you. that's been a critical sort

of footnote to the efforts over the past decade or so. >> i would just add also the regulations that require that security to be in place because, generally, nuclear managers aren't going to invest in expensive security measures unless the government tells them they have to and tells them they have to in a way that is effectively enforced and that is something, we have been working with wrush shawe need to broaden to work with a much larger array of countries. >> one aspect of that, and this plays into a little bit into my capitol hill background much easier for a appropriations committee to check a box related to metric related to portal monitors or radiation detection equipment or what have you as opposed to how many trainings have you done on export controls and how many people do you know have that border in kazakhstan who are not corrupt and doing their job and couldn't be bribed in some form or fashion. which makes for very fuzzy

metrics and very difficult uphill battle in terms of some of the programs areas that doe in particular focuses on. >> a lot of fuzzy measures of success are very important. not everything that counts can be counted and not everything that can be counted counts. >> i think bottom line what the fissile materials working group would like to see eventually this stuff is eliminated. i mean locked down, secured but eventually eliminated. 2/3 of former secretary of, secretaries of defense and national security advisors agree what was once our greatest security blanket is now our greatest security liability. with these nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons materials spread all over the world in unstable regions, as matt said from research reactors to hospitals to various countries with the security not, just not there. >> another question. right here. >> i think professor bunn stated this earlier.

approaching the summit, president obama is really raising the level of expectations for the outcome of this summit. why do you think he does that? is that a wise thing to do? >> well, because i hope he knows what is in the communique so [laughing] if he thinks it won't be gazi and it will be specific and will be a specific road map, that would be a terrific outcome. i was, i was really surprised to read in today's paper what it is that he had to say because i just, based on my experience it's extremely difficult to get consensus on countries on specific outcomes when you're dealing with 47 different countries, you tend to have a lowest common denominator outcome. if as the president says, no gauze, and, as specific out comes, then he must know because i'm sure he has read the communique already. >> i have to say, my strong impression that the communique looks more like what he said it wasn't going

to look like than what he said it is going to look like. [laughter] we'll see when the summit takes place. >> we'll see on tuesday. >> sure. >> hi. i'm mary louise kelly. i've been covering some of this for npr, the other npr. i wanted to ask, as we gear up for this big summit here, president obama is about to fly to prague to ink a new arms deal with the russians. i wonder if i could get any or all of you to weigh in with your assessment how significant that is and how it plays into the broader effort that is going to get underway here given, as you've all been saying that's an effort focusing a little bit less on superpower arsenals, and more on rogue states and nuclear terrorism? >> i think for the first time, with the immediate information that we've been getting on the nuclear

posture review and the new reset, if you will in u.s.-russia relations you see certain sort of points in terms of orchestrating an agenda that will, that will turn the u.s. position, if you will, vis-a-vis the international community, to a more positive, more positive prism from the outside looking in. of course the posture view, i know you didn't ask about that but i think you have to observe that from two levels. how will the international community's view, those out comes in terms of stacking them and u.s. making good on sort of the prague agenda level of things. and there is that domestic play in terms of can he state enough republican voices on hill in terms of how unless you are willing to look at it at those two levels and see if they spread the needle of prokaryote lawyer