we're. back. on welcome to worlds apart in late night in 45 and georgia horrible prophesies that atomic bombs instead of blowing the world to pieces i'm more likely to put in than 2 large scale wars and the cost of prolonging the peace there is no peace to this you know strategic stability has survived the cold war and just god and you we saw life as russia and the united states renewed the strategic arms reduction treaty barely week before its expiration but the debate on whether the nukes are made rap what the main provider of peace is still less time really as ever to discuss some

of them now i'm joined by miles pumper a senior fellow at did mildrid institute of international studies at monterey mr pumper it's great to talk to you thank you very much for your time. my pleasure now * let's start with the now doubly new starts treaty while being considered one of the last remaining bad jokes of arms control was extended essential here over the phone and they called their station between presidents putin and biden is that a sign of how crucial that treaty is or how on the country in consequence will it is. no i think it's a sign of how how important and essential it is it really is the bedrock of strategic stability these are the most dangerous weapons in the world your internet continental ballistic missiles or summary launch ballistic missiles these are you know weapons i could destroy whole cities and even more so it's essential that we

have some limits and some insight into each other's arsenals with these weapons now this treaty which was signed a decade ago by. different presidents i'll be a close allies of the currently based if you lock the russian and american nuclear arsenals at some of the lowest levels in decades and back then every member it was and major achievement is still in it to meant to recommit it now or could we as well as a russian an american but rather as representatives of humanity who have reasonably extracted more. well given that the fed the. 2 governments the u.s. quickly under the trump administration really didn't engage in this issue until close to the end of the administration and in a serious way we're happy to be able to extend this but clearly i think both sides

have made clear they would like to go further that there's been enough developments in the last decade enough changes and in weapons systems and doctrine in the situation globally that we need to work on a new treaty going forward but this is a good way to maintain stability while we do that now georgia text ability an arms control assets share complicated abstract topics that it's heights you relate to ordinary people why they should care about it imagine you are let's say on a plane or at a local bar and somebody asks you to talk about it in simple terms what would he say why is this a topic worth paying attention to well basically you know what surprises this is not based both countries have an insight into each other's arsenals and limits so that we don't get into a war by accident and especially a nuclear war so we have enough control that you know it would have to be an intentional act by both countries rather than some sort of mis ignores or

misperception and so this is the idea is to kind of put the brakes on things kind of a buffer so that we don't you know get into a situation and neither of us wants just by misperception or. poor understanding of the other side you mentioned that nobody likes surprises and i think that's actually the most stable area of cooperation between our countries specially given they have a current. state of relationship why do you think that is. because it's so important i mean i think both countries recognize it's importance to the security of their people and this is you know this goes back through the cold war i mean never since we had the 1st strategic arms treaties almost 50 years ago now they've kind of been insulated from the ups and downs in the relationship even at the worst times and in the relationship we've managed to keep talking about this and that's that's a good thing that's important for. the cold war and that i want to think that gives me another chance to go back to george orwell's famous athlete hero that just

before the cold war began in late magic 45 and in that ass a goal that you and the atom bomb he makes that very persuasive argument that it is the pressure hit if nature of the atomic bomb that provides its magic power at you know it because it's so expensive it would not be used but also because it's so expensive you need to reduce sat be the number of nuclear warheads and you know at a reasonable minimum what do you think that reason that will need to know is for the current state of affairs on both sides of the deployed nuclear war have you are welcome to some extent it depends on what you know that they have to move in sequence because a lot of the i mean some of the weapons are basically targeted to destroy other weapons on each side so the fewer weapons you have the fewer targets you have to hit but i think a reasonable goal that was talked about a little bit under the obama administration was you now have basically about 1500

deployed warheads words are actually on submarines or in silos or. planes and people are talking to maybe go into like a 1000 would be sort of the number 4 but the number isn't the numbers are only so much as are also other aspects in terms of what kinds of weapons what kind of warning and so on this is important to stability is not just the numbers you mentioned the president obama added. after 2011 our president always willing to push those reduction and has even further to which most object it because russia saw and still sees it had been nukes as part of its broader security and at that time it was growing increasingly concerned about. their american the weapons systems primarily the potentially offensive nature of the u.s. missile defense given that russia seems that have developed or at least it claims

that it has developed a new generation of weapons do you think it would be more comfortable with the costs now. but that's a very good question i mean i think they should be because in part of russia's concern at that time was particularly at the conventional level of the u.s. and all these long range conventional weapons systems that russia did not happen that not developed but as we saw for instance in the syria conflict the russians able to send missiles several 1000 miles these conventional missiles so in that sense russia doesn't need to rely so much on the nuclear weapons as it felt that maybe it felt they had to a decade ago so there is that there's also a whole number of new russian nuclear weapons systems that people have probably seen that is very kind of exotic weapons nuclear powered weapons and so on that need to be taken into account in any you know new treaty by the way i know that if you get it back you were quite skeptical about the russian claims of having

developed this nuclear power at nuclear are low flying cruise missile. i think it's known as very best league in russian as i fall in english as it is that we have some very fabulous reports of its existence including reports of accidents. just a skeptical about the russian capability in this field as you were a few years ago well in russia is obviously very talented and designing missiles and weapons systems and this particular weapon system of iss had a lot of problems and accidents so i would hope that russia would not move forward and having a basically a nuclear you know weapon in the skies probably not in anyone's. interest in terms of just the missile itself rather than you know. the weapon as an attack that exists even when you're testing these things as we've seen they can be pretty dangerous so i don't think it's a. i would hope russia would do would not move forward with that system well how do

you have the same hope for the united states because the assumption in moscow is that the americans are working on their pretty similar systems as well not that i'm working on we're certainly working on other systems but you know about 4050 years ago we were we. looked at the idea of nuclear powered missiles and we kind of rejected it for number reasons including safety and and so on so i think that particular system we're not doing but i was in both sides are moving forward with all kinds of new systems you know i personally questions that you've probably heard about and so on so you know there's that's why we have the talks to try to put some limits and some predictability on these systems now i want to go back to one more question syria george orwell got to say he makes another case that the history of civilization is largely be he syrian opens i don't know if you want to make any side predicts it but how do you think the development of these new generation of fans can add change. you know their way relieve or it please the way we negotiate

with one another. well i think i mean in some senses not the nuclear weapons i mean used there obviously are new weapon systems but we kind of know what the rule at least when it comes to the u.s. and russia we have pretty established traditions now and and history and how we deal with these weapon systems i think the ones that are actually more challenging are some of the links between these weapon systems and things like cyber attacks or artificial intelligence quantum sensing there's all kinds of very exotic new technologies that may either affect these weapons systems directly or people may feel like the u.s. under the trump administration said you know we were very serious cyber attack will feel that maybe we have to respond to that with nuclear weapons and that is in some ways much harder to deal with these problems because you know how do you know where a cyber attack is coming from i mean a weapon you know you see a lot you know where it's coming from it's pretty obvious but these other ones is

a lot of more rounds more and more possibility of confusion the base of the ship you should you know former russian. former american ambassador and russian michael looked full recently a person who is not previously liked and was going to happen with a. well regarded in washington he recently suggested that russia and the united states should actually include cyber negotiations into these strategic us the ability to go cases because it's one thing well and you play around with the outsides of political credit it's quite another when you play around with the cyber infrastructure of you know any carrier plan do you think that's a wise idea do you think this is something that the american government genuinely would be interested in not in just making it a topic for media consumption but genuine discussions on how cyber should be used and where those red lines should lie. yes i think it's an interest of both countries i mean during the cold war all countries agreed basically not to

interfere with each other satellites business satellites were how you would verify these treaties how you would know which weapon systems each country hat of so called national technical means. and you know since so much cyber is now used in the command and control of various weapons systems i think the country should agree on not interfering with those i mean there's obviously going to be a whole lot of other areas people are going to get a fair i got my back there but i think these are this particular area i don't how you know the hard part is how do you actually do that and how do you verify cuts it's very challenging but as a principle i think we you know we should have a mutual interest and you know don't if you interfere with the command and control don't interfere with sort of our surveillance capabilities not mr felder we have to take a very short break right now but we will be back in just a few moments. welcome

back to worlds apart with miles congress senior fellow at the military institute of international studies at monterrey mr plumper before the break we were talking about. the resumption of the dial up and strategic stability and it has to be said that the u.s. state department has already issued a statement suggesting that they see it in you know well over the new start treaty as it's just the 1st step in that direction but i think what's the most crucial here is not the willingness to your. real is that dialogue i think the russians have been there ready for quite some time and actually the showing of discussion

and you know last week i had a chance to talk to your the iranian foreign minister has arrived at me and he likes to say that the americans have this approach to negotiations what's mine is mine what's yours is negotiable and i think this is something that the russians share to you they believe that the americans in their in the south always strive for an upper hand rather than trying to secure. insurance interests at a balance as a collateral on the deals your ability is that a fair assessment and which forum do you think this dialogue should take which for which tone which happened here. well i mean i think you know i mean i think mr zarif scum and so with a little bit grain of salt as we say in english. i mean i think you know this is what negotiators do he's negotiating to in a way right he's trying to make a comment for russia playing to your audience and trying to appeal to the russian

government. you would expect any negotiator to try to speak with the let me hold him in a question about what do you think makes. negotiations successful and it goes to the basics of the game theory whether you want to have you know a win win a proverbial one win or rather the winner takes all and i think there is also a perception here at least in this capital that the americans rarely come to the negotiating table when there are in a strong position and many believe that the reason why the bidens distraction is so eager to relaunch this battle with russia's biggest. well some russians believe that they. have this nuclear security over the united states with this new kind of happens do you think that's an exaggeration and do you think if this is indeed something that may have encouraged. been your administration to be more. open syria. mr putin despite everything that has been said about him i don't think

there's any perception united states that russia has nuclear superiority over the united states and i think you know we see there's a fairly balanced relationship. in the nuclear spear and i think why that what you know the buy the ministration wants to have negotiations for what we talked about strategic stability they want predictability they want they want to secure situation and europe in asia and with russia and they want to be able to focus on other issues to a certain extent both in the bilateral relationship and more generally so i don't think it's we're now. people are not coming to the negotiations out of some weakness i mean i think that's a i think you know in terms of what you know negotiating style i would expect any country that's getting into mid-ocean issues to try to get the best deal for their country that's why you are a people to negotiate for you well but that i mean this is such a special topic it concerns not only the russians or the americans but it concerns

humanity as a whole in fact this is something that putin has stressed over and over again to the point of self-effacing actually i mean if you remember the press conference of hooten at trump after that meeting in the house and killed 2080 and 'd this is all the russian leader talked about by back then it was dismissed as again putin trying to pull trump's strings why do you need to put in an administration now i mean he's still the same he is older and sure there are why is it no longer a problem for them by the administration to sit down with him at the same table while it was such a huge deal for a 4th term. well i think that you know obviously you know the domestic political situation the united states and the issues surrounding trumps relationship with russia in the $26000.00 election absent that relationship with russia and that would be more precise but i mean you know that there was obviously

a lot of controversy so was that part was was tricky but there was also. you know there were i mean trump's party is had a lot of people who are not supportive of arms control remember john bolton was his national security adviser for some time has always been a skeptic of arms control and there's a some have substantial proportion of the republican party that doesn't really has never supported arms control it's traditionally been more supportive in the democratic party so the fact that the you know democratic administration is more eager to launch arms control negotiations is is not a surprise and it's kind of true to form doesn't it also mean that despite all their hawkish i would even say belligerent rhetoric about putin in particular that they have more room more freedom more on mental power perhaps even more goodwill to discuss those issues with russia and more specifically one of the ideas that put in

put on the table is this summit built the or are permanent. members of the security council which could provide a rare for a change up involving china into the discussions on strategic stability announced control do you think by the end yet that politically or do you think he would be just as excoriated at this truck was for you know even thinking about sitting with what's in the same table. well i think you're right and i think biden does have more political space probably to work with with gooden than than trump did. on the other hand you probably you know i think you've already seen some of the criticism coming from the biden ministration on other issues aside from the nuclear is fear mission of on the on some of the other concerns so you know i think you're going to see kind of that balance of approaches i mean probably harder on some of the are kind of human rights type issues. and maybe you know more open on the arms control

issues i think trying to sort extent kind of disengaged entirely from or largely from. russia issues not on both sides you know kind of pro and con i think there is it also jane your interest to explore this to change except here in the agenda and i can already see 2 sides are. trying to see how far they can go old just the other day for them so let's go with that sort of at diplomatic passports with. that russia would be willing to they can be open skies treaty provided that ad the united states returns to me it was before russia you still have by then you have bought by that agreement can't use me any add jan here aster change interest for the united states to get at yes i think there could be interested in the united states do that you know the question's going to be sort of

a legal technical means to do that i mean i think the that the biden team is supportive of the open skies treaty i think the present president might have made him actual statements during the campaign to that effect now that the u.s. has legally withdrawn from the treaty the question is what's that. legal mechanism that the u.s. could use to get in there there's a number of options including maybe some legislation they could pass they would basically say you know we didn't really. withdraw from the treaty in terms of domestic process ease and the question is you know what does russia except that is sufficient and how do you deal with those issues but i think this is exactly the kind of issue that you should deal with in these kind of strategic stability talks and that's that's why you talk about it now that the open skies treaty it was specifically aimed at building trust between russia and the west at a time when. many in the west believe that their russia could gain corporate it

is you western system as a junior partner at all because the neither side the reason that anymore is it still worth approaching at the st you from the same trust building that perspective or should it be here refrain. well i think it's still a matter of trust and i think the let the u.s. and russia don't and the sense don't need this to see each other's arsenals because we have satellites we've all sorts of other means to monitor each other's weapons this is really a means for european countries to monitor each other keep track of each other and have some say in the process of surveillance so it builds more of a european kind of whole approach to this rather than just the 2 countries being involved and i think there's a there's a benefit to that i mean that changed obviously because during this period of the treaty nato grew so a lot of the countries that were had

a bit on the sort of eastern side of this and were being monitored and on the western side but i think it's still valuable i think it's a good money should be interdiction that's essentially what you're saying that instead of the reagan era trust and verify we now have 3 more of mistrust and pacified and pacify relates to the europeans who despite the claims that you did yes our. suspicious of one another. but i think they also want to look everyone wants to have their own say and they don't have the they don't have the satellite and other technical means to do the kind of. looks that the u.s. intelligence community or the russian intelligence community is able to do but this gives them some stake and participation in the process and i think that's good the more countries that are kind of our allies and be out there judging that everyone is. playing by the rules and security isn't hands i think it's a good thing mr palmer i want to ask you about one more treaty which just came into

force the treaty on the prohibition of their weapons has already been signed by 84 countries in the end despite these broad or seemingly broad support that reminds me a little bit of the callous brianne pact all night and 28 which actively outlawed war and obliged that signature is to settle the conflict through peaceful means and yet. about it take it later the 2nd will who are broke out and many of the trees dignitaries including joe many played an active role in it do you think that's an appropriate comparison yes i think there's a good thing you picked a good example there and it's it's the triumph of good intentions over practicality i mean obviously none of us want a nuclear war and we be happier in a world without nuclear weapons but in certain sense if there was no threat of that but they provide a role in terms of as you said earlier in terms of preventing large scale war we

haven't had the wars going to war in europe since the 2nd world war thank god. i would say nuclear weapons have something to do with that and until other political issues are resolved we're at the kind of peace that we'd all love to see some day that you know doesn't help and it's really doesn't help that the countries that don't have nuclear weapons signed a treaty saying get rid of nuclear weapons i mean is that involve russia or the united states or are any of the other nuclear weapon powers which now you wrote recently that this treaty on liberal admission of their weapons poses quote a thorny diplomatic challenge for that body and administration. if i understood your argument you suggest that. you know it could complicate * america's sat relationship with its allies because there is some constituency in europe particularly in germany maybe in the netherlands who do want to see those weapons to be banned. do you think that in this regard who could be of

help to buy them because if they do proceed on discussing this strategic sibylla t. agenda then it would be pretty clear that the america's allies why if you know the aspirations suits are bad and the nukes perhaps a little bit premature you know definitely that well i think if you look at why this treaty was drafted and then turned into force and they go out of this was kind of frustration by these countries. that you know under article 6 of the nuclear nonproliferation treaty the nuclear weapons states like the united states and russia are supposed to take steps towards disarmament and since the new start treaty on fortunately there haven't been a lot of positive steps in that the met in that area and so i think this is kind of an expression of frustration by these folks and as a primary is that a genuine frustration because i mean that take germany i mean even if they withdraw

from. you know even if they sign out to this broad vision treaty they will still be covered by the american nuclear relatives isn't it a little bit about you know are having a cake and eating it too yes so very much and that's always been. there's always been that issue with with allies that you know that on the one hand they want to be protected on the other hand. they they want to. you know they they want to be not have this sort of they want to feel important. being on the right side of history and sort of the more moral appeal so yes there's that there's a definitely. a bit of kit kat in your cake and eating it too in that situation that's. i don't ask her about some dust on the boy i guess well anyway it is a problem we have to leave it there but they greatly appreciate your sharing your thoughts with us thank you very much thank you my pleasure and thank your for being with us hope to hear again here on worlds apart.

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