china is now a global leader in that class of fabens how much of a concern is the chinese arsenal for russia started you can do speaking we're on the same page which we have a very. friendly trust relations which have been much routing for about several decades and a comparing them to russian american relations they are like you know absolutely different got to go to we have only because you do perception that china can be planning something against us and we have like metaphorical east. can we in europe or in china in the pacific we are facing the same adversity abuse occurred with them going back to back to one another in a different directions and americans basically by themselves they're pushing us into this this is something that i wanted to ask you about because you do believe that it's a major strategic mistake on the part of washington to keep pushing for. consolidation between beijing and moscow but there are a number of analysts in russia who believe that it is also shortsighted on the part of russia to pursue that consolidation the relationship with beijing as you said now

chinese side, you see a very big qualitative improvement. thatare developing -- numerical buildup is not quite as visible, but it is ongoing. so we have two nuclear adversaries, with much more modern nuclear arsenals than we do. isleast one of them exploring concepts that could be very dangerous in a time of crisis because it might actually lead to someone deciding they could use some of these weapons in a way that would be below the threshold that would necessitate the u.s. response. >> the area that your report holds out as the number one issue we're dealing with. >> right. our judgment was that the commitment of the current administration, which actually builds on previous administration's commitment to modernize our nuclear triad is worth sustaining and the findings struck us as reasonable to all of those problems. that thed also add work that china is doing in hypersonic's, what type of weapons will be on those vehicles, that poses problems as far as they are no longer on this easily determined point of origin of where it came from, where did it come from? defensive systems that are optimized against ballistic missiles, those have to be really wrote. growing to dohat list, if you will. and so

arsenal which would be costly or invest in idiosyncratic fixes to these problems which itself would be expensive so the threats that the saudi's would repress, seek comfort in the russians or the chineserobably more apparent than real. in terms of the economic investment and we shouldn't minimize this, it is significant especially in silicon valley but the saudi's are investing as a favor to the trumpet ministration. they're investing because they need to make money. they need to prop up their economy and they believe rightly orwrongly that they're going to get the best return from the united states . this is primarily an gop decision, it's an economic decision and those decisions will be driven by their analysis of what us thoughts are going to do, not the state of the relationship between the us and saudi arabia. another issue is concerned the saudi's would scale back in that regard. on that i would note saudi arabia has not done enough to address its own role in promoting extremism internationally and even if the saudi's are cooperating with the cia and other intelligence agencies, that may be drowned out by the effect they are having internationally in promoting radicalization. it

on the chinese side you see a qualitative improvement, they are developing, numerical buildup is not quite as visible but is ongoing. we have two nuclear adversaries, with modern arsenals. and in the time of crisis. leading to someone deciding they could use these weapons in a way that would be below the threshold that would necessitate a us response. >> the number one issue -- >> the commitment of the current administration which build on the previous administration's commitment to modernize the nuclear triad and the nuclear posture struck us as reasonable answers for all those problems. >> work china is doing in hypersonic's and weapons on those vehicles, and very easily determined point of origin. the defense of systems against ballistic missiles, those have to be re-looked. this adds to that growing to do list and these are hard technical problems that will require resources. it is a significantly challenging area. and it is not happening. >> as far as i would like to give more thought to us, to list the areas, i listed a few in your opening statement. china or russia is actually ahead of us. or catching up with us. it would be very helpful. for me to have this. >>