Press Briefing: The Trump Administration's New Nuclear Posture Review

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Tuesday, January 23, 2018
1:00 to 2:30 p.m.
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
1779 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, DC

The transcript of the event is posted below.

Press Briefing with Thomas Countryman, Joan Rohlfing, Jon Wolfsthal, and Kingston Reif. (Photo: Arms Control Association/ ALLEN HARRIS) The Trump administration will soon formally release its revised strategy document on the role and composition of U.S. nuclear forces, known as the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR).

According to a leaked draft of the 64-page document, the administration calls for expanding the number of scenarios under which the United States might consider the use nuclear weapons—including in response to a major cyberattack—and it proposes the development of new nuclear weapons and capabilities for “tailored” war scenarios.

The document also reaffirms support for replacing and upgrading all three legs of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, which is estimated to cost in excess of $1.25 trillion over the next 30 years and walks back U.S. commitments to pursue measures to reduce the number and role of nuclear weapons.

The independent, nonpartisan Arms Control Association hosted a briefing with top experts to analyze the implications of the Trump administration's nuclear strategy. The transcript and audio recording is below.

Speakers included:

Jon Wolfsthal, former Senior Director, National Security Council
Thomas Countryman, Chairman of the Board; and
Joan Rohlfing, President, Nuclear Threat Initiative
Kingston Reif, Director for Disarmament Policy, Arms Control Association (moderator)

PHOTOS: Available here. Usage requires attribution to the Arms Control Association.

AUDIO RECORDING: Listen here.

TRANSCRIPT:

KINGSTON REIF: Well, good afternoon everyone and welcome to today's event on the Trump Administration's Nuclear Posture Review. My name is Kingston Reif and I am the Director for Disarmament and Threat Reduction Policy at the Arms Control Association.

As most of you know, the Arms Control Association is an independent nonpartisan membership organization. We were established in 1971 and we're dedicated to reducing and eliminating the threats posed by the world's most dangerous weapons, namely nuclear, chemical, biological weapons as well as certain conventional weapons that pose particular harm and risk to civilians.

Outside the room, you'll find copies of two of our recent issues of our flagship publication, "Arms Control Today," which include commentaries on the forthcoming Nuclear Posture Review.

So, when we first conceived of this event, we anticipated previewing possible key outcomes of the NPR and the implications based on fragments of reporting and intelligence, and little did we know that a full pre-decisional draft of the document would leak, which now provides us the opportunity to discuss and analyze the review itself and the Pentagon, as we understand it, is formally slated to release the NPR in early February and the date that we are hearing is February 2nd.

At the Arms Control Association, our take is that the NPR constitutes unnecessary, unexecutable (ph) and unsafe overreach. Yes, the international security environment is less favorable than it was in 2010 when the Obama Administration conducted its Nuclear Posture Review. Yes, some of the other nuclear arm states have not been responsible nuclear citizens. Yes, technology is advancing in new and unpredictable ways and yes, the existing U.S. nuclear arsenal is aging.

But none of these justifies the direction that Trump Nuclear Posture Review proposes to take U.S. nuclear strategy. Though there are elements of continuity with the policies of previous administrations, the document aligns with President Trump's more aggressive and impulsive nuclear notions and breaks with past efforts to reduce the role and number of nuclear weapons worldwide in several key areas.

First, instead of deemphasizing the role of nuclear weapons and U.S. policy, as previous Nuclear Posture Reviews have done, the Trump NPR actually seeks a greater role for them. Notably, the review proposes to enlarge the circumstances under which the United States would consider the use of nuclear weapons and explicit—to explicitly include "non-nuclear strategic attacks including major cyber attacks.”

Second, the NPR calls for new more usable nuclear weapons. These include the near-term deployment of low yield nuclear warheads on submarine-launched ballistic missiles and the longer-term development of a new nuclear armed sea-launched cruise missile. These proposals would come on top of the existing nuclear recapitalization program of record that the Trump Administration inherited from its predecessor, which according to the Congressional Budget Office will cost $1.2 trillion over the next 30 years excluding the impact of inflation.

And third, the review walks back from key U.S. non-proliferation and disarmament commitments. Arms control only gets a brief mention at the end of the document and it's generally—and it is a generally a dismissive mention at that.

So, to help us further explore these and other issues, we have assembled a topnotch panel of experts. Our first speaker, on the far right will be Thomas Countryman. Tom, I am thrilled to say, is the new Chairman of the Board of the Arms Control Association and former Acting Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security.

After Tom, we will have Joan Rohlfing who is seated between the three speakers there, the President of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, excuse me and batting third will be Jon Wolfsthal, former Senior Director on the National Security Council responsible for nuclear weapons and arms control issues.

Each of our speakers will provide about 7 to 10 minutes of opening remarks which should leave plenty of time for questions from all of you. And before we get started, I just wanted to mention that we have coffee, tea, water and a selection of sodas in the back if you haven't seen them, and also if you're looking to access the wireless, the guest network is C-E-I-P guest and you open your browser and that should take you through the prompts that you need to get on the wireless and with that, the floor is yours, Tom.

THOMAS COUNTRYMAN: Thank you, Kingston. And thank all of you for coming out today. Nuclear weapons of course are technically complex and the policy that dictates their use, their strategy is perhaps esoteric, but the issue is not so complex that it cannot be comprehended by the public, by the media and crucially, in the months ahead, by the United States Congress.

The new NPR has real implications for our budget, for our leadership role and the world and above all, for our national security and it is crucial that the media and the public participate in an informed debate within the Congress on these issues.

As Kingston noted, U.S. nuclear policy has great elements of consistency. It is in many ways slow to change and you will note similarities in this draft report from what was decided by the Bush Nuclear Posture Review in 2002 and the Obama Nuclear Posture Review in 2010, but the changes are significant and have real-world implications. They are significant in their substance, in their tone, in what is added and in the striking omissions from previous posture reviews.

What concerns me most directly is the talk of an expanded role for nuclear weapons. For years, the United States under successive Presidents of both parties has consistently narrowed the circumstances under which an American President would contemplate use of nuclear weapons. For the first time in a long time, instead there is an expansion, an explicit expansion of the circumstances under which the President would consider such use.

As Kingston noted, this includes responding to non-nuclear threats including that of a massive cyber attack.

A year ago, Vice President Joe Biden, just before he left office, stood right here and spoke about the progress that the Obama Administration had made not only in narrowing those circumstances, but in reducing the role and the number of weapons in our nuclear arsenal and I’d just like to quote from Vice President Biden at that time. He said here, "Given our non-nuclear capabilities and the nature of today's threats, it is hard to envision a plausible scenario in which the first use of nuclear weapons by the United States would be necessary."

That remains the case today and the draft Nuclear Posture Review fails to give a convincing rationale why it has changed. It does not explain why the U.S. nuclear arsenal, still the most powerful and diverse possessed by any nuclear weapon state is insufficient to match threats on both the nuclear and the non-nuclear level.

It fails to explain why the overwhelming United States advantages in both conventional military capabilities, and yes, in cyber capabilities is inadequate to respond to threats or attacks.

It does not explain why the Russian Federation's modernization, which parallels the United States’ own modernization efforts, is so severely different from ours that it means we have fallen behind in stability. It does not even talk about strategic stability between the United States and Russia as a goal to strive for and it does not explain how the additional threat of new nuclear weapons, including new low-yield weapons on top of those low-yield weapons that we already have, will change the Russian Federation thinking or make the first use of nuclear weapons by either side less likely.

Of concern to me also is the effect on our global leadership. It essentially abandons the United States' leadership role in nonproliferation and arms control that have marked every President since Dwight Eisenhower. In speaking of the most successful security treaty the world has ever seen, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, it treats this only as a nonproliferation treaty and ignores… it does not restate the binding legal obligation that the United States undertook almost 50 years ago in that treaty. That is, we are committed to pursue effective measures to reduce the role and number of nuclear weapons leading to their verifiable elimination.

By failing to restate this as a goal, it has an effect upon the readiness of other nations to honor their nonproliferation obligations. And this is the final point I would like to make: this posture review does not and will not be issued in a vacuum. It is not an issue simply between the U.S. and Russia, or the U.S. and China.

Other nations look to the United States' signal to determine their own policy and the signal that is being sent is unfortunately that the United States is putting aside a legal obligation, is not going to exert the same kind of leadership on nonproliferation and arms control issues, and it also signals the utility of nuclear weapons, something that will make them more attractive to those countries that have smaller arsenals or those that have no arsenals at all.

All of this is true even if you set aside the character and the impetuosity of the current United States' President. It still has these negative effects upon our national security. For these reasons, I hope not only that the final draft that we see perhaps next week will moderate some of these difficult points, but I also hope that the United States Congress will take up the obligation that it took up with great seriousness after the last two Nuclear Posture Reviews and put a limit to the kind of dangerous development that detracts from, rather than contributes, to stability in our world.

Thank you.

REIF: Thanks very much, Tom. Joan?

JOAN ROHLFING: (Inaudible) Kingston, thank you, Tom. I have been asked to focus in particular on the new capabilities being contemplated by the posture review, but I would like to put that in a little bit of a frame before offering some observations on that.

I do want to emphasize, I think you have certainly heard us mention that this is a draft and it still has to go through a White House review. I think this is important just to emphasize that anything nuclear is inherently presidential, so I am going to speak in terms of this being a draft with hopes that it could still improve. Much like, Tom and perhaps even a little bit more pointedly, I want to say this draft posture review represents a significant departure from the direction we have been headed in for the last four administrations.

It increases our reliance on nuclear weapons. It expands their role in our security and it makes them more likely—it makes the use of them more likely.

It also compounds rather than solves some of the top level nuclear issues left over from the previous administration. What do I mean by that? It maintains the same outdated hair trigger launch posture of our ballistic missiles that puts pressure on our leaders to make a use decision without enough time for deliberation.

It proposes enhancements to our arsenal that make nuclear weapons more usable and more destabilizing. It compounds the resource challenge by increasing the cost of the modernization program by at least another 20 percent. It doesn't offer any proactive solutions for overcoming the impasse in our relationship with Russia.

It undervalues arms control as a tool to achieve our military objectives and advance our national security. We don't do arms control for the sake of doing arms control. We do it because it advances our national security. If this review stands as it is currently written, I believe it significantly increases the risk of use.

Our primary focus as a nation should be on preventing the use of nuclear weapons anywhere in the world and this posture review would move us in the opposite direction, so let me give you now a few specific examples of why that is the case starting with some of the capability enhancements proposed.

As Kingston mentioned, the review is proposing two new types of low-yield nuclear weapons. First, a near-term capability to put low-yield capacity on our SLBMs, our submarine launched ballistic missiles and then potentially, it contemplates over a longer time period a low-yield nuclear SLCM.

What's interesting about the SLCM is that we used to have nuclear SLCMs, they were taken off of deployment, off of our surface ships, off of our submarines in the 1991-timeframe by then President George Herbert Walker Bush. They were finally retired by the Obama Nuclear Posture Review in 2010, so this represents us coming you know, back full cycle to where we were at the height of the Cold War as opposed to continuing to move in the other direction.

Why do we need these low-yield nuclear weapons in the arsenal? I would argue emphatically, we do not. We already have a robust flexible nuclear deterrent today that includes low-yield options. But this draft review posits that we need more low-yield options, more low-yield capacity to restore a so-called deterrence gap at a regional level.

The premise in the review seems to be that the existing arsenal is not a credible deterrent to others unless we have this low-yield nuclear weapon. I find that argument simply incredible. The U.S. today has this robust deterrent. It is capable of being employed anywhere in the world in defense of our interest and our allies within a matter of minutes.

And as Tom said, they haven't offered a satisfactory explanation for what is the military purpose, what is the rationale for why we need this new capability? So, rather than raising the bar for nuclear use as they assert in the review, I believe it lowers the bar and makes their use more likely.

This is destabilizing, not stabilizing.

I think it's also a mistake to believe that we could use a little nuke to control escalation rather than strengthening deterrence, it therefore undermines it and it increases the risks of miscalculation. One final point on this, if we talk about deploying low-yield nuclear weapons on an SLBM, how is our adversary if they detect the launch from the ocean somewhere, a ballistic missile coming from them, how are they going to know that it's a little nuke, not a full-yield nuclear weapon, if the same platform deploys both a full yield nuclear weapon and a low-yield nuclear weapon. This is also destabilizing, I think it's fanciful to expect that there wouldn't be a full-scale attack in return for that.

So, a second point on how this posture review falls short just to emphasize some of comment that Tom made earlier about the short shrift given to arms control and nonproliferation, it mentions the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the good news is, it proposes that the administration will continue to observe the testing moratorium and will urge others to do the same, but it then undercuts that objective by explicitly noting that it will not seek ratification of the treaty. Why does this matter?

Without ratification the U.S. undermines its own ability to secure this nuclear test ban regime that's really vital to preventing new nuclear states from emerging and frankly, it preserves the U.S. nuclear advantage. Why wouldn't we want to do everything we can to ensure that the treaty is ratified so that we can sustain those benefits?

On the issue of further arms control with Russia, it offers no proactive agenda and is silent on the value of extending the New START Treaty, which is frankly critical to regulating our nuclear relationship with Russia. It ignores the value of the JCPOA and, very importantly, as mentioned by Tom, there is only a fleeting—the barest fleeting reference to a commitment to a world without nuclear weapons, but it's not stated as a goal.

This is not only a U.S. legal commitment under the NPT, but also necessary for sustaining the political support, political will for the entire nonproliferation regime and it finally quite frankly, it takes too narrow a view of the role that arms control can play. We should have a whole-of-government approach looking at arms control diplomacy as a plank in our national security strategy; not one that's an afterthought. This review focuses primarily on the military dimensions of nuclear weapons.

Let me just close by saying, coming back to where I started, which is that the policy, the proposed posture, the enhancements being sought by this posture review are destabilizing and fundamentally increase the risk of use, increase the risk of miscalculation. Deterrence may be necessary, but it's certainly not sufficient to prevent nuclear use and potential miscalculation.

Thank you.

REIF: Thanks, very much, Joan. Jon.

JON WOLFSTHAL: Thanks, I am going to be lazy and just stay here unless anybody objects. Thank you to the ACA and Kingston and also to Joan and to Tom for letting me be part of this group. I want to support everything, everything that Tom and Joan have just said about the NPR and the concerns, I share many of them.

I will—you know, we're sort of always pushed to say, it's OK to find something positive to say about the NPR. There's something good in it and you know, I was struck, and I'd actually be surprised if Tom and Joan didn't feel the same way.

The stated objectives in the NPR to enhance deterrence, to reduce the risk of nuclear ambiguity, to ensure that countries that have nuclear weapons and threatened to use them like Russia, like North Korea know that they cannot use these weapons without escaping a consequence greater than any objective they might hope to achieve are I think valuable statements.

The deterrent language in the document is actually, I would argue, something you could find probably in any other Republican NPR and there actually would have been a similar type of discussion in a Democratic NPR.

The problem is of course the document then goes completely off the rails by pursuing systems that aren't supported by either intelligence information that suggests it will be helpful in enhancing deterrence by expanding the roles of nuclear weapons. It actually, as Joan said, increases the risks of use and then the document itself is rather schizophrenic when it talks about wanting to increase the ambiguity of the circumstances under which the United States might consider nuclear use.

So, maybe that's not the nicest thing to say about the NPR, but I appreciate what they were trying to do because I think all of us appreciate the challenges that the U.S. government faces in reducing the risk of use are serious and whether there are cyber or nuclear or other challenges we face, I think we recognize that as an appropriate thing for both the Defense Department and the whole of government to be wrestling with.

The problem with the NPR is everything looks like a nuclear nail and so everything is going to be solved with a nuclear hammer and there aren't solutions to many of the problems that are identified in the NPR, the nuclear space that do come with tremendous baggage.

So, what I was asked to do is to talk about one part of that baggage, which is the budget and I guess I was in part picked on to talk about this because I worked at Monterey Institute with the kind support of the Nuclear Threat Initiative with Jeffrey Lewis and Mark Quint to produce I think, the first comprehensive report of what the U.S. Nuclear Modernization Program was going to cost, which we dubbed, "The trillion-dollar nuclear triad." I have a running joke that I get a nickel every time anybody uses that statement, so I have to pay myself.

Since then, of course, we have gotten new information, the latest CBO report suggests that cost is actually closer to $1.25 trillion and if you look at out your dollars, you're looking about $1.7 trillion. The answer is, we don't know how much the nuclear budget is going to cost and we don't know it for a couple of reasons, but the main reason is because the Pentagon refuses to put together a standalone nuclear budget.

They have been asked not once, but twice by the GAO to actually produce a nuclear budget that takes into account all of the disparate pieces from development, deployment, operations, disposal, personnel, healthcare—everything across the board and the answer from DOD, I kid you not is, "We don't want to do that because that's too hard." That's a response to the GAO.

But interestingly, we were talking about this before. In the budget document, the Pentagon takes on this argument and I think that's an opening that many people should be looking to exploit. You hear from advocates for the nuclear mission that this is affordable. This is only a small percentage of the overall nuclear budget and if you look at the document, it talks about how at the height of the Cold War in 1984, we were spending 13.4 percent of the budget or 13.4 percent of the Defense budget on nuclear, we are only looking to spend 6.4 percent of the Defense budget on nuclear.

So, it's interesting. They don't talk about exactly, you know, what the absolute number was, not including dismantlement and disposal, which Joan as refugees from the Department of Energy understand is a problem without a solution yet; but if you look at just the raw numbers are out there and some quick math, we spent roughly $50 billion in 1984, if you take the Pentagon's numbers on the nuclear mission.

They're proposing that we would spend roughly $42 billion a year on the nuclear budget in 2029, so you say, "Well, well that's actually pretty small. It's reasonable, right?" In 1994, sorry, 1984 was the height of the Cold War. We were planning to fight and win a nuclear war. Is that the environment that the Pentagon sees us being in in 2029? If it does, I'm sorry, but 6.4 percent of the budget is not going to cut it, right? I mean, Ronald Reagan was right, you can't win a nuclear war, so don't fight one. But the idea that somehow these numbers can be compared and since we are below where we were back at 84 or in 62, we're OK, ignores the budget reality that we exist in

It's not a question of whether it's affordable, it's a question of whether it is sustainable, and it is a question of whether it's advisable and if you look at the national priorities that we have on the plate, you are going to be seeing a lot of Pentagon brass and officials ask you want two new nuclear systems. Are these priorities for you? You want a new nuclear arms SLCM? Do you want that, or do you want the F-35? Do you want to modify the D5 submarine launch ballistic missile and put a small (U-warden) on it? Well, do you want to finish the B-61 Mod 12, the AirDrop tactical nuclear weapon that we have slated for deployment in Europe? Do you want this one instead?

What you see in the NPR is not a prioritization or strategy, it's a laundry list. We want every capability that's possible. We have a President who is prepared to allow us to go for all of the things that we might conceivably want to use at some point? But none of these things are going to come in on budget or on time and if you have any doubts about that then ask the question, why did Secretary Mattis, when he took the job asked to be relieved from the budget caps for the nuclear mission?

That was one of the first things he approached OMB for when he took over the job in the Pentagon. The same as his predecessors did, because they know that they can't fit that nuclear square in the round hole or sorry, the nuclear square peg into the round budget hole that they have to work with.

So, as you work through these budget priorities, you then also have to ask the question, "Where else can we be spending this money?" And I'm not going to do the traditional guns and butter, let's take it out of the NPR itself. What do they point to as the preeminent threats that they don't think we can handle with our existing nuclear arsenal and therefore, we need to develop new capabilities and we to expand the role of nuclear weapons?

Well, one of the ones that is on many people's minds is cyber. It's not explicitly mentioned in the NPR, but it's referenced in the National Security Strategy and is clearly a concern that is rightfully to be wrestled with by the U.S. government.

In the last National Cyber Strategy that the Obama ministration released, we haven't gotten one out of the Trump Administration yet, the document stated that they requested $19.5 billion in cyber capabilities in 1990s—sorry, in 2016. That's how much we were planning to spend, right? How much are we going to spend any one of the individual legs on the nuclear triad. The LRSO, the lowest budgeted item in the nuclear capability is $25 billion to $ 30 billion, total. More than we spend annually on cyber, but if we are going to threaten the use of nuclear weapons in response to a cyberattack, why aren't we investing more money in our own cyber capabilities.

If the damage that can be done to us through cyber is so consequential, yet we are the cyber superpower, right? President Obama said clearly that our capabilities are second to none. I guarantee you that Russia is more vulnerable than we are to cyber, not to say, less formidable countries.

So, it seems me instead of investing money where Russia is trying to go to become stronger, we should be playing to your own strengths, which is in conventional capability, cyber capabilities, automation, integration—the things that were talked about in the third offset of the Pentagon, as opposed to trying to re-create some Cold War nuclear capability that doesn't match up with the threats that we face today.

Two last things I'll mention. I really want to talk to as many people in the Navy as possible about this Nuclear Posture Review. There are two things that really worry me. If you've talked to any nuclear operator in the last 20 years, they will tell you without an exception that they were thrilled to be relieved of the nuclear mission on the surface fleet and in the attack submarine fleet, right?

These things were complicated, and they made the Commanding Officer's life really complicated. You had to have security on board. You had to have different operations when you had nuclear missions. This is not like going into any port, you have to actually go to special nuclear weapons ports if you're going to be handling and shipping these things. You had additional training time, additional costs were associated with that. They lost all of that. They were supposed to be investing that in conventional operations.

Now, clearly, we have some challenges in the nuclear Navy as we stand or sorry, in the conventional Navy is as we are finding out, but the idea that we're going reintroduce this thing under the surface fleet and the attack fleet is something that's going to cost money, it's going to influence operations and it's going to be a real challenge for the surface fleet and for the attacks of force, and I'm not sure they are going to be very enthusiastic about.

The second issue is and I'm getting smarter on this. Joan talked about the discrimination problem when you launch an SLBM—is it one or all of them? Remember what our subs were designed for and built for. These are $5 billion shadows. They are meant to be secret and quiet and we spent a lot of money to keep them that way. We built them so they would be our ultimate retaliatory force if, God forbid, deterrence failed and some country launched out at us, we had the ability to destroy them.

One submarine alone was enough to basically destroy most countries on earth; maybe two would be necessary if you had a major adversary. So, now we are going to take these quiet secret ships that spent their whole lives trying to disappear and we're going to launch a small tactical nuclear weapon from it, which immediately makes the whole boat vulnerable. Any time I try to talk with the nuclear Navy about well, maybe we could change operations of this and maybe we could reduce cost with that. They said, "Look, our biggest fear is Russian anti-submarine warfare capabilities. We cannot allow them to catch up and to make the oceans invisible." So, now we're basically going to have a giant dinner bell for every Russian attack sub to say, "Here it is."

And people tell me, "Look, we practiced into the Cold War. We launch. We go deep. We run fast. You have a big part of the ocean." Well, that might have been true in 1984, but Russians have been investing a lot of money in their ASW capability, and so as we ask questions in Congress of the Navy and of the military, how do they feel about these? Are these priorities? I think we also have to start asking some operational questions because they really do pose challenges that I think are going to get us into the nuts and bolts. I have gone a little long, but that should be plenty to talk about. Thank you.

REIF: Thanks very much, Tom, Joan and Jon. Great representations. Stayed within the allotted time limit which was beautiful and lots and lots to chew on—I mean, I could jump in on any of the numerous points that they made, but I'd like to open the floor to those of you in the audience for your questions and comments. The floor is yours, questions.

(UNKNOWN): We probably have mics coming too.

REIF: And we do—we will have mics coming around as well, thank you very much, (Sean). Right here, Jon.

QUESTION: Great, thank you. Jon Harper with National Defense Magazine. In terms of the cost estimates for developing a new sea-launch cruise missile and also a new low-yield warhead, you know, roughly what do think the price tag would be for that and also just, you know from a technical perspective and kind of layman's terms, can you sort of explain what would be required to actually create these new weapons?

WOLFSTHAL: Yes, and I will defer to Joan who of course has deep knowledge on how NNSA operates. What I will say is that what the draft NPR lays out is two things. One, they want to go immediately for this modified low-yield warhead for the submarine launch capability. They talk about that being a relatively low-cost option with a short timeline. The idea that's been pushed is we have thermonuclear weapons, two-stage nuclear weapons. We have a small fission primary, which has a smaller yield, a couple of kilotons, maybe less, maybe more, which then drives a second larger explosion, the thermonuclear part. That then brings up many hundreds of kilotons.

The idea would be that they would simply remove the secondary, so they would just keep the primary and put in ballast or something that wouldn't affect the trajectory or the center of gravity in the warhead. That's something that the laboratories probably could effectuate in a relatively short period of time. Relatively short—a couple of years. It depends on how they want to affect the throughput of all the other life extension programs that were currently underway.

We have a limited number of facilities. We have a limited number of staff and so, it's not clear how that would affect the life extension program for the W-88, the life extension program for the W-76, the life extension program for the B-61 Mod 12, so it would throw off some of the schedules.

The second part is that they don't say they want to absolutely go for a SLCM, they want to have a study. The study then might lead to an assessment of alternatives, which is their contracting parlance and then they would get to a record of decision, choose an option. This is many years away. It's clearly going to extend beyond the Trump term in office, assuming one term in office, it might be something that they could sort of get to a prototype later in the second term if that happens. But in terms of the actual decision-making, I'd defer to Joan if she has some thoughts on...

ROHLFING: I don't have more on the decision-making and I agree with everything you just said to the question of cost. I think I can't offer a clear answer and it really would depend, Jon, is right. You can make a relatively modest, though not trivial modification to an existing weapon to convert your SLBM weapon to be one that's low-yield in the near term. The much bigger project is the development of a low-yield weapon for a SLCM and if you assume that you're repurposing an existing nuclear package rather than trying to design a new weapon from scratch, you might find that it's in the same neighborhood of cost as the new air launched cruise missile called the LRSO that they're working on that Jon cited, about $25 billion price tag for.

If you were trying to manufacture something from—to design it from scratch, that would most likely necessitate nuclear testing. That's a whole different ball of wax, much longer program, more expensive and not to mention, the significant cost from a diplomacy and National Security standpoint if we had to resume testing to prove a new weapon design.

COUNTYMAN: And just add, Jon, quickly to what Joan has said, I mean, I think, it's absolutely right to say it would depend. I mean, if you look at the missile—potential missile for a new SLCM, the DOD, the Navy is going to do an analysis of alternatives, presumably to look at different options. It would seem to me that the lowest cost option would be some way to spin off a current or a future block of the Tomahawk missile and use that.

Whereas the most expensive option would be some kind of totally new missile that they would have to design and then on the warhead sign, warhead side excuse me, there has been talk in an article actually that Jim Miller, a former Obama Administration Pentagon official and Sandy Winnefeld, the Former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff advocating for a new sea launched cruise missile. They said at least for the warhead, you could build a modified—so a modified version of the W80-4, which as Joan mentioned is the planned warhead for that the new air-launched cruise missile, the LRSO and build a few more of them and put it on a on a sea-launched cruise missile is a relatively lower cost option.

So, I think potentially, range of cost, but the point is additional costs to a program of record that as Jon already pointed out is under tremendous stress and faces a major affordability and executability challenge.

ROHLFING: And can I just follow that with one point that I would really want to emphasize. I think the largest cost is not a financial one, it's the National Security implications as we discussed of deploying a new low-yield warhead that is destabilizing and increases the chance that a nuclear weapon will be used. That I think, is the most important point that I would make about a sea-launch cruise missile.

RIEF: Additional question. Yes?

QUESTION: Thank you, Sandra Erwin with Space News. Jon, to your point about capabilities that we do need like cyber, can you be more specific. I mean, do you mean satellites? What are some of the areas where we need to be more resilient and what specific capabilities would you recommend? Thanks.

WOLFSTHAL: So, I am not a cyber expert, but obviously, working in the administration and understanding both our capabilities and vulnerabilities, I think the question is what is it that the U.S. government is worried about in terms of our adversary's ability to use cyber capabilities against us? That makes us so vulnerable and that the impact could be so significant that it could approximate nuclear.

And the Pentagon, the NPR draft talks about this. It talks about both infrastructure, I think that would mean critical infrastructure, communications, energy grid, communications, banking, nuclear early warning command-and-control is another area that is specifically cited that could somehow disrupt our ability to have a reliable deterrent and so, I would put those at the top of my list that I want to make sure that we are doing defense to the extent necessary to protect the power grid, the communications grid, banking and financial system—those are things that I wouldn't argue that losing the communications grid would be akin to say a nuclear detonation in New York.

You know, we could learn to live without our cell phones for a couple days if we had to, but obviously, the implications are dramatic if we're so vulnerable that a country could bring it down, we should be spending more to protect it and defend it and helping states helping, and helping local municipalities, and helping utilities do that. We use some of that now, but clearly more is necessary.

And then in terms of space again, I am not a space expert, but clearly as we are developing the new satellite constellation both for early warning for communications and for military operations, this is something the Pentagon has been worried about for many, many years. This is another one of the things that you constantly hear program officers and Cabinet officers demanding and asking for more resources for and yet, there's a large pot of money here that in my view isn't matched up against the threat we face.

So, just for example, and we didn't get into a lot of nuclear doctrine here because you don't want to get bored and go right to sleep, but the idea here is that the Russians are threatening to use nuclear weapons against us or our allies because somehow, they doubt our nuclear capability, our 4,000 operational nuclear weapons aren't quite enough, the 1,000-low yield nuclear weapons aren't quite enough, so we need to have some exquisite new capability that will show the Russians we're serious.

When in fact what the Russians are doing is saying, "We are conventionally inferior to you. We can't fight you in a fair fight and, so we don't want to fight fair, we want the option to escalate to the nuclear level." And the NPR draft says, "They shouldn't be convinced that they can get away with that," because we have all of these other nuclear capabilities. That's a reasonable deterrent statement.

To then spend more money for some new capability that doesn't solve that problem strikes me as being—throwing bad money after good.

QUESTION: (OFF MIKE) (Inaudible)

WOLFSTHAL: I think that like most parts of the U.S. government, this is a stovepipe product of the nuclear establishment from the Joint Chiefs, from the OSD policy, from STRATCOM that's driving this. They said that we've already got a program of record, the incremental cost will be small and therefore, let's push this.

Now, if they were put in a room with the cyber people or the ISR people or the infrastructure people or the—you know, name your list, my guess is they would lose, but because there is this demand for Nuclear Posture Review, this sort of stands up and above and that's where Congress is really going to have to come in and prioritize, but of course, they are stove-piped in Congress as well. The people that handle cyber don't handle nuclear. People who nuclear don't handle conventional, and so we will continue to see the slicing of the salami pretty thin.

REIF: Yes, right here.

QUESTION: Thank you very much for the presentation. My name is Yuki Toda from Kerala News (ph). Most of you put it out that the destabilizing effect of its NPR on not only on the National Security, but also the arms control regime. So, please, could you tell me your prospect, your kind of vision about what's the impact of this NPR on INF Treaty and also the extension of the New START and another question is now, the United States tried to create new nuclear warheads and a nuclear weapon, so the other leading country over the NPT—NPT is losing credibility or not?

COUNTYMAN: On the new START Treaty, I am glad that the draft NPR leaves open the possibility of extension of the New START Treaty for an additional five years when the initial term expires in 2021. In my view, this is the single most logical step that Moscow and Washington could take, and they could take it today, that would provide additional strategic stability and also send a valuable signal to the rest of the world that the U.S. and Russian Federation, no matter what else they say, are still interested in limiting their nuclear arsenals.

On the INF Treaty, the NPR—the draft NPR talks quite a bit about the Russian violation, which is a serious concern. It correctly describes that arms control is made more difficult if existing agreements are not honored, but I think it does not provide an easy answer any more than the Obama Administration could provide an easy answer for how to bring the Russians back into compliance with their obligations under the INF Treaty.

It links the development of a submarine-launched cruise missile with the Russian violation and suggests that the U.S. might revisit development of a submarine-launched cruise missile if Russia returns to compliance. I don't believe that that's adequate by itself to get Russia to return, but it is appropriate for this NPR to take very seriously Russia's violation of the INF treaty.

The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty has many challenges, the challenge posed by North Korea is by far the greatest. The challenge posed by Iran was addressed in the Joint Comprehensive Program of Action and the most significant step backwards that could be taken for the Nonproliferation Treaty is if any of the parties to the JCPOA walk away from that agreement. That would be the single biggest threat to the credibility of the NPT.

But at the same time, for this Administration to pretend that the U.S. has no legal obligation to continue to address reductions in its nuclear arsenal is damaging to our credibility not only as a leader in nonproliferation, but as a so-called leader on any of the issues that the U.S. has to deal with. It's why walking away from the JCPOA is a big challenge for the U.S. because it would signal to other countries that an agreement with the United States is not meaningful and can be easily reversed on the whim of a different President.

So, the challenges to the NPT are there and I fear that the statements contained in this draft NPR will erode the U.S. capability to lead the world on nonproliferation efforts.

REIF: Last one to—very good. Questions? Yes, right here.

QUESTION: Doug Sharp from the George Washington University. Thank you all for a great panel. I am given to reflect on Scott Sagan and Jane Vaynman's effort after the Obama Nuclear Posture Review to understand what its effects were on the nuclear posture is the attitudes about nuclear weapons of other states and I'm wondering if you could reflect on that topic, on how nuclear weapon state potential adversaries, allies and other states will react to this nuclear posture?

WOLFSTHAL: I'm thrilled you asked that question not only because Jane used to work for me here at the Carnegie Endowment, but because without a doubt, one of the best things I read when I was in government and this is including all the fine work that our intelligence community could produce was the work that they did try to understand how different countries saw the Obama NPR and to bring that into a feedback loop, so we can understand ourselves.

Did our outgoing message—was it received the way we wanted to? How did that affect our ongoing planning? And there was a significant deviation between what we planned and it then factored into a lot of our thinking, so my favorite example—this is every time we said we wanted to reduce the role of nuclear weapons, what the work that Scott and Jane put together, what Russia heard was, we want to be able to do whatever we want with conventional weapons anytime, anywhere.

Like, of course, you want to reduce the role of nuclear weapons. You are the conventional superpower. They didn't view that as a good thing. They viewed that as a very destabilizing thing that did not reassure them, so I think it would be very interesting to hear and see what foreign countries, adversaries and allies alike think about this NPR, but it gets to a fundamental problem which is, is this Trump's NPR or not?

My interpretation and I wouldn't speak for anybody else is that Donald Trump is probably unlikely to read any of this document, that this is Secretary Mattis' NPR and it's a product of him, General Selva who is the Vice Chairman, General Hyten, the Commander of STRATCOM and Rob Soofer who is the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Missile Defense who is very knowledgeable and I think did an excellent job sort of pulling these threads together, but it doesn't reflect Trump thinking.

And so, I don't know what our allies think, and I don't know what adversaries think because it—does Mattis runs nuclear policy or Trump? And if you have any doubts about that, just look at the NPR language itself. It says on the one hand, our commitment to our allies are ironclad and our assurances mean something, that's not Donald Trump language. And it says that any decision to use nuclear weapon would follow a deliberative process.

Does anybody believe that that is the way that President Trump will think about using nuclear weapons? It's clearly the way that our military and our civilians in the Pentagon think about it, but that's not what we would see out of this White House.

ROHLFING: I just like to add a simple kind of one sentence. I think the overall take away from this NPR is that we need more weapons and more roles for our nuclear weapons in our National Security and if the U.S. as the most powerful nation, the biggest most powerful military on earth needs more nuclear weapons for its National Security that sends a big signal that others needs them too and it really undermines our nonproliferation objectives and makes us less safe over time.

REIF: Back there in the red.

QUESTION: My name is Alicia Dressman. I am an independent consultant. When I read these section on the NPR on tailored deterrence towards Russia, which featured a very outdated view of Russia's nuclear posture, the escalated to de-escalate strategy, I don't think has been relevant in a recent National Security Strategy coming out of Russia in quite some time. I completely wrote off that there was an actual foreign-policy component that was competent and that this is more a technocratic objective introducing his new-yield low warhead.

My question to you would be, how much of the NPR introducing the—may be resuming the W80 Mod 4 redesign for a SLCM, how much of that is the NNSA perhaps looking at the DOD NNSA three plus two programs in saying, "Okay, we have efficiencies. We can open up a new assembly and maybe use nonnuclear parts from the LRSO warhead for the SLCM, because they have a similar warhead design et cetera" and how much of this comes from this grand strategy perspective of our considering, you know, nuclear threats around the globe and proposing new warheads to meet those threats? Thank you.

ROHLFING: I'll take a crack at that. I think it's both, and, but I do think it's primarily an attempt to address, perhaps a misinformed view of Russian doctrine and strategy. It's just taken as a given in this town that the Russians are seriously pursuing this strategy of escalate to de-escalate and I know among the experts, that's actually controversial and some of the experts I trust think it's not real, but I do think it is the primary driving factor behind seeking these new capabilities and then I think secondarily, as Tom mentioned, there's a component to creating some trade debate to try and get the Russians back to the table on INF.

I would put both of those things in front at the NNSA trying to expand its mission space. They already have enough on their plate and not enough resources to tackle what they have been asked to do for their program of record.

WOLFSTHAL: So, Joan is right. There is a discussion and debate about whether Russia really has an escalate to de-escalate. There is no such debate inside the U.S. government. When we looked in the Obama Administration where we continued to see what Russia is doing with their nuclear capabilities, with their capabilities of developing in violation of the INF and in addition to their statements and planning, there is a willingness to use nuclear weapons to escalate their way of a failed conventional crisis. That may not even be a dominant, it may not even be a likely capability, but is one that worries our planners and I think is appropriately worrying our planners.

I can't speak for what it's like in this administration. I could tell you that as much as we valued and looked to the input of NNSA, they were not a strategy driver in the Obama NPR, I think it's very unlikely that they were a driving strategy. I don't think you have to look too far to see who really is the brainchild of these or who is the author of these brainchild. There was a lot of input for the NPR from Keith Payne at the National Institute for Public Policy who has written about tailor deterrence. You could actually take the sections, I mean, it's almost font matching in terms of what they are putting forward.

So, these arguments have been out for a while. Frank Miller, the same who was a key official in the Bush administration for nuclear policy and defense and Brad Roberts also who worked on the Obama NPR is now at Livermore have been talking about these ideas for many, many years and I think they just found very fertile soil in the Trump Administration.

COUNTYMAN: If I could comment on that. I don't know whether or not the Russians have an escalate to de-escalate doctrine or not. It does concern me that although the authors would deny it, we run the risk of slipping back into Cold War knee-jerk responses that if the Russians have such a policy, we must match that capability and that concerns me.

I'm sure that the authors would see that comment as unfair, but there's a risk that we're moving in that direction, but the larger question about Russian statements and thinking, I think ties back to Doug's question about how other countries react and the fact is that even in the very hard world of military policy and nuclear weapons, words matter. Rhetoric matters.

What I saw a few years ago as the most negative development for strategic stability and nonproliferation in the world was the fact that Vladimir Putin started talking about Russia's nuclear weapons as a key element of national power as what made Russia great. The kind of language that the North Korean leadership uses and that you heard sometimes in the past from Pakistan or India, but most countries had abandoned that language for a long period of time.

And to have Putin again talking about nuclear weapons as what makes a country great was I think negative if the goal is to discourage still more countries from building nuclear weapons. And to have the United States President embrace that kind of language, even if less grammatically, I think further undermines our ability to discourage other nations from pursuing nuclear weapons. So, that's the part of Russian rhetoric that is separate from doctrine, but should be deeply concerning.

REIF: We're getting closer to our time and I see that we have more questions out there. I am going to take a few at a time to ensure we get more questions, so first, Daryl and if you just wait to respond to Daryl's and I'll take another one.

KIMBALL: Thanks, everybody. I'm Daryl Kimball, your host today. I wanted to draw Tom's attention and ask for comment about one part of the NPR that has gotten a lot of attention, but I think you're well equipped to address. One passage says, the United States is committed to arms-control efforts that advanced U.S. allied partner security are verifiable and enforceable.

So, I think the Arms Control Association would agree that you know, that advanced U.S. allied partner security, yes, are verifiable, yes, but enforceable. What do you think the NPR authors mean? What might that entail? To my knowledge, there isn't a single arms-control treaty that contains an enforcement provision per se. So, your thoughts about that and quickly, Joan—back to the nuclear testing issue with your experience at NNSA and your work with a guy named Ernie Moniz at MTI (sic) who used to be at the Energy Department, as you know, the NNSA's Stockpile Stewardship Management Plan also has a line and it came out a few months ago that says the United States test readiness timeline should be reduced to 6 to 10 months for a simple test. What is your interpretation of what that is about? What its implications could be?

REIF: Real quickly before responding to Daryl. Sir, right here, yes?

QUESTION: Stephanie Cooke with Nuclear Intelligence Weekly. I wanted to ask a little bit more about the clauses to do with disarmament and the ambiguity at best in these clauses. I've asked, we've talked about it with Tom Countryman and I'd like to ask if you think that that will be softened or hardened? I mean in the sense that it will become stronger in the final document.

We heard Chris Ford saying that he questioned that as a goal in April when he was at Carnegie, so you didn't mention his involvement in this review, but I wondered if someone—if you would comment on that and if you see a chance that that might be argued down so that we get stronger language on disarmament?

REIF: Well, let's take those two and then we will...

COUNTYMAN: Well, very quickly on the last point. I'm glad that Dr. Chris Ford is now in the office I previously held, Assistant Secretary for International Security in Nonproliferation. He is highly intelligent, highly experienced in this field and a substantial cut above the average appointee of this administration in any agency.

I don't know how strong his role has been. I know that he was at the White House coordinating the drafting process, but the drafting was done primarily at DOD. I don't know if it will change and maybe I'm not far enough removed from government service, but it still bothers me when things of this magnitude get leaked. As journalists, as NGOs, it's great to comment on a leaked document, but the fact is that it's now harder for there to be any changes made to this document particularly with this White House.

So, that if there is any argument still going on about particular clauses, it's probably hard for them to walk back now and that's unfortunate in my view. Very quickly on Daryl's points. The reference to future arms-control agreements is bothersome in two ways. First, because it says they have to be enforceable. There does not exist an enforceable arms-control agreement in part because no U.S. president would ever be willing to say that the United States will subject itself to enforcement action by an international body. In other words, this administration wants agreements to be enforceable on everybody else, but optional for the United States, and that's very much the White House point of view on the JCPOA.

So, it sets an artificially high standard, an impossible standard. More importantly to me is the very phrasing denotes passivity. We remain open to arms-control agreements. Maybe somebody else has a terrific idea, but no claim of U.S. leadership, no claim that the U.S. is going to press forward on arms-control agreements. I understand in part why it lists in great detail the obstacle placed by the Russians through their INF violation, but to write off the U.S. leadership role and condemn Washington to passivity on an existential question for the planet is distressing.

ROHFLING: So, let me tackle the test readiness question. I found it curious as well, Daryl, I think it sends a signal that they're adopting a much more muscular approach, that they are risk-averse, I guess, I perhaps there is some question about their confidence of enduring weapons in the stockpile. I personally don't see why you would need such a compressed timescale to have changed from—we were looking at a timeframe of years to resume testing to now, possibly six months. I'm not—it's a pretty stressful scenario to even put a test package together within that timeframe.

There are extraordinary costs associated with ramping up the capability to resume testing within six months, so it certainly wouldn't be on my list of priorities for what we should be investing in when we have so much competition for resources, so that's something I'd like to learn more about. It simply makes no sense to me.

WOLFSTHAL: And just briefly since Tom mentioned it, I'll put in a plug for an article that is out front that Rick Burton and I wrote in the National Interest on abandoning the arms-control role that the U.S. has played and how in fact, we can shape the international environment that so worries the Pentagon that they have to threaten early use of nuclear weapons and arm-control has been successful in actually reducing those threats in the past. We need to get back to thinking about shaping the environment and not having environment shape us.

In terms of the language on disarmament, so I heard Chris Ford same as you at the Carnegie conference. I actually view that as one of the ways the document has already improved. They recognized there was no need to take on a fight that had no payoff by insulting the entire international nonproliferation system and parties to it and so, I think the language could get—it could be better and I actually and Tom have a slightly different view.

I mean, I'm with you. I hate leaked documents and I wish that they hadn't come to me and I know that I got burned by documents being leaked when I was in the White House not to our advantage, but that being said, I actually did the Pentagon didn't like the reaction that there was a bit of a feedback loop going on that somehow this is worse than they thought.

Secretary Mattis had asked that the NPR do three things. Deter our enemies, reassure our allies and not upset what there is of support for modernization in the Congress and the fact that this document may not achieve all three of those goals, may lead them to consider some changes, but I don't think that necessarily spoke about what they are hearing on the language for disarmament because while it's not good, it probably will get them a passing grade among some of the countries that we have to work with.

And with Chris Ford's role, just a modification, Tom may have more information than I do. I think it was the Defense Director at the White House of the National Security Council that's coordinating the document, Mild Office, Armstrong nonproliferation had input into these particular sections, but was not a driver when it came to much of the policy.

ROHLFING: ... an issue with something, you just said Jon and surprisingly, I think you give the review you too much credit for what it does say about disarmament. I have a somewhat more alarmist reaction to it. I mean, if you actually look at the designated section that talks about arms-control, nowhere in there does it actually mention that we are pursuing a goal of a world without nuclear weapons...

WOLFSTHAL: But if you were Tom, and I've sent him in the lion's den at the NPT, you would say, "Oh of course, we recommit ourselves to the elimination of nuclear weapons." It's here in the preamble...

ROHLFING: Right, but this occurs within the context of a much broader global debate right now that's broader than just the NPT that has to do with the test ban and the absence of a reaffirmation of what the U.S. has publicly said for decades that it is committed to achieving the ultimate goal of a world without nuclear weapons. I think that's really problematic.

WOLFSTHAL: I agree that it is problematic. It is a problem among many. I think it probably is a fig leaf for the diplomatic (inaudible)...

REIF: Excellent colloquium among colleagues there. I see a few hands raised, so let's see if we can get the final outstanding questions before we wrap. Yes, Alexey.

QUESTION: Thank you, I am Alexey Fomenkov, Second Secretary for the Russian Embassy. There have been a lot of talk here about Russians, so I was wondering whether I could say a couple of words without probably asking a question, would that be OK?

REIF: Yes, you may.

QUESTION: Thank you. So, first on escalate to de-escalate, I would like to point out that there is a standing Russian military doctrine. It's public. It's in English. And it specifically says under which circumstances Russia would consider using nuclear weapons and that is when the existence of the state is under jeopardy and when its territorial integrity is in question so that's very specific and it's much more specific than in U.S. documents, both current and supposedly, the future ones.

Also, on the rhetoric, I would like to point out that the NATO, in its documents, it says that nuclear weapons remain the supreme guarantee with security, so I would say that comparisons between Russia and North Korea would not be very appropriate in this context. Thank you.

REIF: Any of the panelists want to comment on that, you are free to do so, but let's see if we can get additional question. Greg?

QUESTION: Greg Thielmann, Arms Control Association Board Member. Congress in recent years has been quite skeptical of arms-control and defense spending arguments given the deficit hawks seem to go into hibernation, so I wonder if could list a comment on what the Congressional reaction will be to the NPR and is it possible that nuclear policy issues over the nuclear programs will be an issue in the fall elections to the U.S. Congress?

REIF: Like I said, one more and—yes, ma'am?

QUESTION: Hi, I am Emma Fruy (ph) from Global Zero and as I understood the NPR, there was a point about ramping up plutonium production as part of the renewal process for existing nuclear weapons. I was wondering if you could comment on the potential consequences of that and how this compares to earlier NPR's?

REIF: Let's answer those final three questions and then any closing comments that you might have.

WOLFSTHAL: Maybe just a word on the Congressional reaction, we can talk Emma, anytime you want since we're both Global Zero now, welcome. So, I won't answer her question and Joan is better suited for that anyway.

I have a prediction about politics although, I mainly worked for the Vice President who told me, "Look, you may be the smartest man in the world, but you don't know anything about politics." I think it's going to fall into two camps, Greg. I think partly this is going to fall into the resistance, right, Donald Trump can't be trusted with nuclear weapons. He is pushing for new nuclear options more usable. He wants to push the button, which is bigger than Kim Jong-un, you know, it sort would fit into that. I think this will provide plenty of fodder for that.

In the discussions we've been having, I think there is a real interest on the Hill in the programmatic side of when it comes the—not just the cost, but also just the operations. How this will impact on the DoE complex, how it would impact on the on the other parts of the modernization.

I don't think it's going to have—I don't think it's going to have a big electoral impact. I quite frankly, while, I was pleased as a lifelong arms-controller and a person who doesn't like nuclear weapons thrilled that there were nuclear commercials for the presidential election but quite surprised. I mean, I think this will fit into the narrative, but I think the real battle here is going to be on the budget for the new systems with the hope that it will inspire the Congress to exercise the oversight it should be exercising over the full suite of these capabilities.

We have now door opening on the President's authority unfettered to use nuclear weapons. I think that's been very positive and helpful for shining light in this issue. I hope we will see a similar thing on the budget, but I don't expect to rise to a very high political national level.

COUNTYMAN: In answer to Greg's question, just based on the past year, I predict that the Congressional majority will bring to this issue the same intellectual honesty, concern about deficits, non-partisanship, readiness to compromise and honest public statements that they've brought to every issue for the last 12 months.

ROHLFING: Well said. I am not going to add to the Congressional budget question, but just a quick answer to the plutonium production. The review contemplates a ramp up to production facility that could produce 80 pits per year, which is actually consistent with the program of record under the Obama Administration that's been under discussion for a while, that's been on the books as part of the outgoing Stockpile Stewardship Plan, so it's obviously an increase from the onesie, two-sie capability that we have now, but not something new.

Just one comment on the gentleman from Russia about the NATO statement, he's right. There is a statement about nuclear weapons being "the supreme guarantee of NATO's security" and what this represents is a greater emphasis on the role of nuclear weapons within the European context and I think this is a whole area, if we had more time, we could spend a whole session just talking that the role of U.S. forward deployed weapons in Europe, the role of nuclear weapons in Europe in general. I think, I would really matter have seen this review taking a completely different approach which is looking at how we can consolidate those weapons back to the United States, rather than reinforcing their role and underscoring that we need to keep them there for all.

REIF: With that, let me thank our panelists for an excellent discussion. Let me thank all of you for coming. The conversation about the Nuclear Posture Review and the Trump Administration's nuclear weapons policy has just begun as has the Arms Control Association’s engagement on this question, so keep a lookout for future events, for additional resources on our website.

My coworkers have informed me that I must conclude with two final housekeeping notes before I'm allowed off the podium. The first is a note that the transcript of this event will be available by the end of the week for those of you who are interested in consulting it and then a final note that the Arms Control Association, we have a date for our annual meeting which will be April 19th here at Carnegie and this year's annual meeting will focus on the challenges facing the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and nonproliferation regime on the occasion of that 50th birthday of the treaty, so please, we hope to see you join us at that event on the 19th and with that, thank you all for coming and let's thank our panelists.

END

Description:

The Arms Control Association will host a briefing with a group of top experts to analyze the implications of the new Trump nuclear strategy.

Press Briefing: Pathways to a Diplomatic Resolution on North Korea

Sections:
Events

Body:

Prospects and Pathways to a Diplomatic Resolution the North Korean Nuclear Crisis

Tuesday, December 5, 2017
9:00 to 11:00 a.m.
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
1779 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, DC

The transcript of the event is posted below.

Despite the Trump administration’s campaign of maximum pressure on the North Korean regime, Kim Jong-Un has continued to advance his country's nuclear and missile programs.

U.S. officials say they are open to talks on denuclearization, but also insist that now is time to apply more pressure to bring North Korea to bargaining table. North Korea has said it will not discuss its nuclear program so long as the United States maintains a hostile policy and joint military exercises take place in the region.

Though Washington and Pyongyang maintain a line of communication through the “New York channel,” there is no sign yet of any structured talks designed to resolve the crisis. The time available to find a a diplomatic off-ramp may be limited, especially if North Korea resumes its nuclear and missile testing.

This event—featuring three top experts in the field—will outline the growing risks posed by North Korea’s nuclear and missile capabilities and whether a serious, sustained, and direct U.S.-North Korean dialogue is still possible. The speakers will assess current engagement efforts and under what conditions Pyongyang might be willing to negotiate the cessation and reversal of its nuclear program.

Speakers will include:

William Perry, the 19th Secretary of Defense who has extensive experience negotiating with North Korea from his time serving in the Clinton administration;
Suzanne DiMaggio, senior fellow at New America and participant in recent discussions with senior North Korean officials; and
Kelsey Davenport, director for nonproliferation policy at the Arms Control Association.
Daryl G. Kimball, executive director at the Arms Control Association, will moderate.

The event is open to the public and the press and will be on-the-record.

TRANSCRIPT

DARYL KIMBALL: All right, if I can just ask everybody to take seat? We’re going to start in about a minute or so, and silence the cell—the—the mobile phones.

And for those of you in the back, there are some seats up front. I expect there’re a few—there will be a few more people coming in, so this will be your chance to just slip in and get a seat towards the front. Thanks.

All right, well, good morning. Let’s get the ball rolling.

Welcome, everyone. My name is Daryl Kimball. I’m the executive director of the Arms Control Association, which most of you know is a nongovernmental organization that’s been in existence since 1971 to address the risks and the dangers posed by the world’s most dangerous weapons.

We publish the monthly journal Arms Control Today and cover a wide range of weapons-related security issues. And we’ve organized today’s forum to explore and discuss prospects and pathways to a diplomatic resolution to the North Korean nuclear crisis.

Now, the danger posed by North Korea is not new, but clearly since the arrival of Donald Trump to the White House in January of 2017, a bad situation has become far worse.

So far, the Trump’s administration policy of maximum pressure, occasional threats of fire and fury, military exercises, and mixed messaging about negotiations has failed to bring Kim Jong-un to the negotiating table, and it hasn’t slowed down North Korea’s nuclear and missile testing program.

And just, of course, a few days ago, North Korea’s Hwasong-15 flight test shows that the North Koreans have achieved something that Donald Trump said would not happen earlier this year, developing a long-range nuclear deterrent capability.

Now, President Trump and some of his other senior officials say time is running out before some kind of military options may be pursued. The reality, however, about military action may be far different.

It doesn’t seem as though there are any viable military options to halt or eliminate North Korea’s nuclear missile capability. So what does that leave us with? Pressure and some form of engagement.

Following that Hwasong-15 test of just a few days ago, Secretary Tillerson said, helpfully, “Diplomatic options remain viable and open for now." So that’s good to hear, but what does that mean?

Unfortunately, there are no direct talks right now going on between the United States and North Korea on a sustained basis, but as we’ll discuss this morning with our three expert speakers, there appear to be some new efforts under way to get such a process going.

So we’ve organized this morning’s session to hear from three bona fide experts about the status and the prospects and the possible pathways towards a negotiated or brokered agreement that could reduce tensions, somehow halt North Korea’s nuclear and missile program and also, in some way or another, address the security current—concerns that North Korea itself says it has.

There’s, of course, no guarantee that such an approach will work, but I think it’s fair to say that all of us here, all of our speakers, the Arms Control Association, believe this is the best option we have to address this grave situation.

So we’re, of course, very honored to have with us this morning Bill Perry, William J. Perry, the 19th secretary of defense, who is, in my opinion, one of the wisest and most thoughtful nuclear policy experts our nation has to offer.

He’s a real statesman who’s been working persistently on this issue, and it’s something that we at the Arms Control Association and, I think, every American should appreciate and admire.

He has, of course, extensive experience actually talking to real North Koreans, particularly during his time while serving in the Clinton administration.

So we’ve asked him to speak here today to discuss his perspectives on the crisis, what the risks are, what can be done to avert a catastrophic war and somehow arrive at a peaceful solution.

So we’re going to hear from Secretary Perry. I would like to invite him to come up to the podium right now to speak. And then we’re going to take some—take your questions for him.

And then we’re going to turn to our panel, and Secretary Perry is going to join two our other expert speakers, Suzanne DiMaggio, who’s a senior fellow with New America, and Kelsey Davenport, our own director for Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy at the Arms Control Association.

So Secretary Perry, if I could invite you to come on up? Thank you for joining us and for your long and distinguished service to the country. We look forward to hearing your thoughts on this issue.

WILLIAM PERRY: Thank you, Daryl. I’m going to get right to it by telling you what I think North Korea has today, which is about 20 to 25 nuclear weapons, a few of them, thermonuclear or hydrogen, and a couple hundred missiles, most of them short-range, but a few of them medium-range.

And they’re developing an ICBM, which I think has another year or two to go before it becomes operational, but I have no doubt that they will get there. So that’s the North Korean nuclear arsenal today.

We should never have let them get that arsenal. I’m going to talk about two things. First of all, how we happened—how we let that happen, very briefly, and then what we’re going to do about it.

We had, in my judgment, four opportunities to stop that development from happening, all of which, one way or another, failed. The first one went all the way back to 1994.

I have a special fondness for that one because it was the first crisis I faced as secretary of defense, so it’s etched into my memory.

I won’t go into the details of what happened in that crisis except it ended up with a diplomatic agreement called the Agreed Framework, which was negotiated by Bob Gallucci, and by which North Korea agreed to stop their nuclear program.

Basically, they shut down Yongbyon, which was their nuclear facility, and we agreed to supply—we being the United States, Japan, South Korea—agreed to supply them with two light water reactors to replace—to provide their electricity and then some, which they thought they were going to get out of their facility at Yongbyon.

These new light water reactors would not be susceptible to being easily diverted to making nuclear weapons. And the—the Agreed Framework eventually was abandoned both by—by both United States and North Korea in the early part of this century.

And while North Korea fully complied with their activities at Yongbyon, that is they shut down, basically shut down their plutonium facility at Yongbyon. They proceeded in a covert R&D program to develop a highly enriched uranium option for making nuclear bombs.

The Agreed Framework—Framework, in my judgment, probably delayed their nuclear program by almost a decade. That’s what we got out of it. But it did not stop their aspirations to have nuclear bombs and did not stop them from proceeding with an R&D program in highly enriched uranium, going to—getting a head start on how to make a bomb out of HEU.

In 1999, they conducted a early ICBM test, and that sent shockwaves, both in the United States and our allies, Japan and South Korea.

But why was it so important? It was because nobody would build an ICBM unless they were planning to put a nuclear warhead on it. It was an indication that they had kept something going in—in the nuclear program.

We didn’t know at the time what it was. We now know it was an R&D program in highly enriched uranium. But it was a very implicit indicator that it had—still had aspirations and some program for—for making a nuclear bomb.

In dealing with that crisis, I was now happily back at Stanford teaching. I had no desire to leave, but President Clinton called me and asked me if I would be his envoy for North Korea, see if I could deal with this problem.

To give you a little background about that, I thought I was a very poor choice for that task because during the previous crisis, I’d been secretary of defense.

And we had taken a very strong position that we would not permit North Korea to make a nuclear bomb—that we would not permit them to make plutonium, which was the first step to getting a nuclear bomb.

And I was a spokesman for Clinton in that regard. And we’ve said things like that many times since then, but this time we meant it. And we were—really were going to stop them if they did it. I had on my desk a plan to use a conventionally-armed cruise missile to destroy Yongbyon if they persisted in making plutonium.

It’s not so important that we were planning to do that is—as it is that North Korea believed we were planning to do it. In other words, our threat this time was a credible threat. And that’s what brought North Korea to the bargaining table, I think.

So why did he pick me to do this? I was the face of the opposition to Pyongyang. In fact, their—two days after I made my statement, the North Korean state-run newspaper had come out the headline that "Secretary of Defense Perry is a War Maniac." War maniac. I have never been called anything quite that exciting in my whole lifetime.

(LAUGHTER)

So I thought they might have a very negative reaction to my being the envoy there. But it—in any event, we—but let me just tell you about what to propose to them. It was about a tri-lateral study. I invited the Japanese and South Koreans to join me in this study.

We had a report made—but the key thing about the report, one sentence in the report, I think it’s worth repeating. It said, "We must deal with North Korea as it is and not as we would wish it to be." And that was my guideline when we went to Pyongyang to—to try to negotiate another agreement with them.

I spent four days in Pyongyang, made a very explicit proposal to them of what benefits would come to North Korea if they verifiably agreed to give up not only their nuclear program but their long-range missile program and the incentives if they would do that and the disincentives if they didn’t do it. So it was a very frank and freewheeling discussion.

And I left Pyongyang after four days believing we were very close to an agreement, that we had sort of a verbal understanding that they were willing—willing to do this.

Some months later, Kim Jong-il sent his senior military man to Washington to do the final negotiation of this agreement. He stopped off at Stanford on the way. I gave him a tour of the Bay Area, held a dinner in his honor, and then we went back to Washington.

The summary of that meeting was that he and President Clinton had a hand shake agreement on the deal we had negotiated in Pyongyang, and all of it—that was left was signing it. And Clinton wanted to sign it personally and Kim Jong-il wanted to sign it personally, so we were going to set that time in another—another month or two.

But a funny thing happened three weeks after that meeting in Washington, which was called a U.S. election, and a new administration was voted into office. Clinton decided, I think probably rightly, that he shouldn’t sign this agreement and then hand it to the new president. He should let the new president do the signing.

And at the time, we were confident that was going to happen because the incoming Secretary of State Colin Powell had said that he had liked the agreement and that he was going to bring it to a conclusion as soon as they got their new term started.

So we saw that being signed in maybe February or March of 2001. But in fact, President Bush, I think, under the strong guidance of his Vice President Cheney, decided not only not to sign it, but to cut off all discussions, all negotiations with the North.

And so for two years there was no discussion at all with the North. And they started acting out again. The Chinese became very concerned at this. So that was the second opportunity we had to stop the program, and that was aborted just before the agreement was signed.

And so then a full discussion of what I’m—of that—those meetings and what the agreement was is in my book, "My Journey at the Nuclear Brink," which you can get for 20 bucks at Amazon.

I was not only disappointed at the time; I would say I was a little bitter on all this work, all this effort on such an important problem, and it was just thrown overboard.

In 2002, the Chinese became concerned about what was going on, and proposed something called the six-party talks. You’re all familiar with that. I won’t dwell on it.

I believe they were on the wrong negotiating tactic in the six-party talks, but that’s just an opinion. In any event, the upshot of the six-party talks was during the time they were talking, the North Korean built about six or seven nuclear bombs.

In other words, all of the—while they were—while the—while we were talking, they were building. And then finally the six-party talks were abandoned. That was our third opportunity to stop them.

Last year, in 2016, I proposed once more diplomacy to deal with this problem, in particular diplomacy before they tested their ICBM and before they tested a hydrogen bomb, which I felt confident was in the offing.

I thought if we could get an agreement to stop them then that would be very well worth—it didn’t get rid of this nuclear arsenal they had, but it kept it from getting worse. And in my judgment getting a hydrogen bomb and getting an ICBM made it a lot worse.

I think we might have had that agreement a year ago, but that was never pursued. So that was the fourth opportunity we had.

That wouldn’t have stopped them entirely in their arsenal, but it would have stopped them from getting an ICBM and a hydrogen bomb because you cannot truly aspire to—to have that kind of capability if you haven’t tested it.

So as a result of those four missed opportunities, we’re now looking today at a nuclear arsenal, as I said, of about 20 to 25 nuclear weapons and building. They’re building, I think, at a pretty fast rate now with an H—an HEU capability.

I still believe that we could have averted that outcome if we had concluded the agreement in 2000. At the very least, that agreement would have stopped their program for at least another decade.

So four times we—our diplomacy was either unsuccessful, or we simply passed up the opportunity to do it. So that takes us up to today.

Let me start off with a negative statement about our options today. I do not believe that even inspired and successful diplomacy today will be successful in getting them to give up their nuclear arsenal. If that’s the aspiration for our negotiations, I do not think they will be successful.

It could have been successful in 2000. It could have been successful maybe even in 2004 during the four-party—six-party talks. Now they a nuclear arsenal, and they’re very happy with it.

I can’t quite imagine what it is we’re going to offer them to the—encourage them to simply give it up. And to say that we want them to give up their arsenal before we begin to talk is just sheer idiocy. They’re not going to do that.

Their successful test of a hydrogen bomb has now given the essential data they need to build an arsenal of those deadly weapons. And their ICBM tests have taken them far enough that, in my opinion, they’re not going to stop those tests until they have an operational ICBM whatever we offer them, whatever we propose them

So whatever opportunity we had in the past to prevent them from getting in that position, that has passed and we’re now facing a different situation. They now have a nuclear arsenal, a nuclear arsenal which will soon have both ICBMs, and hydrogen bombs in its capability.

So we must face the near certainty that North Korea will have, within a few years, the capable (sic) of delivering nuclear weapons, including hydrogen nuclear weapons, to any place in the world including, of course, the United States.

And we should not have let them get that capability, but they will soon have it as a result of our either failure in diplomacy, or simply walking away from diplomatic options we had some years ago. That’s the bad news.

Let me give you a little bit of good news in this situation. I do not believe that North Korea will use this weapon, this arsenal, in an unprovoked attack. I do not believe that.

I’m not worried about them firing a nuclear weapon at San Francisco, or if they could get the capability—range capability, they’re not going to do that.

They have endured great economic hardships to build this arsenal because they believed that it was necessary to preserve their regime, that is to sustain the Kim Dynasty. That is their over—has been from the beginning, their overriding objective.

Some—the reason some of our negotiations failed, our six-party talks, which failed, for example, is because we had the wrong understanding of what they were trying to achieve.

We offered them economic incentives, which they were happy to take, but they’re not willing to give up their nuclear arsenal for it. That is, in those days, they were not willing to give up the option of getting a nuclear arsenal.

So I say they’re not going to use this in an unprovoked attack. This regime is ruthless, it’s reckless. It is not suicidal. It is not suicidal.

They are seeking to survive, and they know that if they launch a nuclear weapon at the U.S. or its allies, that their regime will be destroyed. So that’s a little bit of good news.

However, I want to say this very clearly, this nuclear arsenal is very, very dangerous. It’s all to a me—easy to imagine scenarios—scenarios in which they blunder into a nuclear war.

They’re a reckless country. They—they all—they have a history of taking very dangerous provocations, particularly with South Korea. And if anything, this nuclear arsenal will probably embolden them to take even more provocations.

And depending on how South Korea reacts, depending on how the United States reacts, that could easily escalate into a nuclear war—pardon me, into a conventional war.

And if they get into conventional war, the North will lose. They know that. That’s why they’re building their nuclear weapons.

So they see the nuclear weapons as deterring this war, but also I’m afraid they see it as emboldening—emboldening them to take even more reckless provocations, which create the condition in which a conventional military response would take, which could then escalate into a nuclear war. That’s the scenario I see which allowed—encouraged me to say this is a very dangerous situation.

Beyond that, the United States itself could create the conditions that would cause us to blunder into a nuclear war. If, for example, we today make, as we are saying it’s on the table, a conventional military strike against North Korea, I have no doubt that they would respond with a conventional military response to South Korea. And that’s exactly the scenario we can imagine then escalating into a bigger war, then finally escalating into a nuclear war.

So that’s the very serious situation we’re faced with today, and in the beginning of wisdom and any negotiations, any actions we take, any diplomacy we take, any actions we take, is to understand what the problem is. And that, I think, is the problem.

What options do we have then? I think first of all, it’s still useful to engage in diplomacy, but only if we do it with lowered expectations. We cannot go into diplomacy thinking, as we sit down at the table, we’re going to offer them something which would cause them to give up their nuclear arsenal.

That might happen over time, but it’s not going to happen as a result of a first negotiation. No diplomacy of which I can conceive in the short term at least, is going to persuade North Korea to simply hand over its nuclear arsenal.

We had that opportunity in the past, I don’t think we have it today. The diplomacy would still be directed at the lesser, but still very important, goals of lowering the likelihood of blundering into a nuclear war.

This war, to be very clear, would be devastating. Whatever it does to the United States, it would be devastating to both South Korea and to Japan.

An all-out war with North Korea, nuclear war, even if China and Russia did not enter, which is always a possibility, but even if they do not enter, best case, could still entail casualties approximating those of World War I or even World War II.

Seoul has 20 million people or so. Tokyo has 20 million or so. Several hydrogen bombs on those two cities would destroy those two cities.

So this is a very grave consequence that we’re looking at, and we should think about if we stop focusing on whether they can have an ICBM that reaches the United States and concentrating on the very grave threat they pose today to South Korea and to Japan.

So we have a serious requirement for diplomacy not only with North Korea, but with South Korea, Japan and China. China in many ways has been a key to a solution to this problem, but we have muffed that opportunity through the years, because we haven’t understood what China’s objectives are in all this.

It’s been quite clear to me for some time that China’s objective is to avoid to having a unified Korea with American troops on their border.

And years ago we could’ve been talking with China about that and offering them assurances that we would not take advantage of that opportunity if their actions led North Korea to collapse. Besides with China, what about our two allies?

They’re going to be asking themselves right now the question, now that North Korea has hydrogen weapons, and then they will soon have weapons capable of reaching the United States, would the United States be willing to sacrifice New York or Washington to save Tokyo or Seoul?

I posed it that way because that was exactly the question asked during the Cold War by the Germans. Would the United States be willing to sacrifice Washington or New York to save Bonn or Hamburg?

If the North Koreans—if the South Koreans and the Japanese don’t ask that question, the North Koreans will ask—ask it for them, or suggest that they should be asking it.

So our diplomacy should leave no doubt in the minds of North Korea that will we honor the commitments of extended deterrence to our allies. And it should deal with the concern, the very real concerns, that the South Koreans and the Japanese are having. And that’s going to take some real diplomacy.

During the Cold War, dealing with the doubts of the Germans, we resolved that issue by deploying nuclear weapons in Germany, which was neither necessary nor desirable for military reasons, but we did it to ease the minds of the Germans.

And those of you who are old enough to remember those days, you can remember also we had this about allowing two fingers on the button, both the German chancellor and the United States president.

I want to be very clear, I do not think it’s either desirable or necessary to deploy nuclear weapons again in South Korea or to deploy them in Japan. I do think, however, that would be preferable to those countries getting an independent nuclear force.

We need to look at what develops there, and we need to have our diplomacy, first of all, focusing on solid reassurance to our allies in South Korea and Japan that the extended deterrence is real and that we will honor it.

If we can do that, if we can forestall the—the immediate crisis, then over time I think we can work with diplomacy with North Korea to start getting first to stop the building of the arsenal and then in time to roll back.

I don’t see that happening today. I think we have to stabilize the situation with our allies first. And the last thing we need to be doing today, the last thing, is making reckless threats to North Korea.

That’s that we’re going to make a surprise attack that decapitates the government, because that’s exactly the situation which can promote exactly the thing we’re trying to avoid, which is a North Korean nuclear strike.

They will not, in my judgment, use their nuclear weapons against us or against our allies unless provoked into doing it. That could be either a military attack against the North or a credible threat that we’re going to conduct a surprise decapitation attack.

Those are the things that could stimulate the North Koreans to take an act, which otherwise I believe they will not take. I’m giving you a very grim story because I think we have a very dangerous situation today, and our options for dealing with it are not really very good.

They have to start with being calm and measured in our rhetoric—have to start with very creative and serious diplomacy with our two allies. And to get a long-term solution of the problem, we have to have some really creative diplomacy with China because we’re going to eventually work—to start working this arsenal backwards.

We have to deal with the North Korean overriding goal, which is security assurance. When I negotiated with them in 2000, I gave them that assurance in various ways, which we can talk about if you’d like.

But then I was just—all I was thinking to do is to get them to give up building a nuclear arsenal. Now they have one. They’re going to be very reluctant to give it up.

And so our negotiations by the United States alone cannot do that. We have to have the United States and China making these assurances.

We have to have China—whatever agreement we would sign in North Korea has to be countersigned not only by the United States and our two allies, it has to be signed by China as well.

And it has to give assurance to North Korea that we will not conduct a military attack against them to overthrow their regime.

So there’s the near-term diplomacy of dealing with our two allies and getting them to stand firm and to believe that our extended deterrence works and to not move off on an independent nuclear arsenal of their own, which have long term, very serious consequences.

And there’s the longer term diplomacy, which has to do with China, which addresses the arsenal that North Korea has and finding ways of first all making it less dangerous so it’s less likely to be used, and secondly getting some sort—getting it stopped from getting any worse, and then finally starting to roll it back.

These are very difficult goals, but I think over time they could be achieved, but they could only be achieved in close partnership with China.

And Daryl, that’s the bad news I had to bring this audience today, and I’m open to questions about it.

KIMBALL: Well, thank you for being here. I don’t thank you for the bad news. It’s not your fault, Bill. We have a chance for some questions for you but before we do that, why don’t we trade places?

PERRY: OK.

KIMBALL: So you can have a seat, and we’ll take a few.

PERRY: (Inaudible) a good idea.

KIMBALL: All right, so we’re going to take a few minutes to take your questions for Secretary Perry on his remarks, and then we’re going to go into further depth with Suzanne DiMaggio and Kelsey Davenport and Secretary Perry on the diplomatic path ahead.

Michael Gordon—and if you could, just identify yourself, ask your question, and we have a mic so that our transcriber can pick this up.

QUESTION: Michael Gordon, Wall Street Journal. Secretary Perry, can you explain in a little greater detail what you think the first steps might be in a serious negotiation with the North Koreans?

I mean, I take your point you don’t think you can persuade them to eliminate their arsenal, denuclearize the peninsula, give up these long-range missiles that they’re developing, and that you have to begin to roll it back, but what would be the first two or three steps you think—tangible steps that might be negotiable to de-escalate the situation, if not disarm the North Koreans?

PERRY: Yes, I think the first negotiations have to be the same ones I proposed a year or two ago, but it won’t have the same results. And that is a freeze on testing, no more long-range missile tests and no more nuclear tests.

The idea is to simply keep the situation from getting any worse than it is. A year or so ago, had we been able to negotiate that, it would’ve been a very big benefit because it would’ve stopped them from getting the hydrogen bomb, and it would’ve stopped them from taking the ICBM test, which they recently conducted which I think isn’t the—could not be the last test for them, but it’s given them assurance they could—that they can make an ICBM operational.

So that would—that would be a step worth—worth taking. I don’t think we can achieve that without China as a partner in the negotiations.

And then the next step after that, if we achieved that, would be talk about the conditions in which they start rolling back what they have.

I don’t have much enthusiasm for proposing that because the objectives are limited, and doesn’t stop the main threat that they already have. I’m just—do not believe we can get any more than that today.

Our opportunity to negotiate away their arsenal under one negotiation has passed, I believe. So as I said at the start of my talk, we have to deal with North Korea as it is and not as we would wish it to be.

As it is, it has a nuclear arsenal, and it has this overriding aspiration – I have a high confidence that the regime will survive, to be sure.

Given those two goals, the best we can get right now, I think, is keeping the situation from getting worse, and then in time starting to roll it back. And even to get those two objectives, I think we have to have China as a partner in the negotiation.

And to get China, we have to have a preliminary discussion with them which assures them of our willingness to come to an agreement with them that we’re not—not going to take advantage of the situation if there ends up being a unified Korea.

I think what we should tell China is the reason we have troops in South Korea today is to protect them from the threat of a North Korean attack. That’s why they’re there. They would not be there if we didn’t have that.

And so if the North Korean danger goes away, by whatever means, we have no reason to keep our troops there any longer. That’s, I think, the issue which has China hung up, and has been hung up for some time.

So we’d have to be able to deal with that issue if we’re going to have success in bringing China into the negotiations as a partner. And I think without China as a partner we’re not going to be even to get the limited objectives that I’ve described to you.

QUESTION: OK. What would you (inaudible) be prepared to give for that initial, let’s say, freeze? Are you among those that...

PERRY: Give to China or give to North Korea?

QUESTION: North Korea.

PERRY: Oh.

QUESTION: Are you among those that see merit in a freeze for freeze, or do you, as a former secretary of defense, who—who knows what it takes to defend this—South Korea, think that would be a disadvantage to our military presence?

PERRY: No, I—I think that as long as we’re faced with the military situation we’re faced with today, we should not be talking about decreasing our military capability in North Korea. If anything, we should be looking at increasing it.

The specific issue is defending South Korea and Japan against a missile attack. And we have a ballistic missile defense systems deployed in Seoul and with—with the Aegis systems deployed around Tokyo. Neither of them, in my judgment, would be successful in defeating a deterrent attack by North Korea.

But there are various things we could do to bolster those defenses. I am not thinking that it makes any sense to have a major deployment of—of American ground troops in North Korea, but there are many things we can do in terms of air and naval component.

So air and naval and ballistic missile—and missile defense would be the three things. I just fear, though, that the—putting more batteries of our present ballistic missile defense system in South Korea is not going to do it.

Even—the system has been criticized in the past for not living up to its specifications. But my point is that even if it performs exactly as it was designed to performed, it is fundamentally susceptible to saturation.

Any missile defense system is subject to saturation. And a missile defense system that operates during free flight is very easy to saturate with decoys.

And I think we have been going on blissfully assuming that the North Koreans would not be sophisticated enough to make sophisticated decoys. I’m—my contention is if they’re sophisticated enough to thermonuclear bombs, they’re sophisticated enough to make sophisticated decoys.

So we have to assume that any missile defense system we have in South Korea or Tokyo is going to be subjected to decoys and therefore saturation attacks, and we have to deal with it.

We have to look at ballistic missile defense systems that deal with that fundamental issue and that fundamental problem. It’s possible to conceive of such systems because of the peculiar geography of North Korea, which is North Korean missile launch sites are all access—accessible, line of sight (ph) accessible from the air.

And so we can conceive of airborne missiles defense systems which could operate during a powered flight of—of firing. That would give us quite a different—that fundamentally beats the decoy problem.

So I’m not proposing a system now. I’m just saying if we want to deal with this problem we have to start off with the understanding that the systems we have over there now are subject to saturation, even if they work as they’re supposed to work, and find a way of bolstering the systems to overcome that fundamental problem. And that—technically there are ways of doing that.

KIMBALL: So why don’t we take, I’ve got a question here from Julian Borger. We’re going to take—we’re going to take one more question and then what I want to do is I want to bring our other panelists into the conversation because we are starting to get into some of the issues that we had planned to discuss, so...

QUESTION: Julian Borger from The Guardian and I just wanted to follow up on Michael’s question. What would you offer them in terms of scaling...

PERRY: The North?

QUESTION: Yeah, what would you offer the North for a freeze in—in testing?

PERRY: Yeah, well, there’s two buckets of things you would offer. One of them is a bucket of goodies, economic incentives. And we have done that in the past, and they have been very attracted to the North in the past.

Economic—North Korea is an economically deprived country and there are many things we could do that would deal with that issue. One of the most significant and important ones is, which the South has already done at least once, is helping them economically develop.

And in my mind the joint North-South facility that was built at Kaesong on the border in North Korea, as an example of things can be built on and replicated. But fundamentally we have to offer them a way of—we have to be able to find a way of providing assurance, security assurances.

That cannot be done, in my judgment, today by the U.S. alone. It has to be done in conjunction with China. North Korea might take seriously a mutual security pact between the U.S. and North Korea that is co-signed by China, but I don’t think today they would take it seriously without that.

I would not offer as a—and let me—let me be explicit about this, the freeze for freeze. I would not offer not building up a military capability. The threat is very real and our diplomacy may not succeed and therefore we have to be prepared to deter. Diplomacy is—to solve the problem, is far preferable to deterrence, but our diplomacy has failed up to this point and therefore we cannot simply give up our deterrence.

We have to be able to—in fact in my judgment, we should be building it right now. And there are ways of building in—in relatively non-provocative ways as we’re—we are talking about a defensive capability, not an offensive capability.

KIMBALL: All right, so I want to thank Secretary Perry for focusing our minds on the hard, cold realities and outlining the potential path ahead.

And—and what we’re now going to do is turn to our full panel to explore more deeply the implications of the North Korean nuclear missile capabilities for our policy objectives.

We’re going to talk a little bit more about the current status of engagement efforts, such as they are, and talk about what it might take to get these negotiations even started, because as I said in the beginning there are no sustained, direct discussions that are currently happening.

And so we’re very pleased to have with us Suzanne DiMaggio who is senior fellow at—at New America and as many of you know, has been a key participant in recent discussions with senior North Korean officials.

She’s got a long resume of experience with Track 1.5 talks, so it’s unofficial discussions with senior officials on both the Iranian nuclear issue and also now on North Korea.

And I think she visited Pyongyang earlier this year. It was in January, right Suzanne?

DIMAGGIO: February.

KIMBALL: February. And we also have with us Kelsey Davenport, who is the Arms Control Association’s director for Nonproliferation Policy.

She’s been tracking and analyzing the North Korean nuclear and missile file since 2012, and she will be going off to South Korea next week. So we are hoping there will not be any more missile tests while she travels on that airplane to—to Seoul.

So their full bios are in your program. And in lieu of set presentations from Suzanne and—and Kelsey, we’re going to—I’m going to ask them four basic sets of questions that help us get into these issues a little bit further.

And we’re really—really happy Bill Perry is able to—to join us. We had first thought he wasn’t going to be able to, so he’s now going to be a part of this—this discussion.

So the first thing I want to ask Kelsey and Suzanne to address, and maybe Kelsey you can start us on this, is given what we heard from—from Secretary Perry about North Korea’s nuclear and missile capabilities, you know, what are some of the more—the details?

What do we think they’re trying to achieve? How might they try to further advance? And then finally—and this is a question for all of you, is there still some nonproliferation or some security value in trying to secure that halt of further nuclear and missile testing?

So Kelsey, why don’t you start off please?

KELSEY DAVENPORT: All right. Thank you, Daryl, and thank you, all of you, for coming today. It’s an honor for me to be sitting between Secretary Perry and Ms. DiMaggio, whose work I—I admire a great deal.

But to get to the—the brunt of Daryl’s question, looking a little bit more closely at what North Korea has accomplished in this most recent test, I think it’s very clear that, as Secretary Perry said, the goal for North Korea is a reliable nuclear-tipped ICBM that’s capable of threatening key cities in the continental United States along the East Coast.

And after North Korea’s July ICBM tests, you know, they weren’t there. If the July test had been flown at a standard trajectory, these missiles likely would have had a range of about 10,500 kilometers, which probably would not have allowed them to reach Washington.

And it’s questionable whether or not these missiles tested in July could have borne a full weight warhead delivered to that—to that distance.

But the test last week represented a significant technical advancement for North Korea. Looking at the Hwasong-15, it’s clear that this is not just a version of the July missile with a—with a little bit more power. This is a very different, much more advanced system.

You know, the first stage, for instance had—had two rockets. It’s very clear from the payload space that not only can this missile carry a full weight warhead but there’s also space for decoys, which as Secretary Perry mentioned, can be a critical component in trying to evade and saturate U.S. missile defenses.

So it’s clear that this—this missile is a significant advance. And if the missile had been flown on a standard trajectory, the range, even with a full weight warhead, you know, would likely still exceed 13,000 kilometers, which would put cities like Washington within range.

So there are still questions about the reliability and the accuracy of this system. And—and there are still remaining questions about whether or not the warhead would successfully re-enter the atmosphere upon, you know, a—a standard trajectory test.

You know, U.S. officials, you know, were recorded as saying that they have some doubts about whether or not re-entry from the tests last week, you know, was actually successful. So certainly, you know, more tests will be needed to actually ensure that this is a reliable system.

But the system—the fact that they’ve tested it, the fact that U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis said this missile is capable of reaching almost anywhere in the world, certainly is a psychological victory for North Korea because now, you know, they can back up their bark with a little bit of bite.

You know, they can say that they have a missile capable of targeting these cities, and in the event of a crisis they could actually try and use it. And there’s no guarantee that the missile itself would fail. So certainly it’s a clear advancement.

Now, when talking about the benefits of a freeze, I think it’s important not just to think about how this would impact North Korea’s ICBM program, but also their range of missiles.

You know, certainly freezing, you know, progress on their ICBM would prevent them from actually having a sense of how reliable this system is. Freezing it before they launch it on a standard trajectory would certainly raise questions about whether or not it actually could meet those parameters.

But North Korea is not just developing an ICBM. You know, there also have been tests, you know, in the past year looking at medium range solid-fuel ballistic missiles. And activity at North Korea’s shipyard indicates that they’re still interested in developing submarine-launched ballistic missiles.

And building out those capabilities would give North Korea a greater range for actually delivering nuclear warheads. So halting progress on solid-fuel ballistic missiles I think would prevent them from manufacturing reliable missiles that are more difficult to track, that are harder to, you know, preempt because the—the time to launch is much shorter.

And preventing them from developing a reliable submarine-launched missile, you know, will keep them from being able to evade missile defenses in South Korea by moving a submarine essentially outside of the field of the THAAD radar.

So from a technical perspective, you know, even though North Korea has achieved this key milestone of testing a missile capable of targeting the entire continental United States, there still is benefit in the testing freeze because it would prevent that system from being more reliable and being tested on a standardized flight path.

You know, and it could prevent North Korea from making progress on these other areas like solid-fueled and—and submarine-launched systems.

KIMBALL: So let me just expand on this question a little bit, Suzanne. I—I ask you to try to offer your comments on what you think the North Koreans are trying to achieve from your discussions.

And the other question for all three of you really is, you know, given what the North Koreans have just done, how should the United States government be describing it or stating it to make—should we be diminishing this capability because they haven’t yet achieved all the technical barriers?

Or should we acknowledge what, you know, the independent technical experts appear or are—are saying, which is this is a—a viable, credible capability?

SUZANNE DIMAGGIO: Well, first let me say thanks, Daryl and Arms Control Association for organizing this event. And thanks to all of you for attending.

So there’s no doubt that the North Koreans are and have been hell-bent—can you hear me?

KIMBALL: Yup.

DIMAGGIO: Yes? Hell-bent on demonstrating that they’re capable of hitting us within a nuclear-tipped missile. The recent tests I think demonstrates that they’re well on their way to achieving this. And by the way, in my discussions with them, this position has absolutely hardened over this past year.

So I agree with the other panelists that there is no chance to negotiate a denuclearization at this time. Some experts have said it could take as long as two years to perfect that capability.

I think Sieg Hecker has an article in Foreign Affairs that makes that point, published yesterday. Secretary Perry said closer to one year, and some experts think even less. Our own national intelligence estimates put it at about a year or less now.

So the point is, though, that they already have, in my estimation, achieved a deterrence capability because we know that they can hit our allies, both Seoul and Tokyo with nuclear-tipped missiles. So that question to me, I think, is pretty much a—a done deal.

On the point of freeze for freeze, I think that what the administration should be doing now, in light of this test and, of course, the other tests that we saw earlier this summer, the two ICBM tests and the hydrogen test, is to move to aggressively pursue talks about talks, or we can call it pre-diplomacy if that’s a better term, to see what might be possible at this time.

And I think the first order of business is to try to convince the North Koreans to freeze both the testing of their missiles and their nuclear detonations. I, for one, think that we should offer not a suspension of our military exercises with South Korea but some adjustment.

In my discussions with the North Koreans they’ve been fairly consistent that one of the key pillars of the so-called U.S. hostile policies are these tests. And based on conversations I’ve had with military experts and others, it seems to me that these exercises have gotten very expansive over the past few years.

For example, we could probably respond to one of North Korea’s very key problems with these joint exercises and that is the decapitation exercises. They bring this up every time you meet them and see them, and I think there is a way for the United States to maybe not advertise that we’re doing it so openly. Maybe move it to another theatre.

Those—that’s what I mean by adjustments, not stopping the exercises, but certainly finding a way to tone—tone them down. And of course economic incentives would be other thing to offer.

It’s very interesting that after this test last week the government announced that they had achieved the goal of the completion of the rocket weaponry system development and the completing of the state nuclear force. What does that mean?

This is another thing. We should be discussing them in pre-diplomatic talks. I see it as a potential opening to aggressively pursue.

There are a couple of other openings. That leads to the question of the North Korean policy of the Byungjin line, which is the parallel development of their nuclear program with economic development.

So clearly they have made tremendous progress on the first but nothing on the latter. And I think that is another set of discussions to pursue with them.

What are their goals post-declaration? In terms of the economic development, I would make the case that Kim Jong-un has staked his credibility, not only on nuclear development but also on economic development, something he probably feels compelled to fulfill in the eyes of the North Korean people. So that’s an opening I think we should be pursuing aggressively.

The other potential opportunity at this time is—is the timing of it. We have the Winter Olympics coming up in South Korea. I think that presents a perfect opportunity to tone down these exercises, maybe even postpone them a bit.

The South Korean government has indicated a interest in doing something like that, so there is a timing element that lends itself to this sort of thinking.

And then also there’s another opening in the sense that we’re at a moment where both sides, both North Korea and the United States, in my view, can now come to the negotiating table in a position of strength. Certainly the North Koreans with these recent tests can do that.

And I would argue even the Trump administration, that has emphasized and concentrated on maximum pressure, and they’ve achieved that. They have two of the—of the strongest, toughest U.N. Security Council sets of sanctions passed this year.

They also have unilateral sanctions that have also followed up that—the multilateral sanctions. They’ve re-designated North Korea a state sponsor of terrorism and followed that up with more unilateral sanctions.

They’ve pressured a—a number of countries to cut off relations with North Korea. A number of countries are also expelling North Korean officials and so forth.

So the maximum pressure is—is working in the sense that they are moving forward with that. But it’s not working in the sense of changing the behavior of North Korea, and maybe that’s something we could talk about in a next question.

I would say the Trump administration now needs to move to what I would call a post-declaration strategy. Now that the North Koreans have said they’ve completed this program, what are our—what are our strategic objectives in this post-declaration environment? And I would have some ideas on that if we have a future question.

KIMBALL: All right. Why don’t we (inaudible) for a second? I just wanted to give Secretary Perry a—a chance to respond to this more specific question with military exercises and whether there might be a way to modify, as Suzanne DiMaggio was saying, modify the exercises in ways that make them less threatening while still providing the deterrent value and military value?

And I ask this in part because as we sit here, amiably here at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, having our coffee and talking about this, there is a major exercise going on involving U.S. and South Korean forces that is—is said to include mock attacks against North Korean missile launch sites with mock North Korean radars.

Now, is there a way in which, Secretary Perry, I mean, the United States might, as Suzanne said, modify these—these kinds of maneuvers and exercises so that they appear less threatening while we maintain our—our readiness?

PERRY: I—I would give a general guidance I think for exercises we conduct. They should be designed to strengthen the ability of U.S. and ROK forces to work together. It’s not automatic that’s going to happen.

So you have to exercise the two different—the unitives of the two different forces to work together. That’s a—a legitimate objective and exercise.

And more—more generally, you do it to strengthen your ability to respond to an attack. So to the extent our exercises meet those two tests, U.S. and ROK work together, they exercise. U.S. and ROK working together they exercise our ability our respond to attack. They are not only legitimate, I think, but I—probably under the circumstances are—are necessary.

On the other hand, there are a whole set of exercises we can take that are designed to threaten or intimidate the North. The North, I believe, are quite counterproductive. They don’t intimidate easily. So you can antagonize them, but you—you cannot intimidate them.

An example of that latter kind of an exercise is flying a nuclear bomber right up to the North Korean borders and then turning away.

We don’t—we know we can do that. They know we can do it. We don’t have to exercise doing it as a design to intimidate them, to threaten them.

And so we should avoid, I think, exercises that intimidate and threaten, first of all, because they don’t work, and secondly, in the current environment I think they’re dangerous.

So that would be the litmus test I would put to the exercises, whether they’re designed to strengthen our ability to respond to an attack as opposed to be exercises designed to intimidate and threaten.

KIMBALL: All right, thank—that’s helpful guidance and clarification.

So why—why don’t we turn to what—what I think you wanted to discuss, Suzanne, which is, you know, how and whether the Trump administration might be able to make this adjustment to adopt a—a new strategy towards North Korea in this post-, as you say, declaration of their nuclear deterrent capability environment?

And just to start, let me ask each of you to assess very briefly, I mean, your understanding of what the Trump administration’s strategy has been. OK, what is it? Because many people, I think including the North Koreans, are a bit confused about what it is.

Many members of Congress are confused. I think the American public are somewhat confused. So if you could just describe what it is.

And then also, I mean, Suzanne, if you could provide a little bit of perspective on how you, as somebody who’s spoken with the North Koreans most recently among us, how they are perceiving this?

I mean, what is their reaction to the Trump statements and the other cabinet secretaries’ statements, the whole package?

DIMAGGIO: So let me begin by just mapping out very briefly the—what I call the hits and misses between the Trump administration and the North Korean leadership since Inauguration Day.

So I think when the Trump administration came in, the North Koreans saw it as a potential opportunity, an opening to have a different relationship with the United States, mainly because there was no psychological baggage with this new administration, unlike the Iran situation where from the point of view of the Trump administration, where they are saddled with a deal that they hate—even though it’s working by the way.

In the case of North Korea, there wasn’t that baggage either. So I think the North Koreans at that time thought it could be a fresh start. And at first, there was an effort to have an interaction between North Korea and—and U.S. officials actually here in the United States in early spring.

The visas had been issued, or at least approved. But then it happened to coincide with the timing of the killing of Kim Jong-nam, Kim Jong-un’s half-brother. And at that time the administration decided to pull back on those visas.

The next opportunity came in the late spring of 2017 and that was a meeting that took place in Oslo. So we had a Track 2 discussion at that point set up in Oslo and Ambassador Joseph Yun quietly joined us there for those discussions.

He had conversations with the leadership of the North Korean delegation, Madame Choe Son-hui and that set of discussions led to the release of Otto Warmbier.

I think at that point there was every indication that those discussions would continue, but that the outcome, the tragedy of that situation, really threw a wrench into that plan. And that is when the Trump administration backed off a bit.

And then if we look—move up to early fall, there were a few things teed up to try to restart this dialogue again. But as you’ll recall at that point, at the U.N. General Assembly, President Trump gave a very, shall we say, colorful speech at the United Nations.

It was not received well by the North Korean leadership. It included personalized insults and that derailed efforts at that time, too.

So now we’re in a situation where I do think the Trump administration would like to explore talks about talks at this stage. I think the North Koreans are assessing the timing of when to do that.

That’s why I find this statement so interesting, this declaration, that they’ve completed their nuclear force. So I think this is a time to try again to try to get something initiated and off the ground.

And as—in—in response to your question, Daryl, as I said before, I think the Trump administration has been more or less completely focused on the maximum pressure side of the coin and less focused on the engagement side of the coin.

And I would contend that this probably is as a good time as any to try to pivot to that engagement side. And, of course, this is much more of an art than a science.

As I just mapped out, there are a lot of factors that are—have to be weighed. And let’s face it. When—we’ve had a series of missed opportunities. When one side has been ready, the other side has not.

And there have been a lot more misses than hits. So when I think about maximum pressure and engagement, I think of the model of the Iran talks as a potential way to look at this.

And I think that during those talks the Obama administration before beginning the talks, I should say, really hit that sweet spot of pivoting from pressure to engagement.

And as I said, it was more of an art than a science. But it was more than just good timing. They also had a strategy in place how to build off the pressure that they built. And I don’t see that with the Trump administration. I don’t see that they have a strategy in place.

In the case of the Iranians, there were a series of secret talks to talk about all these things and map out that strategy. I think a pivotal point was when the U.S. conveyed to the Iranians that they would respond to one of their red lines, which was to allow them to enrich uranium on their soil. That was an absolute turning point with the Iranians.

We need a similar turning point with the North Koreans. We need to build off the maximum pressure that this administration has now achieved, pivot to engagement and provide an off-ramp. And we need creative thinking on what that off-ramp should be.

I think the first step, certainly, should be the freeze agreement on their testing in exchange for an adjustment in the exercises and perhaps some economic sanctions relief.

There are other things to talk about besides denuclearization. And I agree with Secretary Perry completely. That ship has sailed. I can’t imagine any scenario where the North Koreans would agree to any dismantlement of their nuclear program at this stage of the game.

That doesn’t mean we should drop it as a long-term objective. In any negotiation we enter with the North Koreans, we should insist that that remains our long-term objective. But we need to focus on what is achievable at this time.

There are also a lot of other things on the agenda we can discuss with the North Koreans. And let me just begin by one that I think is very important and that is nonproliferation.

Securing an assurance from them that they will not transfer their nuclear weapons, their fissile material, their chemical and biological weapons to third parties. That’s a point we’ve discussed in Track 2, and I think we need an official dialogue on that now.

The other thing I would think would be important to discuss with them in an official setting is what are their objectives now that they’ve reached this completion of their nuclear force? How do they see their priorities moving forward? What are their plans for economic development?

Also, they consistently tell us in Track 2 that their nuclear and missile programs are purely for defensive purposes. We need to explore that with them. What do they mean by that? What is the nuclear doctrine that they are intending to follow? Are there elements of the NPT that they see as applying to themselves?

Those are also discussions we should be having. And then along the way we should be prodding to have negotiations on a cessation in the production of nuclear materials and missiles. But I think that may take some time.

And then, of course, the longer term discussion is addressing what they call the U.S. hostile policies. How to get to a point where they feel that they have been addressed in a sincere way?

And, of course, this sort of discussion would be a much longer discussion, probably quite arduous. It could probably include some sort of peace agreement, security assurances for sure. And—but that’s something I think that also should be put on the agenda.

So my point is that even though denuclearization would not be on this initial agenda, it would be a long-term goal. There still are a lot of important issues to be discussing with the North Koreans that aim to clarify their intentions, make sure they don’t use their nuclear weapons, also prevent proliferation to third parties and so forth.

So I would say that’s a very full agenda.

KIMBALL: All right.

Kelsey, your thoughts on the same question?

DAVENPORT: Yeah, I certainly agree with what Suzanne said, but I think I would just add it’s important that when the Trump administration, you know, and if the Trump administration manages this pivot to lay out a diplomatic path for how to leverage the pressure that it’s created, that it does what it can to also take the U.S. Congress with it.

I mean, certainly the U.S. Congress, you know, will not be negotiating with North Korea, but they can help or hinder the process depending on the steps that—that Congress decides to take going forward.

And in Congress, you know, the tendency to increase pressure by utilizing sanctions, you know, certainly remains prevalent. And what—what Congress has been doing more recently with sanctions writ large is narrowing the space for which the president can offer waivers down the line if there is ever any agreement or—or movement forward with North Korea.

So ensuring that the existing measures, that any future measures continue to preserve that flexibility, that could allow the president to pull sanctions back if we get to that point where—where that’s an appropriate step to take, I think certainly will remain critical.

You know, also, you know, doing what, you know, what the administration can to, you know, assure Congress that, you know, any attempts to negotiate with the North Koreans will not weaken U.S. security alliances and will not compromise U.S. objectives I think will certainly be critical so that, you know, we also can, you know, refrain from, you know, outright criticism from Congress where possible sort of against this—this—this approach.

And—and certainly, you know, keeping Congress in the loop I think will also, you know, cut back on the instances like Senator Graham, you know, continuing to talk about, you know, war being imminent. The importance of even, you know, beginning to withdraw, you know, U.S. you know, dependents from the Korean peninsula because all of that is still picked up on by—by North Korea.

So conditioning the space and bringing Congress along for the ride, you know, in the diplomacy pivot I think is—is certainly critical.

KIMBALL: All right, thanks.

Let me—let me—speaking of sanctions, let me ask you and Suzanne a question that is coming up very soon which is how the U.N. Security Council might handle the situation in the wake of the Hwasong-15 test.

I mean, we have seen a pattern over the last couple or three years in which the North Koreans conduct a nuclear test explosion or a ballistic missile test.

There is a Security Council statement from the president, sort of a consensus statement, and then there are consultations about whether and how to tighten sanctions.

DIMAGGIO: Yes.

KIMBALL: So, you know, as you said, Suzanne, I mean, the—the last set of sanctions has been unprecedented in its scope and—and—and its strength. That’s Resolution 2375 from back in September, and so, you know, what is the wise next step given this moment?

What would your advice be to the members of the—the council? Should they be looking for ways to tighten sanctions further or implement existing sanctions better?

And I—I would also, if I were there, I would remind them that that same resolution makes it clear that all sides should pursue diplomacy...

DIMAGGIO: Yes...

KIMBALL: ... by the way.

DIMAGGIO: ... exactly.

KIMBALL: And it also says that.

DIMAGGIO: You just took...

KIMBALL: ... so...

DIMAGGIO: ... my answer, Daryl.

KIMBALL: Oh, well, OK, I’m sorry. Great minds think alike. So—but what is your advice about the overall approach...

DIMAGGIO: Well...

KIMBALL: ... of the council?

DIMAGGIO: ... based on what I’m hearing at the U.N. I don’t expect a new sanction—set of sanctions immediately. Maybe you have other information, but that’s what I’m hearing.

I think we can expect more unilateral sanctions. I think those are definitely in the pipeline. But I think you made the right point, is that resolution, that toughest resolution we’ve seen, it seems implementation has improved—improved.

Maybe it’s not perfect yet, so stressing implementation of the previous set of sanctions would be a good goal. And then, of course, that very important clause you mentioned. It really does call on the parties involved to make a good effort—good faith effort at diplomacy. And that’s really what we should be stressing right now.

And keep in mind that the top diplomat within the Department of Political Affairs at the U.N. is in Pyongyang right now as we speak. He’s been dispatched for, I think, a three- or four-day visit. It’s been a long time since a senior U.N. official, political official, has been in Pyongyang. I think maybe seven years?

I can imagine that he has some mandate to explore the potential for beginning a dialogue, maybe using the good offices of Secretary General Guterres, and I would expect that he will be received at a high level, at least the Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho, maybe higher.

So that is excellent timing I think. And it’s exactly what the U.N. should be doing, senior officials at the U.N. So hopefully he’ll come back with some positive news.

But beyond that, I do think, you know, the—the idea of slapping on new sanctions—again, I don’t think that’s going to change North Korea’s strategic calculus at the moment.

Of course, the Trump administration now is trying to push the Chinese to cut off oil supplies. I don’t see that happening anytime soon. Again, if someone else in this room thinks that’s going to happen, please let me know.

There’s also talk of secondary sanctions on the Chinese. And then there’s talk of the interdiction of ships in the waters of northeast Asia as another way to exert pressure.

So again, my point is pressure is a good thing when it’s part of a broader strategy, when there is a real strategy to leverage it into a changing behavior, getting concessions. And I just don’t see that this administration has that strategy yet, but I’m hoping that they’ll turn their attention to that very soon.

KIMBALL: OK.

Kelsey, on the sanctions and the future question?

DAVENPORT: Yeah, I certainly agree with Suzanne that sanctions alone are not going to change North Korea’s calculus. And actually, at a very rare and public event, the CIA said in October that that was their assessment as well, that no amount of pressure alone was going to significantly alter Pyongyang’s course.

And—and I think, you know, right now given these much more stringent U.N. Security Council resolutions and a—a more recent U.S. executive order that allows the Treasury Department to target sort of correspondent accounts from North Korea in—in— Chinese entities in particular, you know, all of that needs to be given time to work. And it needs to be given time to implement it—to be implemented properly.

I mean, one—one thing particularly in the U.S. domestic context is to respond to these North Korean provocations by continuing to pass additional sanctions, you know, irrespective of whether or not all the prior measures have been fully implemented and irrespective of whether or not the U.S. could do more to try and encourage better implementation.

So, you know, right now I think that, you know, one area that the Trump administration could be looking at is, you know, what programs have been used in the past that the State Department, at the Defense Department, at even DOE to better ensure that sanctions and export controls are actually properly enforced? And is the U.S. engaging in the type of sanctions diplomacy that it needs to build international support for sanctions?

And that was something that the Obama administration pursued very heavily in the lead up to talks on the Iran deal. And they spent quite a bit of time trying to get China, in particular, on board, with actually implementing the sanctions that were on the books.

So ensuring that—that those measures are in place, I think, is—is just as critical as evaluating whether or not we have all the sanctions, measures that—that we need.

I—I—I would also say, too, and when we talk about sanctions implementation, you know, much of the focus is on—on China, and, to a certain extent, that makes sense, because of the volume of trade that comes from China.

But North Korea, particularly when it looks at areas like, you know, proliferation financing, I mean, it—it probes the international system for weaknesses. So as focus on China, you need to—to—to ignore kind of other sort of weak spots in building up sanctions implementation, I think would be detrimental to the sanctions regime as—as a whole.

So ensuring kind of a more balanced approach to, you know, addressing weak spots, I think certainly—certainly will be key, and then complementing that with some of these other measures and programs that the United States has that can be important for counterproliferation efforts.

The Proliferation Security Initiative, for instance, you know, can play a very critical role in ensuring that there are no sort of imports and exports related to—to WMD materials out of North Korea.

They can help countries, you know, with smaller amounts of capacity to actually build up their ability to—to enforce sanctions, to enforce export controls, and to better understand measures in U.N. Security Council resolutions that give them the authority to inspect North Korean cargo, if there are concerns, you know, when, you know, these shipments sort of transit their ports.

So a better focus on implementation, I think, is—is—is—where the United States, you know, and the international community really should be focused right now.

KIMBALL: I would just add that those kinds of interdiction efforts and strengthening them could be very useful in terms of preventing the outflow of material, technology, weaponry in the future from North Korea, which is something Suzanne was—was expressing concern about. Not so much the import...

DIMAGGIO: Yes.

KIMBALL: ... but we need to think about that in terms of the longer-term strategy...

DIMAGGIO: Right.

KIMBALL: ... also.

DIMAGGIO: But also we need to keep in mind that those sort of maneuvers can be—can spiral...

KIMBALL: Yep, yep.

DIMAGGIO: ... and then escalate into skirmishes, conflicts. And when a case like North Korea, where there is no channel—I met with a senior North Korean official a few weeks ago, and he made the point that the United States and North Korea have no arrangement in place to prevent accidents. And I think that was a very good observation.

So when we’re talking about these more pressured tactics, we also have to keep in mind that they raise the stakes to heighten inadvertent conflict as well. And we need to safeguard against that.

KIMBALL: Right.

DAVENPORT: Especially when there’s so few channels for communication.

KIMBALL: Yeah. We don’t have a —a hotline agreement. We have a—a—a Twitter arrangement right now.

Kelsey?

DAVENPORT: Can I—I—just—just to add one point on—on the idea of—of—of accidents that, you know, Suzanne made me—me think of. You know, in—in—in considering accident scenarios, too, I think it’s also important to remember that North Korea is operating a reactor that produces plutonium that’s decades old, that has been stopped several times, parts of which has been rebuilt, and then restarted and then stopped and restarted and rebuilt.

And so there’s also potential for, I think, very serious nuclear accidents, sort of, at that reactor. So I think that also argues for, you know, space kind of within any negotiations with North Korea, to think about the security and safety of that facility, but also argues for the importance of contact.

Because if something happens there, it’s not just North Korea that will suffer the fallout of any type of reactor incident. That certainly will be regional.

And if there isn’t communication lines open, if—if there isn’t enough, you know, consultation in advance, both with South Korea and China, you know, that could certainly turn into a serious regional incident.

KIMBALL: All right. We’re going to take questions from the audience now. We have a microphone that Kelly will take. We’re going to start with the folks in the back, so if you could go around the giant post. Just identify yourself, ask your question, let us know who you’re asking.

QUESTION: Michele Keleman with NPR. You’re all talking about a pivot to diplomacy, but for that, you need diplomats, so I wonder if you can comment on what’s happening at the State Department? And also if you fear if—if there’s a, you know, if there is a change, Tillerson out, Pompeo in, what does that do to this strategy?

KIMBALL: All right. Any one of the three of you?

Suzanne, you want to take a whack at that, please?

DIMAGGIO: Yes. Thank you for asking that very good question.

So I think one of the major problems this administration is facing right now is the contradictory messaging it is sending out on North Korea.

So we have, on the one hand, Secretary Mattis and Secretary Tillerson putting diplomacy first, emphasizing diplomacy. Secretary Mattis said, "Lead with diplomacy backed up by military might."

And on the other hand, then you have National Security Advisor McMaster making a case that traditional deterrence with North Korea won’t work. I don’t understand how he can make such a statement. It seems to be working.

Also, he seems to be making the case for a preventive war and other narratives that have been pushed to the fore.

And then, of course, we have our own president, who says on the one hand, he would love to meet Kim Jong-un, but on the other hand, at another time, he says diplomacy is out of the question or diplomacy is a waste of time and undercutting Secretary Tillerson, while he was in Beijing, talking to the Chinese, probably talking about our diplomatic efforts and our own president undercut him.

So clearly there’s a need for this administration to speak with one voice and stop this contradictory signaling. I think it’s high time for the president to move from what I would call a dithering approach to a real strategy and empower our diplomats to carry that strategy out.

Now, Michele, you made the point, do we have the diplomatic firepower to do that? It’s worrying. Certainly, in the case of Ambassador Yun, who is the special envoy on—a special representative for North Korea, we have a very seasoned foreign service professional in him.

But we—of course, if we go down the road that—any part of the road I just mapped out, this would require a team. It would require not only seasoned high-level diplomats. It would probably require technical, scientific, nuclear experts as well.

If we go into the economic realm, we’d need people with that expertise. And it’s very hard to imagine if Pyongyang called tomorrow and said we’re ready, we’re ready for a major negotiation, what kind of team would this administration pull together at this stage of the game?

Also, I thought it was interesting over the weekend, Michele Flournoy, at a conference here in Washington, made a very similar point about the Pentagon, how all the policy—senior policy positions in the Pentagon are basically unfilled.

And then, of course, we have to think about our allies in the region. We still do not have an ambassador in Seoul. How can that be possible at the stage we’re at right now? It just doesn’t make sense.

So this is a big concern, I think. Even if this administration gets the strategy right, and that’s a big if, who is going to carry it out?

KIMBALL: All right.

Let’s take this gentleman in the front, will take a question in the front.

QUESTION: Uri Friedman with The Atlantic. I’m wondering what you make of—Suzanne, you mentioned this a little bit already, but over the weekend, there were a lot of statements about focusing on the capability of North Korea.

So H.R. McMaster said with each test, we get closer and closer to war. And Lindsey Graham on the Sunday shows said that having talked to the administration, he understands the policy as the capability of being able to strike the United States as unacceptable.

The argument seems to be twofold, one, that Kim Jong-un is particularly provocative and reckless, and then secondly that North Korea can hold the U.S. hostage in ways that it can’t now to achieve kind of revisionist goals, that it’s not just a defense capability.

I’m wondering, for the panelists, what do you make of this assessment—assessment focused on capability? And secondly, how seriously do you take the Trump administration’s rhetoric, that this is unacceptable and something that could lead to military conflict, if they feel they have—North Korea has really demonstrated this capability in a reliable way?

KIMBALL: Secretary Perry, if I could ask you to take that on?

PERRY: Could you restate that question? I’m not quite sure—I got the statement, but I couldn’t quite...

KIMBALL: Yeah.

PERRY: ... get the question.

KIMBALL: So the—the question is what do you make of H.R. McMaster and Secretary Mattis saying this is unacceptable, and the—the theory that North Korea—has revisionist goals, that is, they may want to use their nuclear capability to blackmail the United States to advance other kinds of objectives or to prevent the U.S. from responding to other provocations along the DMZ?

PERRY: I would cite some history. President—President Bush said it was unacceptable that the North Korean would get a nuclear program. President Obama said it was unacceptable. What the hell does unacceptable mean? It means we feel bad about it if they do it, I think.

(LAUGHTER)

But there’s no evidence that any of our administrations have an action tied to that unacceptable, that is being unacceptable means you’re going to do something about it. I have—it’s evident that neither the Bush administration or the Obama administration had a plan to do something about it.

I suspect that’s true of the Bush administration, too, but I don’t know that for sure. Time will tell. And then if they do something about it, is it something stupid or something enlightened? We don’t know that either.

So I find that, basically the history is when we say it’s unacceptable it means we don’t know what—we don’t know what we’re going to do. We don’t like it, but we don’t—we don’t know what we’re going to do.

And in this particular case, they may actually have a plan for doing something, and I might not like the plan of what they—what they are going to do. So it doesn’t make—it does not make me comfortable at all.

Fundamentally, what’s been said in the past, the past two administrations, has been an empty threat. And I think the worst thing you can do in diplomacy is to make empty threats because you damage your credibility seriously.

And the U.S., as a country, our credibility has been badly damaged by our empty threats in the past in the North Korean nuclear program.

So either what Trump is doing is repeating this history of empty threats, which is bad, or he really has in mind doing something like a military strike, for example. And that could be even worse. So in either way I don’t feel very comfortable about it.

KIMBALL: All right.

Suzanne, Kelsey, you want to talk about the—the coercion theory, and—and—and—or something else?

DAVENPORT: Oh, I—I just wanted to add a—a point there. I think, in—in addition to damaging U.S. credibility, it also risks prompting North Korea to try and prove their capabilities even further.

And you don’t want to end up in a situation like China where the U.S. continued to, you know, doubt the Chinese capability, and then they actually put a warhead on an ICBM, and launched it across the country to demonstrate that they actually did have a nuclear-capable ICBM.

And North Korea has raised this idea that they might actually try and detonate a warhead, you know, over the Pacific, presumably on an ICBM.

So by continuing to sort of publicly doubt and ridicule, you know, North Korea’s capabilities, I—I think it could have the opposite effect of just pushing North Korea even further to try and prove what they actually can do.

KIMBALL: All right. Well, why don’t we take a couple of other questions.

This gentleman in the front, and then we’ll go to the back.

QUESTION: Tim Shorrock from The Nation magazine and I also write for the Korea Center for Investigative Journalism in Seoul. One of the things that’s kind of disturbed me about the war talk we hear a lot recently, is that South Korea hardly seems to be considered at all. And a lot of officials and people on TV in particular talk about war without even, you know, referencing South Korea as a country.

It’s—it’s part of—of a broader nation than is—North Korea, and but they have their own interests and desire to have peace and not to have a war there.

With—with—the question is, one, who is driving, do you think, war talk here in Washington? Who is behind—like, I know McMaster is, but there’s other people that are, you know, talking to people that get on the media that say, you know, we have to have a—a preemptive strike, that kind of thing? And so who is driving it?

And second, how much is South Korea actually being considered? I mean, I know President Trump talks to President Moon Jae-in considerably, but how much has the Korean interest, South Korean interests, really being taken into account?

KIMBALL: Well, good question. I mean, our—our—we talk about our allies, but sometimes we forget to ask them what they actually think.

So let me just ask Kelsey to just briefly describe what the South Korean government is saying in response to the situation after the Hwasong-15 test.

Maybe Suzanne, you can take on some of these other questions that Tim is asking.

DAVENPORT: Yeah, I thought it was very interesting after the Hwasong-15 test that South Korean President Moon Jae-in, you know, not only sort of directed his remarks at the North Korean regime, but also at Washington and at the Trump administration, and reiterated that the United States should not take any sort of military action, you know, that wasn’t in concert, you know, with South Korea and essentially warned against any preventative military action.

So I think that that is—is—is critical and underscores that there is legitimate concern in—in Seoul that the United States might go that route.

And—and I think that that is also, you know, manifest in—in efforts in Congress to try and ensure that the president, you know, cannot take, you know, a military strike without an authorization of—of—of the use of war.

And there have been bills introduced in both the Senate and the House that would, you know, push—that would require the President to actually come to Congress and—and get that authorization before taking any action, because there is that concern about, you know, what a preventative strike—would do in terms of retaliation against Seoul

And I think there was a very good effort in the House by Representative Ted Lieu and, I believe, Representative Gallegos to actually request from the Department of Defense, but also former officials, you know, an assessment of what North Korea’s capabilities to retaliate against South Korea and Japan and U.S. assets there would actually look like in terms of casualties.

Because, you know, when—when we talk about, you know, conventional war, you know, breaking out, you know, short of nuclear war, you know, North Korea could still try and escalate to use its large stockpile of chemical weapons.

So there are a variety of different scenarios, you know, all of which I think, you know, would be, you know, quite catastrophic to—to the region, and—and, you know, particularly to South Korea.

So I think that, you know, continuing to highlight that, you know, those—those risks, continuing to demonstrate that this is not as, you know, Lindsey Graham says, a war that would just be fought, you know, over there, that there would actually be real consequences, you know, for—for the United States, for—for personnel, you know, for our allies.

You know, is certainly critical for pushing back against sort of the war hawks here in—in—in the United States, amongst which, you know, there certainly are some—some very prevalent voices, as you noted, you know, McMaster, members in the Senate like—like Lindsey Graham.

And—and—and I think, you know, ultimately, you know, Trump himself, with his—his very vague threats, I think continues to sort of open this space for—for others to make those, you know, those—those very provocative and—and dangerous statements.

KIMBALL: Yes.

Secretary Perry?

PERRY: I’d like to give a historical note in reference to your question. In 1994, we were considering two different kinds of actions. One of them was reinforcing the American troops in South Korea, and the other was conducting a conventional strike against Yongbyon, their nuclear facility.

In the first case, I actually went to the prime minister of Japan and the president of South Korea on the reinforcement to get permission to do that, to get permission to reinforce the troops in South Korea and to get permission in Japan to use their airbases there as a staging for that reinforcement. We believed we had to do that in order to conduct it.

In terms of the preemptive strike, had we decided to do that, which we never did, but had we decided to do that it was clear in my mind that we had to get the authority from the president of South Korea to do that.

Not that we would have to use our bases in South Korea to do it, but the likely consequence of a strike against—against Yongbyon would be a military response against South Korea.

So because of that, I believe strongly that we had to get the authority of the South Korean president, as well as the American president, before we could take action like that.

Whether the present administration has that same view I cannot say. It seemed very clear to me back in 1994 that we required the permission of the South Korean president to do that.

KIMBALL: All right.

Suzanne?

DIMAGGIO: All right. So keep in mind when President Trump came into office, he made it very clear that North Korea was a crisis he inherited, and that he would not kick this can down the road like his previous—his predecessors did.

So that’s, I think, the framing of how he thinks of North Korea. And when you juxtapose it with the two narratives that we are increasingly hearing, especially in this town, the first that deterrence, traditional deterrence, won’t work with Kim Jong-un, because he’s just too crazy, he’s too bad, he’s too evil, even though it has worked in the past with other dictators with nuclear weapons.

And then the second narrative is that the North—North Koreans’ end – real end goal is to take—reunify the peninsula on their terms. And I think the problem with how these narratives are being presented, and I would add Ms.—Director Pompeo as someone who also articulates these points of view.

The problem is it presents a very binary choice doesn’t it? Either complete capitulation by—on our part or we have to take them out. There’s no in between, and I think what I’ve presented is there’s a lot of in between.

There’s a lot of things we can be discussing with the North Koreans to de-escalate to lower the threat. And at the end of the day if we go through this process and it becomes clear maybe they are going to take the peninsula hostage, then we can consider our military options.

But at this moment when we haven’t even stuck our toe in the water of—of diplomacy with North Koreans, I think it’s just completely irresponsible to be putting military options first.

I think the longer that we delude ourselves that there is a viable military option, the longer the current course—course of escalation will persist and intensify and the greater the chances of spiraling into a military conflict, either by design or by miscalculation.

Sure, I have it written down as a matter of fact. It’s actually I have it taped over my desk. The longer we delude ourselves that there is a viable military option, the longer the current course of escalation will persist and intensify and the greater the chances for spiraling into a military conflict, either by design or by miscalculation.

KIMBALL: All right.

We’re going to take a question from the gentleman in the back. Microphone is coming.

QUESTION: Thank you, my name is Don Kirk (ph) I’ve spent some time in—a lot of time as a journalist in Korea. Just following up on the previous question about South Korea’s role. I noticed that Secretary Perry, maybe I missed something, didn’t really mention a South Korean role in—while he emphasized China in his remarks and other people have seem to be emphasizing China, China, China.

Are we ignoring South Korea in the negotiating process? Are we downplaying them? We—we know that we want their permission, so to speak, for a preemptive strike, but what about South Korea’s diplomatic role? Why is that so underplayed here? Maybe members of the panel could address that.

KIMBALL: I will—why don’t we talk about what their role should be? And I mean let’s just also use that as an opportunity to talk about how the Winter Olympics play into this, because it’s pretty remarkable that in the middle of this crisis South Korea is hosting the Winter Olympics and is hoping that North Korean athletes will come and partake.

So on that question of South Korea’s role, Secretary Perry or Suzanne, you want to offer your—your thoughts? And I think one reason we’re not talking about it is we just haven’t gotten around to talking about it. I don’t think it’s because we don’t think it’s important, but if you could address that?

PERRY: On the—let’s take the Olympics for a moment. It’s a very interesting question, and I give a historical reference. In 2000 on the Olympics, this was just a few months after the negotiations I had in Pyongyang, the North and the South marched together in the Olympics.

It was very—we thought a very significant, symbolic action that the North was ready to become sort of a normal nation again. Of course, that never happened. The—that negotiation never was consummated, so we don’t know—don’t know whether the kind of political consequences such as that would have—would have—would have gone on.

The role of China, as I would see it, is that they could have played a very significant role in the earlier negotiations to stop North Korea from getting a nuclear weapon had we worked in partnership with them.

What we’re doing, both the Trump administration and earlier the Obama administration was we point to China and say, "You solve the problem." And China points to us and says, "You solve the problem" and neither of which is working very well.

It would seem to me that there was an opportunity then and there may be even still today for the U.S. and China to work together in a partnership on this. In any negotiation you need both incentives and disincentives which diplomats call carrots and sticks.

But with North Korea, the United States has lots of carrots but no—really no significant sticks except the threat of war which is not a credible threat—threat to North Korea.

But China has a lot of sticks, which they’re not willing to use because they are concerned with how the United States might take advantage of it.

So China could have played a very significant role in the earlier negotiations had they been brought in as a partner and had they been willing to be—function as a full partner, but that would have required prior diplomacy between the U.S. and China to make—to make that happen.

KIMBALL: Kelsey or Suzanne your thoughts?

DIMAGGIO: I just wanted to read a quote from President Moon that I thought was particularly interesting. He said we must stop a situation where North Korea miscalculates and threatens us with nuclear weapons or where the United States considers a preemptive strike.

So I thought it was very interesting that he was putting both of these scenarios side by side in the same statement. I think it gives a good sense of his state of mind and maybe South Korea’s state of mind more generally.

In the case of—and on the question of where does South Korea fit it in, I have—obviously have focused my remarks on the United States and North Korea, but clearly the South Koreans should be part of this and consulted every step of the way.

I think South Korea and North Korea need a parallel intra-Korean dialogue that, of course, the United States should be encouraging. The reality though is this. I think the North Koreans have made it fairly clear that they only want to speak to the United States at this stage.

They do not want to have discussions in this realm with others, and I think the South Koreans understand that in order to get there, in order to get to an intra-Korean dialogue there needs to be some understanding reached first between the United States and North Korea.

But absolutely the United Stated should be consulting, coordinating, cooperating with Seoul as our key ally in the region, as well as with Tokyo.

KIMBALL: Yeah.

DAVENPORT: Yeah, I would just add in terms of cooperation and coordination, we saw very clearly with, you know, the P5 plus one in their negotiations with Iran, you know, the importantce of having unity, both in terms of goals, but also, you know, agreement on—on tactics.

And I don’t think that that exists right now between the U.S. and all of the important partners in the region. So continuing to build that unity just from a process perspective I think will be very important.

And—and more specifically on this question of the Olympics, just a—a few weeks ago, you know, a South Korean official, you know, raised the idea that South Korea had been thinking about the possibility of—of scrapping or reducing joint exercises with the United States in 2018 in order to try and reduce tensions with North Korea around the Olympics.

And the—the blue house sort of later, you know, walked that back and said, you know, we haven’t—we haven’t made a decision.

But if that is something that South Korea, you know, wants to pursue I think that the United States has an obligation to consider very strongly that that—that viewpoint and to look at, you know, possibilities to—to reach that—that goal, sort of ahead of the Olympics by—by taking that South Korean concern in—into account.

KIMBALL: All right. We’re going to take one or two more questions. And we’ve got a couple right here in the middle, if you could? The gentleman in the rear, or you—you could pick? Yeah, yeah, thank you.

QUESTION: This one’s mostly for Suzanne, but I just want to expound upon something that you talked earlier about.

KIMBALL: Just identify yourself please.

QUESTION: Sorry, I’m Aaron Masler (ph) with (inaudible) Television. You mentioned that the U.N. Deputy Director Feltman is on his way to talk to North Korean officials. Do you think that could lead to, like, more Track 2 talks or some kind of official dialogue with North Korea?

DIMAGGIO: It’s he’s undersecretary general for Political Affairs, so he is the chief diplomatic person within the U.N., high level official. And by the way, he’s a former State Department official, a very seasoned U.S.—former U.S. foreign service officer.

So I am just guessing that while he’s there, and he’s already there, that while he’s there he will be discussing the press notes, that policy dialogue with North Korea. I—I doubt he’s discussing Track 2.

I think he may be discussing the possibility of using the good offices of the United Nations and maybe in particular Secretary General Guterres himself as a potential mediator in this situation. It wouldn’t be the first time the U.N. has played a role in crises situations.

But this is me just pontificating. I don’t know for sure what’s on his agenda. Of course, the U.N. has a presence in North Korea. He could simply be there to visit U.N.—his colleagues, but I think it’s more than that. And I think the press note indicates that.

KIMBALL: I think this trip by Jeffrey Feltman, the undersecretary general, comes at a critical time. It’s also clear that the U.N. Security Council has been seized with this matter for some time.

Security Council members, the permanent and the elected members are very, very concerned about the overall situation. It’s clear the secretary general is concerned.

So we’re just speculating, but this does come at an interesting time. This is not a coincidence. He’s not just talking about humanitarian aid. He’s probably talking about other issues.

The other thing I would just add is that given everything that we’ve just said about the lack of a strategy on the part of the Trump administration, the inconsistent messages, the determination by the North Koreans to press ahead, I think we also need to recognize that this situation may require, in order for it to become unstuck or to prevent it from worsening, a third-party intervention.

Neither—I can’t imagine that Kim Jong-un has ever had anybody say no to him in his life. Donald Trump is probably in the same category but in different ways. So, you know, this could potentially play a useful role. What it may be, we may not know for some time, but I think it’s a positive development.

We’ve got one other question from this gentleman here?

QUESTION: Thank you. Yonho Kim, U.S. Korea Institute at SAIS. I—I would like to follow up on the question on the role that South Korea can plan in this picture. You know, in effort to make their voices heard in this whole situation, South Korean government not only Park but the Moon Jae-in government has been seeking some kind of a multilateral security mechanism in northeast Asia.

The nickname being called NAFSE (ph) and Moon Jae-in government calls it NAFSE (ph) plus, but I—I understand the initiative has not been well-received in Washington, very strong skepticism whenever South Korean people try to talk about that in Washington.

So my question is what would it take for the—the Washington policy circle to take this kind of South Korea’s initiative more seriously?

KIMBALL: Kelsey or Suzanne, you want to try to address that not so—so easy question?

DIMAGGIO: Can I be very blunt? Great idea, wrong administration.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE).

DIMAGGIO: On our side, on the U.S. side.

(LAUGHTER)

DIMAGGIO: Great idea but I think I’ve seen no evidence from this current administration, any—that they put any value in alliance systems and mechanisms. I mean, just look how NATO was treated.

KIMBALL: All right, any other questions from this distinguished audience of experts yourselves before we conclude? No other questions? All right. Yes, this gentleman. I’m—I think I know who he is.

QUESTION: Greg Thielman, Arms Control Association Board. I’m wondering how we can best answer the argument of North Korea and others thinking in terms of global nonproliferation, that the United States reserves the right to engage in preventive war, unilateral preventive war, against countries we don’t like, because that message doesn’t seem to help advance the overall global nonproliferation objective.

KIMBALL: Kelsey, you want to try to take that on? First of all, do we have the right to engage in preventive war? What is the UN system suggest about that?

DAVENPORT: From an international legal perspective I would say no, but I don’t think the United States would consider itself bound by that.

And naturally, since the question came from the man who taught me just about everything I have learned in this field, I would, of course, agree with his—with—with the—the concern of—of setting sort of a—a double standard there.

I also think the—the United States’ inability to declare that the sole purpose of its nuclear deterrent is to deter against nuclear weapons. The U.S., you know, failure to, you know, move towards a—a no first strike nuclear posture.

I think all of that kind of, you know, reinforces this double standard that does make, you know, moving towards, you know, global nonproliferation efforts sort of more difficult because not only is there the concern about sort of preventative war, but it reinforces the haves versus have nots dichotomy that, you know, risks, you know, undermining the nuclear nonproliferation treaty by, you know, failing to kind of make more progress on—on disarmament.

So I—I agree that it’s absolutely a problem and connected to, I think, larger problems of posture and—and doctrine within sort of the U.S. nuclear thinking.

KIMBALL: Which will be the subject of other briefings that we will hold in the near future as the U.S. Nuclear Posture Review approaches completion and as the nonproliferation treaty states parties prepare to gather early next year.

So I just want to—just conclude with a couple of very short summary remarks. I mean, it seems as though from all that we’re hearing from our—our experts here with—some of them with vast experience, like Secretary Perry, we are truly in a new and much more difficult situation, one that we really never have seen in the history of the nuclear age.

There are messaging discipline challenges that this administration faces. There seems to be a lack of a strategy. There is a need for a strategy adjustment.

I mean, this—with the situation we’re describing here is—is very difficult, but what I think Suzanne and Kelsey and Secretary Perry in—in various ways are suggesting is that there needs to be a strategy adjustment that does not accept maybe—it acknowledges the fact that North Korea has this capability.

That we want to continue with a long-term strategy for denuclearization and a peace regime in the peninsula, but we need to focus on the interim steps necessary to initiate a dialogue to reduce tensions and to halt North Korea’s further nuclear and ballistic missile testing, which remain very dangerous and—and escalatory.

So that’s how I would summarize a lot of this—a lot of rich detail here from our speakers. I want to thank each of them for being here. I want to thank everybody for your attention today.

We’re going to have a transcript of today’s session on the armscontrol.org website in a couple of days. This—the panelists are available for you to chat with afterwards.

I want to thank them and thank all of you for being here today. Please join me in thanking them

(APPLAUSE)

KIMBALL: And we are adjourned.

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Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Country Resources:

North Korea

Read more about Press Briefing: Pathways to a Diplomatic Resolution on North Korea

ACA-YPFP NextGen Voices: The Untold Story in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Saga

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Events

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What: Short Film "Marshalling Peace" and
NextGen Discussion

When: Tuesday, August 29
7:00-8:30pm

Where: 1619 Massachusetts Ave NW
Washington, D.C. 20036

On August 29 - the International Day Against Nuclear Testing - NextGen filmmaker Autumn Bordner joins Young Professionals in Foreign Policy (YPFP) and the Arms Control Association for an exclusive showing of Marshalling Peace. Autumn traveled to the Marshall Islands to research the lingering effects of U.S. nuclear testing conducted there during the Cold War. Her short film documents the tiny nation's legal battle against nuclear weapons-holding superpowers, and the devastating effects of the U.S. nuclear testing program on the Marshallese people.

Autumn and the Association's Executive Director Daryl Kimball will facilitate a discussion on the future of nuclear weapons threats and the ways NextGen leaders can shape today's and tomorrow's nuclear policies. YPFP's Danielle Preskitt (a former Association intern) will moderate.

The Panelists:

Autumn Bordner is a rising second year at Stanford Law School. Prior to matriculating at Stanford, Autumn worked as an environmental consultant at ICF, and as a fellow with the K1 Project, Center for Nuclear Studies, a research institute that she co-founded as an undergraduate at Columbia University. Autumn is also a member of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) Youth Group. In this capacity, she is working to advance the entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

Daryl G. Kimball became the Executive Director of the Arms Control Association in September 2001. The Arms Control Association is a private, non-profit membership organization dedicated to public education and support of effective arms control measures pertaining to nuclear, chemical, biological, and conventional weapons. Find his complete bio here.

Description:

ACA and Young Professionals in Foreign Policy (YPFP) are hosting an event featuring an exclusive showing of Marshalling Peace and a discussion on the future of nuclear weapons threats and the ways NextGen leaders can shape today's and tomorrow's nuclear policies.

Country Resources:

United States

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Read more about ACA-YPFP NextGen Voices: The Untold Story in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Saga

The 2017 Arms Control Association Annual Meeting

Sections:
Events

Body:

Arms Control and Nonproliferation Restraints at Risk

Friday, June 2, 2017
9:00am to 3:00 pm
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Root Room
1779 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, D.C.

Program and Speakers

9:00 a.m.	Welcome	Daryl G. Kimball Executive Director, Arms Control Association	Video Clip Transcript
9:00 a.m.	Welcome	Presentation of the 2016 "Arms Control Person of the Year" Award John Burroughs, accepting on behalf of Dr. Tony de Brum and the Republic of the Marshall Islands	Video Clip Transcript
9:30 a.m.	Panel 1	The NPT and the Ban Treaty Talks: A Status Report Thomas Countryman, former Acting Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security; former Assisting Secretary for International Security and Nonproliferation Ambassador Jan Kickert, Austrian Ambassador to the United Nations Moderator: Susan Burk, head of U.S. delegation to the 2010 NPT Review Conference, and incoming member of the Arms Control Association Board of Directors	Video Clip Transcript
10:45 a.m.	Panel 2	Curbing the North Korean Nuclear and Missile Threat Michael Elleman, Senior Fellow for Missile Defence, International Institute for Strategic Studies Suzanne DiMaggio, Director, the U.S.-Iran Initiative; Senior Fellow, New America Moderator: Kelsey Davenport, Director for Nonproliferation Policy, Arms Control Association	Video Clip Transcript
11:45 a.m.		(Luncheon Buffet)
12:15 p.m.	Luncheon Keynote	Christopher Ford Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Weapons of Mass Destruction and Counterproliferation, United States National Security Council	Video Clip Transcript
1:15 p.m.	Panel 3	Reducing Nuclear and Security Risks with Russia Ulrich K¸hn, Fellow, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; and Fellow, Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg (IFSH) Anya Loukianova, Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow, RAND Corporation Moderator: Kingston Reif, Director for Disarmament and Threat Reduction Policy, Arms Control Association	Video Clip Transcript
2:15 p.m.	Afternoon Keynote	Izumi Nakamitsu United Nations Undersecretary-General and High Representative for Disarmament Affairs at the UN Office of Disarmament Affairs	Video Clip Transcript
3:00 p.m.	Closing	Daryl G. Kimball Executive Director, Arms Control Association

We would like to thank the following individuals and organizations for their support towards this year's annual meeting and reception: Pierce Corden, Deborah Fikes, Deborah Gordon, Jan Lodal, Andrew Weber, Anonymous (2), the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Women's Action for New Directions, and Young Professionals in Foreign Policy.

If you have any questions about the meeting, your registration, table or event sponsorships, or complimentary registration for congressional staff and media, please feel free to contact us at [email protected] or 202-463-8270 ext. 105.

TRANSCRIPTS:

Introduction and Panel #1

KIMBALL: All right, good morning ladies and gentlemen. Good morning and welcome to the 2017 Arms Control Association annual meeting.

I'm Daryl Kimball, I'm the executive director of the Arms Control Association. And as most of you know, we're an independent, non-partisan membership organization. We were established in 1971 and we're dedicated to reducing and eliminating the threats posed by the world's most dangerous weapons which would, of course, be nuclear, chemical, biological weapons as well as certain conventional weapons that pose particular harm and risk to civilians.

You can find out more about the Arms Control Association, its history, its ongoing work, and get more information and analysis about these issues through our website: armscontrol.org. And you can follow us on Twitter at @ArmsControlNow.

The latest issue of our journal -- Arms Control Today -- just went online so you can check that out there. And you can also check out our resources on our Arms Control app, which is simply Arms Control on all of the app stores.

We're very pleased to see so many of you here today; members, friends, colleagues from the diplomatic community, journalists, and we welcome those of you who are with us watching in on CSPAN. And for those of you following on social media, the Twitter handle for today's event to be part of the conversation is #armscontrol17.

So the theme of this year's Arms Control Association Annual Meeting is Arms Control and Nonproliferation Restraints at Risk. And they are; we're facing serious and in some ways unprecedented challenges this year in the ongoing task to reduce the nuclear danger.

The bedrock of all nonproliferation efforts -- the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty -- faces serious implementation challenges. We have key commitments and nonproliferation obligations that are unfulfilled and that's led many of the world's non-nuclear weapon states to begin negotiations on a treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons. And we'll talk more about that later today.

With the deterioration of U.S.-Russian relations, key arms control treaties, including the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, are at risk as well as the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty. And worse still all of the world's major nuclear arms states are either replacing, upgrading, or in some cases expanding their nuclear arsenals.

And last, but not least, unless we can work with our allies to engage North Korea in talks to halt and reverse its nuclear missile pursuits, its capabilities will become more dangerous in the years ahead.

So how the United States will respond to these challenges and whether the United States continues to provide global leadership is not entirely clear. And that's part of what we're going to be talking about today.

President Trump has made statements that concern key allies. He's made statements about expanding U.S. nuclear capabilities. He's been highly critical of some agreements like the New START Treaty and the Iran nuclear deal. We have a great lineup of speakers and experts and panelists to address these issues.

We're especially happy to have later this -- today senior White House adviser, Christopher Ford, during the lunch hour and the new U.N. High Representative for Disarmament Izumi Nakamitsu, who's going to be closing out the conference with perspectives from the international community and the United Nations.

But before we move to the first part of our program, I just want to give a brief bit of thanks and a shout out to some of our individual members and contributors who made today's event possible. Some of their names are on the tables here at the Carnegie Endowment for National Peace.

And that's important because we're a small organization. We try to have a big impact, but it means that your donations make a huge difference. And in response to these challenges, we are really gratified that our members have responded over the last few months. We're seeing an uptick in contributions at this very important time.

So we're very happy to have several organizations and individuals help with contributions for this conference including our colleague organization, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, which is committed to a world free of nuclear weapons; our partners at Women's Action for New Directions ñ WAND - which empowers women to be agents of change in support of disarmament and peace; and our individual sponsors for today's event; Pierce Corden, Deborah Fikes, Deborah Gordon, Jan Lodal, Andrew Weber, and two members of the Arms Control Association who wish to remain anonymous.

So thanks to you all and thanks to everyone who is here. We cannot do it without you.

And we also cannot make progress on these issues without leaders in arms control. And that's why 10 years ago we launched the Arms Control Person Of The Year award.

We felt it was important to recognize the important work of key individuals who, in various ways, in different parts of the world, have catalyzed awareness and action to deal with these weapons-related challenges. And so each year the staff and the Board of Directors nominate several individuals, about 10 to a dozen, who we think have provided notable leadership in the previous year. And then we put it all to an online vote and the top vote-getter becomes the Arms Control Person of the Year.

So it's an imperfect process perhaps, but so far our elections have been free of any cyber hacking and we think it's a free and fair process that is democratic as it can be.

And the Republic of the Marshall Islands and former foreign minister of the Marshall Islands, Tony de Brum, garnered the highest number of votes for 2016 and they are our Arms Control Persons of the Year. Over 1,850 people from 63 countries participated in the voting this year back in December and that's a record for this contest.

Our winners were nominated and are being recognized for pursuing a former legal case in the International Court of Justice against the world's nuclear arms states for failing to meet their obligations to initiate nuclear disarmament negotiations.

And it's also important to remember the Republic of the Marshall Islands and the people there were subjected to 67 U.S. atmospheric nuclear test explosions from 1946 to 1958.

Now unfortunately, Tony de Brum, who had accepted our invitation to come here, to fly all the way from his home in the South Pacific, is unable to be with us due to health difficulties. And the Republic of the Marshall Islands ambassador is out of Washington today on official business.

So we've asked John Burroughs, who's the executive director of the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy, who is a member of the legal team that brought the suit to the International Court of Justice, to say a few words about Tony and the significance of the case in the larger scheme of things.

So John, thanks for being with us to explain the importance of this.

(APPLAUSE)

BURROUGHS: Thank you, Daryl.

In bringing the nuclear disarmament cases before the International Court of Justice, the Marshall Islands and its then, foreign minister, Tony de Brum, showed courage and determination rooted in tragic experience. They also showed good faith in seeking law-guided solutions.

Tony and the Marshall Islands have shown similar courage and determination in confronting climate change. Tony played a catalytic role at the negotiations that yielded the Paris Climate Agreement in December 2015. He helped to bring together a large coalition of nations, the High Ambition Coalition, that strengthened the agreement and perhaps even made it possible.

So in light of developments yesterday, I think I should quote a couple of things that the Marshall Islands and the High Ambition Coalition has said. President Hilda Heine said yesterday, that President Trump's intention to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, she said this, "While today's decision will have great impacts, we must not give up hope."

The High Ambition Coalition, convened by Marshall Islands, also released a statement, "For people around the world most vulnerable to climate change, the Paris Agreement represents the best hope for survival."

The Arms Control Persons of the Year Award, of course, was about arms control and so let me return to that. We were, of course, very disappointed that last fall, by the narrowest of margins, the International Court of Justice decided to not adjudicate the nuclear disarmament cases on their merits.

However, simply bringing the cases raised to world attention the failure of the nuclear powers to fulfill the obligation to negotiate and reach a global elimination of nuclear weapons. That was what the court said in its 1996 advisory opinion unanimously -- that's what the court said the obligation is.

For those of you who like to dig into things, the Marshall Islands pleadings are also a rich resource for the development of political and legal arguments for disarmament. In the U.K. -- a memorial in the U.K. case, the international legal team argued the merits because that's just the way that the case unfolded.

So as Daryl mentioned, from 1946 to 1958, the U.S. conducted 67 atmospheric nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands at the atolls Bikini and Enewetak. They included the first hydrogen bomb test, Mike, in 1952; and the infamous Bravo test in March, 1954: 15 megatons, 1,000 times the size of the Hiroshima-Nagasaki bombs.

Tony de Brum was a 9-year old boy fishing in a canoe with his grandfather when he witnessed the Bravo test 200 miles away. "The sky turned blood red", he told the International Court of Justice in March 2016.

However, the Marshall Islands cases before the International Court of Justice were not about compensation for the effects of testing. When the cases were filed in April 2014, Tony said, "Our people have suffered the catastrophic and irreparable damage of these weapons and we vow to fight so that no one else on Earth will ever again experience these atrocities."

Tony also said in accepting the 2015 Right Livelihood Award, "I have seen with my very own eyes nuclear devastation and know, with conviction, that nuclear weapons must never again be visited upon humanity. This is not just an issue of treaty commitments or international law, though it is that. And not just an issue of ethics or morality, though it is that, too. But this is an issue of common sense. How could any one common person walking down the street ever permit a possession or use of such weapons?"

So I think that the Marshall Islands and Tony de Brum richly deserve this award and I thank Daryl and the Arms Control Association very much for arranging it.

(APPLAUSE)

KIMBALL: And it's an actual award. I want to ask you, John, to help us get this to the Marshall Islands to Tony and to the RMI. Thanks a lot.

All right and thank you, John, for helping to explain and to remind us about the humanitarian impacts of the work that we're discussing here today and the interconnectedness of these issues for all of the Earth's inhabitants.

PANEL 1:

Now it's time to turn to the first panel of the day, which is the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the Nuclear Weapon Ban Talks; A Status Report. And I'd like to ask our three panelists to come up to the podium. We're going to make a quick transition here. They're already mic-ed up.

As they come up to the stage, let me note that our moderator is Ambassador Susan Burk. Susan, along with panelist Tom Countryman were just selected to join the Arms Control Association Board of Directors. And Susan, among other career accomplishments, was the head of the U.S. Delegation to the successful 2010 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference.

So with that, Susan, the floor is yours and we're going to begin. Thank you.

BURK: Great. Thank you. Good morning.

Our first panel today is going to tackle the challenges facing the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty as it approaches its 50th anniversary of the entry into force. That will be in 2020, the Review Conference. And in particular, the panel's going to address the effort currently underway, under U.N. auspices, to draft a treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons leading towards their total elimination.

Now challenges to the NPT are not new and pursuit of measures to strengthen its implementation is ongoing.

The negotiations on a ban treaty are the result of growing international frustration over the pace of progress on nuclear disarmament pursuant to Article VI of the NPT. And this frustration has fueled deepening concern about the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons use among many nations and civil society.

Now supporters of the ban treaty believe that it will fill a legal gap in the NPT and give a boost to disarmament in a way that compliments the NPT, not competes with the NPT. Another group of states, including the NPT nuclear weapon states, are insisting that their step-by-step or progressive approach to nuclear disarmament has been and remains a proven way to reduce existing arsenals.

Now this morning, we will hear from two experienced diplomats and experts on the subject. There is a brief biography of each gentleman in your program so I will be even briefer in introducing them.

Tom Countryman, who's a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, achieving the rank of minister-counselor and he served as the acting undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security and simultaneously as the assistant secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation, where I had the honor of working for him for about a year.

Ambassador Jan Kickert is Austria's permanent representative to the United Nations in New York. He was the director general for Political Affairs in the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and has also served in a number of other government positions. His government, as many of you know, has been among the leaders in the humanitarian consequences movement.

Now we will start with Ambassador Kickert, who is prepared to address the goals, value, and the possible shape of a new prohibition or ban treaty. And then we'll have Mr. Countryman focus his comments on the convention, on what the convention needs to contain, what its sponsors need to do to make progress towards its goals, and hopefully to address the intersection of the ban and the NPT.

So after about 15 minutes of remarks by each, we'll open the floor to your questions. And so without further ado, I will start off with Ambassador Kickert.

KICKERT: Thank you very much and I don't think I will need the 15 minutes...

BURK: OK~.

KICKERT: ... for introduction. But rather save time for Q&A. And at the outset I also have to say I am not a disarmament specialist. I am a diplomat for decades and I happen to deal also with disarmament, but I'm not a specialist. I'm not the Austrian chief negotiator for the treaty which is going to be negotiating starting the 15th of June at the United Nations with the view of hopefully concluding such a treaty by the end of the three week span at the beginning of July.

I just wanted to explain a little bit to you how did we come here. You said the traditional role of Austria in disarmament, it's not only with nuclear disarmament. You would have always found Austria at the core group, the vanguard of any initiative be it mines be it ammunitions because we believe that a world with less weapons -- especially deadly weapons -- is a safer one and not vice versa. So this is our general approach to it. And being here, I want to give you a little bit of perspective of those countries who are behind the prohibition.

I have the feeling that the United States discuss among themselves, maybe also with other nuclear weapon states, but don't hear so much what -- what you mentioned, the frustration of all those , the bulk of the parties at the Nonproliferation Treaty. Because it has really built up this frustration. If I want to give a very, very sharp insight of being cheated.

The NPT set out a set of commitments and non-nuclear weapon states, they are sticking to that commitment of not acquiring a nuclear weapon. But on the other hand, some of the other states do not stick to that commitment.

So the whole -- the result of this treaty is out of this frustration and a feeling that there needs to be some added element so that we will fulfill the NPT in its entirety.

So how did we come to today? It all started out with the humanitarian initiative that's based on a speech of then the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross Jakob Kellenberger in February of 2010. And this was taken also to the Revcon in 2010 and there was also a mention then of the inherent consequences. And built on that we have three conferences in (inaudible), in Mexico and Vienna to just go in-depth and ask experts about the humanitarian consequences of the nuclear weapons.

And actually this was an extremely sobering experience. I was there in Vienna and to be honest, I was shocked to learn that the dangers of nuclear weapons are so much graver than we, than I was aware of and I think we all are aware of. And that somehow this was shoved under the carpet that the huge danger nuclear weapons pose to each and everyone on this planet. Be it in the nuclear weapon states, be it those who just happen to be near those, like Austria.

And the thing with Austria, we are situated not so far away from North Italy. I should (inaudible) anything (inaudible) of the air base there where the (inaudible). If anything happens, we will -- we will feel the consequences of -- like the North Italians as much as them.

And so it is a bit of some shocking details. And one of them I like to cite because -- because of the huge potential impact of nuclear weapons, some (inaudible) are saying that the likelihood or that the danger for our children to die from a nuclear incident is actually higher than from a car accident. Because if something happens, it will be so devastating that the numbers are -- are so huge that those who -- who die from car accidents -- the danger is smaller.

So -- and then everything about the annihilation of humankind. And that we're just damned lucky that nothing has happened until today, accident, the human error and we can never (inaudible). That nothing has ever happened. It is a wonder and we're playing Russian Roulette here and why do we want to continue that?

So this was the motivation why we pushed. And this was not by coincidence, before the 2015 NPT Revcon, which, unfortunately, yielded no results.

There is no -- from our point of view, from the non-nuclear weapon states -- no willingness of the (inaudible) from the nuclear weapon states to disarm, to fulfill their obligation under Article VI of the NPT~. And yesterday, the nuclear weapon states, you have to disarm. But then one can turn also the others around as Article VI say -- working for nuclear disarmament -- that is also an obligation for non-nuclear weapon states to help fulfill Article VI and therefore the motivation for this prohibition treaty, which has the overwhelming support of the international community.

The General Assembly Resolution was supported by two-thirds of the member states who were against this process are the nuclear weapon states, the umbrella states and those countries' informal alliances with the nuclear weapon states.

And we were actually astonished also to see the -- the (inaudible) of -- of -- of working against, lobbying against our prohibition treaty which we believe, as you said in the beginning, a compliment to the NPT.

For us, the Nonproliferation Treaty is and stays the cornerstone of nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation. But add the word "cornerstone" (inaudible) this is not the whole building. And we have had other instruments to compliment the NPT -- the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty is an example for that.

We also see how important is to have more -- more and more weapons (inaudible) have nuclear weapons (inaudible). And maybe one day we will have a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty. These are all complementary to the goal. We have all committed ourselves, namely getting rid of all nuclear weapons. And I'd like to remind everybody also that the first General Assembly Resolution after the foundation of the United Nations was exactly on the issue of getting rid of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction.

And we believe, the proponents of the Prohibition Treaty, that it is a good instrument to go ahead, to create a legal norm prohibiting it as we have done with the biological or chemical weapons. And the argument that we always hear is that it cannot be universal and they fail that (inaudible). Then yeah, well, the biological and chemical prohibition treaties were also not universal at the beginning. Even at NPT was not universal and (inaudible) today and so we believe that our endeavor could add a very important element to our common goal of ridding the planet of nuclear weapons.

BURK: All right. Thank you very much.

COUNTRYMAN: OK~. Microphone good?

Well, thanks, Susan, Ambassador Kickert. It's an honor to be here with you and it's especially an honor to be with the Arms Control Association for the annual meeting.

Among the many public issues that the American people have to be ready to discuss and to raise their own consciousness, arms control threats of nuclear, biological, chemical weapons have to be near the top. So it's important for all of us in this room to go beyond and to do further public outreach on these issues.

Now as I started jotting down ideas a couple weeks ago, they were fairly inchoate and then I read a couple of days ago an article by George Perkovich about the draft convention to prohibit nuclear weapons. And if you have 15 minutes, it is probably better spent reading George's article on the subject than listening to me. But you're already seated and I'm already seated so we'll plow right ahead.

(LAUGHTER)

Just a few words first about the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty which, as Ambassador Kickert said, is the cornerstone of the global nonproliferation regime.

There is widespread, as he said, frustration and disappointment that the goals of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty have not been achieved. And that frustration merits analysis. It merits discourse. It merits even pressure upon the nuclear weapon states to move faster to realize the commitments that they've made in Article VI.

What is not sensible is to doubt the treaty itself. What makes no sense is to say that the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty is the problem. That's absolutely aiming at the wrong target.

And I think that the current review process for the NPT -- the treaty -- is always at risk of being confused with the treaty itself. There is no question that the five year review cycle is a matter of great frustration to diplomats who's professional specialization is disarmament and nonproliferation. It is very difficult to get 180-some countries to come to consensus on a final document.

And that frustrates those who see that there ought to be progress. That there ought to be better reports on commitments made by both nuclear and non-nuclear weapon states on the progress that they've made.

But a couple of quick points about the Nonproliferation Treaty process. An unhealthy process, an overly complex, overly ambitious and overly contentious review process is one thing.

It does not mean that the treaty itself is failing or even that it is sick. The treaty continues to be, in my view, the single treaty that in the history of the world has done more to contribute to the security of every nation in the world by greatly restricting what could have been an unbounded nuclear arms race.

And even those countries that are frustrated continue to benefit from the essential agreement at the core of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. No other treaty has done as much for the security of non-nuclear weapon states as well as nuclear weapon states.

So this leads to just one point of connection between the NPT and the convention that is currently under discussion in New York, and that is the single strongest recommendation I have for those who are drafting the treaty, is to make explicit that membership and adherence to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty is a precondition for adherence to the convention on the prohibition of nuclear weapons.

There is no inconsistency at all between the goals and what is likely to be the final language of the convention on prohibition of nuclear weapons.

I have heard the concerns by some about what they would call "forum shopping." That is that there may be countries that for political reasons are tempted to embrace the convention -- the new convention -- but then to withdraw from the NPT. It doesn't sound very logical and yet I've done enough in the nonproliferation field to know that logic does not always win over politics. And it is possible to envision a situation in which for political, tactical reasons a country like Iran or Egypt could make that choice.

Why create an issue? Why create a circumstance in which the nuclear weapon states you are trying to convince have an argument about inconsistency between the most important treaty we have now and this new convention? Just avoid the argument by including a specific recommendation. A specific requirement for NPT membership in the CPNW. And don't hide behind frustration that we're not happy with how that treaty has been implemented.

And just one very small point, Ambassador, believe me, the frustration expressed by Austria and other leaders of this effort has been heard in Washington. Whether it's being heard today, I'm less qualified to judge.

All right, let me talk a little bit about the process so far. First I want to express my great respect for what's been accomplished so far in the draft of the convention. It's at the upper end of what I thought achievable in the first session of the negotiation.

And I think it is in the direction of what Ambassador Kickert said is the task. What can non-nuclear weapon states do to help to fulfill Article VI of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty? The requirement freely accepted by the U.S. and all the other nuclear powers to work towards nuclear disarmament?

It is a contribution in that regard. What is crucial and what I'll talk about more is what can be done in the next negotiating session within the text and in the statements that states make outside of the negotiation that actually moves us closer, makes a contribution to the very long-term undertaking of achieving its purpose.

So here -- as you draft -- I've been in enough of these things to know that a draft, especially if it is going to take the form of a treaty, is going to have some incoherence because it represents compromises among different states or groups of states.

I hope that the drafters seek to avoid that incoherence by focusing on what is the ultimate goal. And the ultimate goal is to persuade nuclear weapon states that they can go to complete nuclear disarmament without damaging their own security.

Much of the argument on the margins of the convention negotiation is not about security, it is rather about political pressure -- which matters -- about morality, about establishing norms. All of those are important -- none of those are going to win the argument. The argument will be about security.

So just a few free points of advice, you don't have to pay for them, honest. First, during the negotiation and afterwards, stay on the high road. Staying on the high road does not mean assuming an air of moral superiority. It does not mean giving lectures to nuclear weapon states. It does not mean taking a disdainful attitude or accusing them of bad faith, even if that's what you believe.

And I'm very conscious of the need to avoid giving lectures even at a time when we have a president who likes to lecture our closest allies. But don't reciprocate that urge to be hectoring and lecturing.

Rather, take seriously the real security dilemmas that both nuclear weapon states and those states that you referred to as umbrella states, I prefer the term those who enjoy extended deterrence, take seriously their security issues.

Second, pick carefully the targets that you want to persuade. And by that I mean above all, don't delay, don't avoid choosing the hard targets. Again, as George Perkovich points out in his article, it's natural with a movement that depends largely upon civil society, upon NGOs in democratic countries, to start by seeking to persuade the democracies and to leave aside those nuclear weapon states -- Russia, China, and above all, North Korea, that are impervious to any kind of outside rational argument -- but to focus only on the democratic states that are part of the Western alliance or the Asian states that are under extended deterrence. This being perceived as a discriminatory movement and it risks having that used against the movement.

It will be easy for people not only in this city but elsewhere to say that this is a one sided movement that seeks to damage Western national security without addressing what is happening in -- or the nuclear policies of non-democratic countries.

And in fact, again, I think Perkovich makes this point well. It actually risks emboldening the nuclear posture and the doctrine of use of those non-democratic countries.

How do you persuade those countries? Well, I know and I think anybody who has worked in arms control as a diplomat knows that one of the built-in frustrations is that the issues that we care passionately about and that we get immersed in and become expert in seldom rise to the level of our presidents or our prime ministers.

President Obama was an exception in terms of the time and serious thought and study that he gave to these issues. But in most countries, no matter how deeply the director general for arms control feels about the issue, it is unlikely that the president or prime minister is going to raise that or make them -- make that subject a primary topic of conversation with other world leaders, particularly with the leaders of nuclear weapon states.

So there's a need not only to make sure that your national leadership cares about this issue as deeply as you do, but also cares about it enough to apply equally the outreach to all the nuclear weapon states.

Now it's not only the five recognized nuclear weapon states and the others who are outside of the NPT, but it's clear from the discussions in New York that civil society intends to focus on those allies in NATO and in -- and in Asia who are covered by extended deterrence or, as you say, a nuclear umbrella. And that's understandable.

But just a word about the practical effects that you're likely to get in Europe. You should not expect great results within NATO, whether the goal is removal of the small number of tactical nuclear weapons that the U.S. has pre-propositioned in a few European states, or whether it's convincing NATO to change its self-definition as a nuclear alliance.

It is, for me, very difficult to see any of these governments changing fundamentals of their security policy at a time when there is a genuine threat of aggression. When, in fact, European countries are occupied by their neighbor and that there is a willingness to use both conventional and non-conventional means of warfare to destabilize NATO members.

Indeed, I think a lot of European countries, members of NATO, would see a change in that policy -- declared policy of NATO as inviting additional aggression, whether overt or covert. But again, I'd like to warn the advocates of the convention against giving lectures. I know I'm giving a lecture, I've got the irony.

(LAUGHTER)

A NATO ally or the Republic of Korea or Japan facing a genuine security threat will not take well, a lesson about their defensive policy from a state that is unwilling to give the same lecture, or even condemnation, or even condemnation backed by painful action against those who perpetrate aggression, whether it's in Pyongyang or in Moscow.

Just a further point on Europe and NATO -- even if one ally or five allies decides that they would like the U.S. to remove these tactical B61 bombs, it is a limited step and it doesn't fundamentally change -- it's an important change -- but it doesn't fundamentally change NATO security policy nor does it fundamentally change the United States nuclear posture.

While I'm sure it would be welcome by advocates of the convention as an important step forward, it's important to be aware of how limited that would be.

It's a huge step from discussing or changing policy on tactical weapons to questioning what not only the U.S., but other nuclear weapon states have defined as their central purpose of possessing nuclear weapons, which is to deter anyone else using them.

So to try to sum up, what can you do to make this current effort to negotiate a convention on prohibition live up to its potential? Well, a couple of things that are in the treaty that need attention and one I think others can talk about, which is to strengthen and make specific what kind of safeguard regime would be necessary for adherence to the convention.

And as I mention, my very strong recommendation to link this to the Nonproliferation Treaty by making mandatory membership as a prerequisite.

Second, I hope that the advocates of the convention, both in the next month and afterwards, will do all they can to elaborate a verification mechanism that would give confidence to actual declarations of non-possession.

Here again, George Perkovich has some good ideas, I would add that if the nuclear weapons -- the non-nuclear weapon states would be smart, work hard on initiatives such as the International Partnership For Nuclear Disarmament Verification. It is a concrete area in which nuclear and non-nuclear weapon states can work together towards a specific goal.

Third and very difficult, requiring long-term work is to elaborate what would be the actual process of disarmament. It is not something that you can dictate to the nuclear weapon states, but it is something where you can give serious thought to how to get, step-by-step -- I know people don't like that phrase -- you'd like it better if you wrote some of the steps yourself and it would add credibility to the movement itself.

And finally, on suggestions, once this convention is drafted, I would hope that the excellent diplomats who worked on it put their attention not just on public opinion on propagating the text, but on working with diplomats and military officials who are experts not just on negotiation, but on real world security challenges.

What can be done? What would you do if you were in the position of London or Paris or Beijing or Washington? What are the security challenges that could be addressed that would give those states confidence in building down and building towards zero?

And I would even suggest something that I think is of enormous practical value which is very extensive simulations of such discussions. If the U.S. and Russia are having a hard time talking to each other about their strategic stability challenges, I think we could learn something from diplomats, from Mexico and Austria and elsewhere, playing the role of Washington and Moscow and talking to each other.

And last point, this is what I would hope would be the U.S. position, and I hope we'll hear it from Dr. Ford today, and I think it's very well summarized in an article on the same topic by Michael Krepon. And just to summarize his summary; I hope the U.S. will express understanding of the sincere motives of those who are pushing for this convention. I hope that the U.S. will offer respectfully specific concerns about the text and about what comes after.

That the U.S. can articulate in detail the circumstances under which it will be possible to build down and to move to zero. And most concretely, I hope to see the U.S. agree with Russia on the extension of the New START Treaty and reassert its commitment to further strategic arms reductions.

A lot of this is very ambitious. I think it's no more ambitious than the convention itself. I hope that the sponsors will keep their eye on the long-term calendar not just to get through June with a text that elicits champagne and hugs, but a strategy that actually addresses the real world concerns of those who feel that nuclear weapons offer them security and that can lay the basis for a very respectful partnership between the non-nuclear weapon states and the nuclear weapon states. Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

BURK: I want to thank you both for tuning up this issue in such a substantive and creative way. And I think ambition these days is something we all ought to strive for and positive energy.

I just want to ask one question before we open up the floor. You both focused on the ban negotiations and the ban treaty and I think we have a lot of great food for thought here and can have a conversation.

Looking ahead to 2020 and the NPT, if the negotiations are completed this year or next, the question I would have if I were active duty would be; will the nuclear weapon states and non-nuclear weapon states be able to agree to disagree on this issue when they convene for the NPT Review Conference and be prepared to move on to find common ground and also a constructive discussion of how do we -- how do they ease the growing tensions between the states?

I mean, there's real serious questions about security, instability. Tom, you made some clear references to that. Can we move with this now beyond that to again come together in a creative surge for common ground under the auspices of the NPT? And I open it up to both of you. Ambassador Kickert?

KICKERT: Again, from more a political and less of a disarmament specialist point of view, yes, I think we can.

I think -- thank you very much, Tom. I think that was extremely constructive and -- and -- and yes, we also use -- being used to be lectured so we -- we can take that. And -- but it was very constructive proposals. And I think there we find a lot of common ground.

For us and others who are in a bit of a core group, drive this process like Ireland, which we just begin -- as an outset of the NPT, we would do anything not to undermine the contrary strength of the NPT. And the suggestions you made and also on the safeguards and verification well taken. This is also our intention.

The big question is how do we integrate the nuclear weapon state at some stage? And we're not naive. We also understand the security dilemmas and discussion. And we want to keep that treaty open. And we do not -- and that maybe where we disagree a -- a bit.

We don't want to prescribe anything in this treaty to the nuclear weapon states, but once they would come in, together with them, define the circumstances that you select the landing zone.

And coming back to your question about the NPT. I think if we work on the spirit of complementarity and then look back to the goals of the NPT -- we had a 2010 action plan -- maybe we can make some progress there because the -- the -- the issue in 2015 was that -- that we looked at it and said, "What was fulfilled there?"

So I think this is not a competition. I think that's the most important w -- what we want to stress. Nothing to undermine the NPT, but something to add to it. And we would have in Austria and other countries really proponents that that we have to work together for security for all. And -- and we can have long discussions now on security, but what means that?

But I -- but I think we need to acknowledge. And our approach was always that we want security for all. Also for those in the nuclear weapon states, not just for us.

BURK: Thank you, Ambassador. Tom?

COUNTRYMAN: I think the best way to focus for success in the 2020 Review Conference of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty is to be less obsessive about it.

I mean a couple of things. First, we have a pattern through several Review Conferences which there is broad, painful consensus -- sometimes on an important -- important advances, sometimes on minor advances, that is then taken hostage to the issue of establishment of the WMD-free zone in the Middle East. And that is what caused the last review conference two years ago not to fail, because I don't believe it failed, but it did not reach a consensus document.

The more that we obsess about how crucial it is that we avoid another such outcome in 2020, if we label the failure to get a consensus document as a failure of the treaty, what we are doing is raising the leverage that the states that are obsessing about the Middle East zone have and raising the likelihood that we will fail to have an agreement. That's been -- so that's the first sense in which I say obsession is the enemy of focus in this process.

The second sense is a new one and it will have to do with what is likely to be by 2020 a new convention on prohibition of nuclear weapons that will already be in force by that point.

If that convention is tightly linked to the Nonproliferation Treaty along the lines I suggested, and if building out from adoption of that convention there has been a sincere effort by its advocates who engage with nuclear weapon states and the beneficiaries of extended deterrence in the ways that I suggested, there is no reason for that to become an obstacle to a meaningful conclusion at the 2020 Review Conference.

If, on the other hand, the NPT review process itself is used as a lever or as a shaming tool in a way similar to what Egypt does with the Middle East Zone, but in case with regard to the convention itself, it will be defeating to both purposes.

The nuclear weapon states that will have to one day change their policy, if this effort is to succeed, are not going to be moved by a deadlock and hand wringing over a deadlock at a conference in New York.

They're going to be moved by concrete actions and assistance in solving persistent security dilemmas. So I would hope, if we don't over think it, we can actually have a more beneficial outcome in 2020 that squares well with the purposes of this convention.

BURK: All right. Well, thank you. Great answers. And again, lots of food for thought.

We're going to open it up to questions. Is there someone with a microphone? So when you ask your questions, please identify yourself and to whom you're directing your question.

So front row?

QUESTION: Thank you very much. My name is Randy Rydell with the organization Mayors For Peace.

Susan, I would like to ask you...

BURK: Wait a minute.

(LAUGHTER)

I'm the moderator.

(LAUGHTER)

QUESTION: ... if I could draw upon your your vast professional experience and comment on the lack of any infrastructure in the government for disarmament?

There are no disarmament agencies in any of the states that possess nuclear weapons. When the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency was abolished in the mid-1990s, the "disarmament" term even disappeared from business cards and the organization charts in the State Department.

There's very little sign of institutional support for disarmament in the government. What extent is this a problem, is this a barrier, is this an obstacle to future progress in disarmament from a policy perspective?

And to Tom, I'd like to ask him: during the 1960s, the Lyndon Johnson administration was faced with the problem of whether nonproliferation should be a goal of U.S. policy. And they created the Gilpatric Commission, which produced this consensus report that, yes, it should. And that it should not -- be nondiscriminatory.

Now we hear that there's a nuclear posture review where disarmament is now being assessed as to whether it should be a goal of policy. What do you think would be the outcome of this assessment and what would be the effects if this goal is abandoned? Thank you.

BURK: All right. Well, very quickly, because I'm really not answering the questions. But the Arms Control Agency was abolished on April Fool's Day, 1999. No -- and I won't say anything further.

I think, from my experience, we always had a robust -- arms control safeguards, nonproliferation bureaucracy, and in contrast to many other countries that -- that do not, I think that gave us the opportunity to -- we had a responsibility to do more work interacting with our foreign partners, you know, through diplomacy. Engaging with foreign partners, educating, providing information and that sort of thing.

And I think, because we had this large bureaucracy, we could do that if we wanted to do that. I can't comment on today, because I've been retired now for four and a half years. But Tom can address that issue, since he's only recently departed the government.

COUNTRYMAN: Well, on your first question for Susan, what concerns me is not the absence of the word "disarmament." What concerns me is the absence of officials who are charged with implementing a coherent policy. I'm looking forward to Chris Ford speaking to us at lunch time. He's well qualified and leads this effort at the White House.

But, to actually move something ahead, we should have an undersecretary and assistant secretaries in these fields. And the Department of State has shown unprecedented lassitude in nominating anybody for any positions. Very good, fantastic, well qualified career professionals acting in those slots, but they are not in a position to move ahead on policy objectives.

Now, the nuclear posture review that the administration is undertaking, and to which it has assigned lead responsibility to the Department of Defense, is supposed to be completed by the end of the year.

I do have some concerns about it. I have no idea how it's going. I would love to be reassured by Mr. Ford today that, in fact, not only the Department of Defense but the Department of State and Department of Energy are deeply involved in the discussion. That would be reassuring.

The part that concerns you, I think, concerns me a little bit as well -- that the last time this nuclear posture review was undertaken, at the beginning of the Obama administration, nobody was putting on the table the idea that we need more nuclear weapons and more diverse types of nuclear weapons. Some people, some NGOs, some thinkers are putting that on the table this time. I'm completely unable to gauge their influence or the likely outcome.

Now, I know that, for example, on climate change, you can give a speech that says, "I love the environment. The environment is huge, it's a great thing."

(LAUGHTER)

But I am breaking a commitment that we've made. The effect is actually even more serious if the nuclear posture review were to conclude what you suggested -- that disarmament is not a goal.

That would be breaking not just a commitment to an agreement, but a binding, ratified commitment to a treaty that the United States has upheld for nearly 50 years. And that would be an extremely serious step. So let me not alarm you by speculating on how likely it is.

BURK: OK. Now that we're all depressed...

(LAUGHTER)

... over there.

QUESTION: Thank you. Richard Fieldhouse, I'm an independent consultant, but a former Senate Armed Services Committee staffer who worked on plenty of these issues.

I'm sorry to say, Susan, I'm not going to cheer up the crowd, perhaps...

(LAUGHTER)

... with my question. But Tom, I wanted to...

(CROSSTALK)

BURK: Just ask them to these two gentlemen here. OK.

(LAUGHTER)

QUESTION: ... I'm just warning you, lowering expectations.

Tom, I want to explore the other side of what you are suggesting about trying to do things in a way that's constructive, that won't undermine the NPT through this process.

And the question is: do you see a risk to the NPT or the possibility of undermining it, if those wise, constructive steps are not taken?

Could there actually be a result that would undermine the treaty -- commitment to it, et cetera? You know, it's the darker side of how this should run. Thank you.

COUNTRYMAN: I'm not very concerned about that, to be honest. A few of my colleagues in the U.S. government last year and some of my colleagues in the governments of other nuclear weapon states said that this effort would undermine the NPT. That's hard for me to see.

As I noted, there are definitely colleagues from some foreign ministries for whom disarmament is a game, is a tactic, rather than a goal, a pursuit.

And you could expect them to at least be tempted by that idea that, if I have two different treaties to demonstrate what a great world citizen I am, I'm going to pick the less restrictive one. I think it's possible. I think it's unlikely. It depends very much upon a couple of things I already mentioned.

If it's very explicit that everybody who's signing this convention loves the NPT and wants to push forward the goals of the NPT with a new convention, and you make that not just a preamble clause but a requirement in the new convention, I think you've minimized that danger.

And then, secondly, the other thing that could create or increase what is a small risk is what I think is a very unfortunate trend among some who advocate -- who portray themselves as great advocates of disarmament, which is to say we can't do any more steps on nonproliferation, no matter how rational they are, no matter how much they contribute to global security, until the nuclear weapon states do more on disarmament.

You know, it's this vision of hostage-taking, and it really makes no sense. So if states that advocate this convention begin to be obstacles in the path of improving the safeguard system, improving the nonproliferation system, then they will be doing the work of undermining the NPT.

So these are possibilities, but I am really not that worried about it -- any fundamental inconsistency between the NPT and the new convention.

BURK: OK. And we'll give out Tom's contact information so you can get in touch with him whenever you get worried, and he'll give you a comforting pep talk.

(LAUGHTER)

Back there. Alex?

QUESTION: This is for Ambassador Kickert. I have heard some say that, when they talk to the Chinese about abolishing nuclear weapons, they said, "That's an American plot, because if everybody does away with nuclear weapons, the U.S. will be by far the superior military power because of its conventional superiority."

What can you do to convince countries like China and others? I mean, obviously, this is not, you know, something that will happen tomorrow, but what can you do to convince countries like that that this is not what's going to happen, that their security is -- is preserved even under -- even in a world without nuclear weapons?

KICKERT: I mean, I personally would not be concerned as China concerning their conventional weaponry. And then on China, I find it interesting that they have limited themselves in the amount of nuclear weapons.

They don't -- my perception is that they -- they didn't expand to -- to a degree where -- where -- where Russia is, and the United States. So I -- I think they're -- they're quite happy to have this -- this -- this, let's say, necessary, from their point of view, limited amount of that -- nuclear weapons, and don't expand further.

I mean, let's not forget, 90 percent of our nuclear weapons are in the possession of the U.S. and Russia still. So I think it is -- it is still those two countries who have the key to press forward the nuclear disarmament agenda.

China, I think, is -- is conventionally beefing up. So I don't see China as an obstacle for the abolishment. They were even a little more engaged than other nuclear weapon states.

You had total disengagement by Russia. China was at least, now, at the first phase, also there as an observer. It, through (inaudible) participated also in the Vienna conference on the humanitarian consequences.

I think it even abstained in the General Assembly when we voted on going down this prohibition path. So I'm not so concerned that China is the biggest obstacle at the end of the day.

COUNTRYMAN: That's actually -- that's a concern or a comment I've heard more often from Russian colleagues than Chinese colleagues, and it's understandable. First, neither of them take very seriously the near-term prospect of going to zero.

But secondly, of course, China is a global power for a number of reasons. For Russia, there are only two things that make Russia a global power, and that is nuclear weapons and innovative computer programming.

(LAUGHTER)

BURK: OK. Ambassador Kennedy?

QUESTION: Thank you. Laura Kennedy, and, like Tom and Susan, I was proud to represent the Obama administration in this area in both Geneva and Vienna, and also honored to join the board today along with them.

I wanted to pick up on a point that Tom made about the importance of the nuclear ban proponents lobbying equally the non-democracies as well as the democracies. And specifically, I wanted to ask about North Korea, because my understanding is that they are in, you know, part of the process.

And I'm -- if that's the case, how do you deal with that? I mean, this is a country -- I mean, theoretically, if you pick up on Tom's point about making NPT membership a key part of the treaty, you could say, "Well, gee, that would bring them in."

But don't you run the risk of, having them part of the process, conceivably either allow them to discount the pressure to deal with a very real international security threat, or conceivably bring, frankly, some -- undermine the arms control process by having, say, a North Korea part of it, whereas, you know, the U.K., the France, the Japans, the Australians not part of it?

Thank you very much.

KICKERT: I recollect North Korea voted in favor of the G.A. resolution. But they are -- I haven't seen them -- I was not there the whole time, just sneaking in and out -- participated.

And one important aspect we implemented in the rules of procedure is that it would be a majority vote and not consensus, so that those who participate in there cannot block a decision by, I would say, the sane majority.

And it was, interestingly enough, proposed by some countries who want to have it exactly their way. It was Egypt, Iran. So -- but this was thwarted. So they are -- again, I -- I don't see North Korea playing any role in there. I mean, the North Korea dilemma is a different issue, and I think it will be discussed at the next session.

BURK: Daryl?

QUESTION: Thank you, Susan. Daryl Kimball.

I wanted to just note that, in the current issue of Arms Control Today, there are two very in-depth articles on the issues concerning the prohibition treaty and verification that are worth a look as we explore this subject.

I wanted to come back to one of the questions that Tom Countryman raised about the relationship between the prohibition treaty (OFF-MIKE) mentioned, Tom, that one way to deal with this would be to have (OFF-MIKE) obligations, all of the (OFF-MIKE) the prohibition treaty (OFF-MIKE). That might be problematic for India, Pakistan and Israel.

(OFF-MIKE) by (ph) the NPT, which is one of the problems with (OFF-MIKE). One other approach, I wanted to get your reaction, Ambassador Kickert (OFF-MIKE) require states that are already members of the NPT to remain (OFF-MIKE) other approach that still leaves the door open to those countries like (OFF-MIKE).

And also, I mean, Tom, you've brought this up a couple of times. You talked about what a successful (OFF-MIKE). I've always argued that the real threat to the NPT is not (OFF-MIKE) other than the U.S. and Russia (OFF-MIKE) why (ph) that (OFF-MIKE) the conference, which is a litmus test (OFF-MIKE).

COUNTRYMAN: OK. Well, on -- on the first point, not to be flippant about it, but the problem with India, Pakistan, and Israel is not a clause in the treaty. It's a lot more fundamental.

And if we were ever to get to a point where those countries are seriously considering joining this convention, it will not be a decision based upon whether or not that NPT membership clause is in the convention. It will be a decision based upon fundamental changes in their national security perceptions.

And that's very long-term. It's not going to happen soon. And I think that the advocates of this convention would do a disservice by not making that linkage and thus opening themselves up to the criticism that they have created an alternative pathway to the Nonproliferation Treaty. So yes, you're right in a technical sense. I don't think it's a terribly important factor in my productive lifetime.

On the New START Treaty, as you all know, the New START Treaty negotiated between the U.S. and Russia went into effect in 2011. It lasts for 10 years. It has a clause for automatic re-extension by an additional five years, until 2026, if both parties agree.

President Putin has already indicated -- has already suggested this extension. President Trump, by contrast, has said -- as he has said about anything that the previous administration has done -- it's a poorly negotiated deal, and has so far refused to consider it.

I would hope that, for all the right reasons, the United States comes around in the very near future to agreeing with Russia on this automatic five-year extension. It costs nothing.

It prevents, at least for the moment, an escalation -- an arms race in the number of weapons that both countries possess. It preserves important capabilities that cannot be replaced for verification and monitoring of the deal. And it would be the single easiest and most visible step for the United States to address the legitimate concerns of countries all around the world about our actual commitment to disarmament, so.

BURK: Thank you.

OK. Other questions. In the back, right in the middle. The lady there? Sorry, can't see that far.

QUESTION: Thank you. I'm Diane Perlman, George Mason School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution. So this is for Tom.

Well, the logical implication of what you're talking about, and I think the next stage for us to go to, is what's known as a second-order change. First-order changes focus on eliminating the weapons and how -- you know, the humanitarian consequences and how bad they are.

Second order of change deals with the underlying -- analyzing the underlying conflict and looking at the needs of the parties and, you know, challenging flaws in -- or raising flaws in deterrence theory, addressing spiral theory and illusion of security, but also looking at how to reduce tension and work on addressing the underlying conflicts so that nuclear weapons are, like, unnecessary or irrational.

And -- so anyway, I just would appreciate if you would address that. And also, I registered -- I got three groups accredited for the ban treaty: Mediators Beyond Borders, TRANSCEND network of conflict transformation, and Psychologists for Social Responsibility. So I want to sort of build some energy around addressing second-order change.

COUNTRYMAN: Look, I have great respect for the academic work being done. I'm not an academic. I don't think in those terms. I think that the academic work could help to inform those who are trying to bring about what you term both the first-order and the second-order change.

But to be honest, I'm not sure how I would use that terminology or that typology to advance the subject.

BURK: OK. Any other questions?

QUESTION: Edward Levine, Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation.

One of the recurrent problems under the NPT has been the feeling on the part of some states that the treaty allows them to build up as much of a peaceful nuclear infrastructure as they wish, even if that brings them to the brink of nuclear weapons capability.

And I wonder what the risks are that the convention would increase the pressure on the nuclear suppliers group to stand down and stop putting roadblocks in the way of what it sees as incipient nuclear proliferation?

COUNTRYMAN: Good question. I haven't thought about it. I think it would be tremendously counterproductive for the advocates of this prohibition to either promote or to tolerate effort of some non-nuclear weapon states who claim to the argument that you've made -- that this allows us to develop nuclear capability right up to the edge of weaponization.

That would be damning to the credibility of the movement if that were tolerated. Now, the nuclear suppliers group includes a number of countries, not only nuclear weapon states, those under extended deterrence, but it also includes those who are advocates of this process.

And I simply can't picture that the nuclear suppliers group would say, "This has changed the reality, and it allows us to have more confidence in Iran's peaceful intentions because they've signed a new convention." I don't see it happening that way. So it's an interesting risk but, I think, a small one.

BURK: OK. I think we have time for one more question.

Larry, you get the last word, or the last question.

QUESTION: Larry Weiler. I'm old enough that I -- I often think I'm in error, but I'm never wrong.

(LAUGHTER)

And I've lived through 65 years of this business. And I was asked by a group where I now reside to do a little talk on arms control. And I haven't finished preparing the talk, but I took time to go through the whole history.

And I have a couple of things to add here, and that is, if you look at where we are, from the day when we first announced the American plan to take care of nuclear weapons and look at what's been accomplished.

And it's an interesting history because it's jerks and glides and jerks and glides. And we didn't know what to do about dealing with the problem for a long time. And then we started, and we got some first steps.

And, thinking about why we moved forward and why we stopped, in large part, there's a bit of accident involved. Personalities are involved. We could have started long ago with Harold Stassen, but Allen Dulles decided that the problem with Germany was such that he had to stop his program of negotiations.

One little step -- there are three or four of them as you go down the line. But, after you look at it, where we are today we -- with the -- with the test ban -- we haven't ratified the test -- the full test ban, that's true.

But there is a -- there is a -- basically, there's a test ban, and basically, there's a cutoff. And basically, we've learned how to deal with a lot of these problems. And we've dealt with the missile problem.

What we have -- and I could go on -- we've got pretty much the first stage of the original general and complete disarmament programs that people talked about in theory.

So don't give up. It's a long haul and we've really got stage one, we've got the cutoff. We've got all these other things. So don't begrudge that we haven't gone all the way further.

I have a question, however, that I would like...

BURK: OK, Larry.

(LAUGHTER)

QUESTION: ... my question is what is the difference -- what is the difference between the new proposal and the effect of having nuclear-free zones all over the world? I mean, just a -- it's a simple question. But what's the difference in practical terms?

KICKERT: Well, Tom is the specialist, but from the Austrian perspective, the big difference is we don't have a nuclear-weapons-free zone in Europe. And we have studied this also, this -- this proposal.

We're jealous about the other areas of the world where this -- this happens. Austria happens to be a neutral country, not in any military alliance, and we're in the middle of this -- it's a competition.

So yeah, if you would have nuclear-weapon-free zones all over the world, then we will have a nuclear-free world. And we can -- we can continue that. And if we expand it to Europe, we will be the first to -- to be happy about it.

COUNTRYMAN: Yeah, it's essentially -- those countries that have formed nuclear-weapons-free zones argue, and with great merit, that they cannot fully enjoy the benefit of security and safety that comes from living in such a zone if nuclear conflict can occur anywhere in the world.

You cannot isolate the nuclear-weapons-free zones from a place where a nuclear conflict could occur. They have a legitimate reason to raise that as a point in favor of a global ban.

BURK: OK. I think we're going to have to wrap up.

I've got to say that while I attend this group, and I know a lot of you tend to focus on the challenges, on the problems, and we're all high anxiety -- is that a Mel Brooks movie?

But I think what we're taking away -- what I take away from this panel is that we need to be -- we need to be positive, we need to be creative, we need to keep our eyes focused on the big picture and the prize and we can't afford to forget all of the accomplishments that we have over the years.

Larry summed it up: There's far more good things than there are -- and then I would say -- and we have to persist.

So let's give our speakers a round of applause.

(APPLAUSE)

PANEL 2:

DAVENPORT: All right. We're going to get started. So, thank you all for sticking around for our second panel.

I'm sure it comes as no surprise that we would be discussing North Korea today, given the increased tensions on the Korean Peninsula, and the North Korean Policy Review that President Trump has just completed.

So, for North Korea watchers, 2017 has certainly been an interesting year. President Trump decided to review policy toward North Korea shortly after his Inauguration. And he came back with a policy that emphasizes maximum pressure and engagement. But there has been some mixed signals on what exactly the United States might be looking for from North Korea before entering into negotiations.

South Korea also has a new president, Moon Jae-in. He has expressed an interest in talking to the North Koreans, but again, under what conditions still remains somewhat of an open question.

And then of course in North Korea we've seen a number of ballistic missile tests already in 2017, including some new systems. And all of this is leading up to the summit that Trump and Moon Jae-in will hold in Washington, D.C. later this month.

So, to help make sense of all of these developments, we're very fortunate to have with us today Michael Elleman and Suzanne DiMaggio. We're going to start today with Mike Elleman.

Mike is a senior fellow for Missile Defense at the Institute for International and Strategic Studies. He has spent some time at Booz-Allen Hamilton. He spent some time working on cooperative threat reduction programs.

And I would be remiss if I didn't add that he also has written several excellent pieces for "Arms Control Today," which I would encourage you to take a look at. And his full bio is available in your program.

Then we're going to move on to Suzanne DiMaggio. Suzanne is a director and senior fellow at the New America Foundation. She has years of experience working on Track II diplomatic initiatives on a range of issues, including nonproliferation and international security with countries like Iran, Myanmar and North Korea.

She's formerly been at the Asia Society. And she was most recently in Pyongyang in February. And she has met with the North Koreans, I believe, just this past month, in a Track II dialogue.

So, I will turn it over to Mike to get the discussion started.

ELLEMAN: Great. Thank you, Kelsey. And thank you to the Arms Control Association for the opportunity to speak here today.

I'm going to try to keep my comments as brief as possible. And Kelsey's agreed to kick me if I go over my time. It'll be good entertainment for TV anyway.

So, I want to focus on making three essential points, instead of kind of rehashing the different systems and such that North Korea is currently developing. And I want to highlight them for a reason, and I hope this comes out at the end clearly.

One, we've - well, we've seen just this new pattern of missile testing under the regime of Kim Jung-un. His grandfather, Kim Il-sung, under his reign from 1984 to 1994 -- I know he began before 1984, but they started missile testing in 1984. He conducted a total of I think it was 15 tests, about 1.5 missile tests per year.

Kim Jung Il, under his reign there were 16 or so tests. This includes a few satellite launch attempts. But they came in clusters of in 1998 you saw the Taepodong-1. And then in 2006 the Taepodong-2, along with a number of other missiles were fired in a single day. And then again in 2009 you saw a cluster of testing.

In both instances, this would be inconsistent with testing to develop new systems, even though they were attempting to develop the satellite launcher, the Unha-2, as it turns out to be. But it seemed that the rationale for testing was to train troops, you know, to create operational readiness, and for political purposes, especially the July 2006 testing.

Under Kim Jung-un we've seen this ramp-up of testing. I think he's now done -- it's at last count 78 missile launches. There may have been more that failed, I don't know. But I think the number is right around there. That's 13 to 15 tests per year. That's consistent with a missile development program.

Compare that, say, what Iran is doing. Iran on average tests maybe three to five missiles a year. They make minor modifications and test them out. They use them in war games. That is far less, and it's not enough testing to develop a new capability in a short period of time. When I say a short period of time, I'm talking three to five years.

So, it's clear to me. And what we've seen is a number of new systems emerge. And I'll talk about them in a moment. But what is clear is North Korea is trying to create new capabilities. And they're going about it in a reasonably technically valid way.

The second point I want to make is that we've seen North Korea move beyond a legacy Scud and Nodong technology. All the missiles up until Kim Jung-un came to power were basically powered by either the Scud or Nodong engine. This includes the Unha space launcher, which it uses Nodong and Scud technology.

You can see it results in a very large system. It could, in principle, be converted into an ICBM. It'd still have to be tested as an ICBM to prove it as a missile, but also to validate the reentry technologies and warhead survivability. But this would be an immobile missile.

It would be launched and prepared to launch from a fixed site. It would be vulnerable to preemption. You would probably have few in number. The preparation time is on the order of days, not hours.

In 2016, we've seen the emergence of three new propulsion systems. And I think this is very important.

One, we've seen the Musudan. This is a very different engine, much more sophisticated than the Scud, Nodong technology. It's derived from the old Soviet-era ARS-27 or SSN6 technology. It's a retired system now. But it appears that North Korea was able to import the engines at least, if not more technology.

All this technology, by the way, comes from either the Makeyev or the Isayev design builds. Makeyev is the builder of Russia's submarine launch missiles. Isayev makes the engines for I think almost every Makeyev missile. And they had a very close working relationship. So, that's -- you know, up until a few months ago I thought that was the primary procurement network for North Korea.

With this new engine that we see in the Musudan, even though that missile has failed a number of times -- I think it's out of six to eight launches it's had one apparent success and one partial success. It uses a different type -- higher energy fuels. It's a much more sophisticated engine.

With that type of technology, you can now build, in principle, a road mobile ICBM. And in fact, the presumption has been that the Musudan engines would be the main power plant for the KN-08 or the KN-14s that have not yet been tested, but they've been paraded by the North Koreans.

We've seen -- and this is very puzzling to me. I still haven't quite been able to figure out exactly what new engine this is. In September of last year, they did a ground test of a, what they call an 80-thrust engine. The statements that came out after the test was that it was destined for use on a satellite launcher.

Then earlier this year, I think it was in March, they tested the same engine, but they attached four steering or veneer engines to it that operate in parallel. And they suggested that this would be used for a new capability. And they basically said be prepared.

And lo and behold, two weeks ago they tested the Hwasong-12, an intermediate-range system. It flew to a very high altitude of I think it was 2,200 -- 2,100 kilometers, but only about 500 kilometers range. If flown on a standard trajectory this missile could reach ranges of 4,000 to 4,500 kilometers. In other words, it's a real intermediate-range missile.

It's not clear if that was the first test launch of this particular missile. There may have been one or two that occurred before that failed. It's uncertain at this point, mostly because the intelligence agencies around the world have been less than forthcoming for us -- for Seoul to rely on open source literature.

I'll talk about why this new missile is really important, along with the Musudan. But I also wanted to note that we've seen North Korea expand beyond liquid propellant technologies. We've seen them employ solid propellant motors for the Pukguksong-1 and 2. This is a submarine launch missile, and then this new land mobile system that they launched out of a canister on a tracked vehicle.

I think they're in the first steps of mastering the production of solid propellants. I believe this is indigenously produced. It was probably designed locally. It is not a copy of any known system, although it shares the central features of all first-generation submarine launch missiles.

That is -- it's two stages. It's about 1.5 meters in diameter and about 9 meters long. There are technical reasons why you come to that design solution. So, I don't think they've copied this from anyone.

But it's a worrying trend that if they master fully the solid propellant technologies, they can make any missile of any size and any range that they want in the future. It'll just take a lot of time. And I'll discuss that a bit in comments on timelines for an ICBM.

This HS-12, the engine that powers it, it's a little unclear to me. It's certainly not from the Isayev Design Bureau or Makeyev. It appears to be consistent with the RD-250 engine that was developed by Glushko. It's another Russian concern. It's now called Energomash. It's the premier engine manufacturer for space launch vehicles in Russia.

This engine was used for a number of medium-lift space launch vehicles, but also for the R-36, I think we called it the SSN-9 -- or the SS-9 ICBM, which was produced in, of all places, Ukraine, back when they were part of the Soviet Union.

This means that North Korea probably has an expanded network for illicit procurement. And this is really worrying to me for two reasons. One, this engine in particular could be the basis for an ICBM.

But two, we now know that they probably have expanded their procurement capacity beyond Makeyev and Isayev. Therefore, we don't know how large it is anymore. We don't know what else they might have. So, predicting what systems they could develop in the near term to mid term is now complicated by this diversification of sources of technology.

The other thing I would note that because HS-12, or the Hwasong-12 is the new system and it's important, you know the outrage that we always associate with any missile launch, I think that we need to stop -- or start looking at those launches which are most consequential versus those that are just kind of standard and politically oriented.

I don't worry if they test a new Scud or -- a Scud or a Nodong type system. I do worry and I do think it's important when they test Musudan or this Hwasong-12.

I would be -- I would preserve my political capital to express sanctions or other punitive measures or preventive measures, and reserve those for the missiles that matter like HS-12, like Musudan. I would -- those are far more important than even satellite launches, in my view. I think we should rethink how we express our concerns about what North Korea is doing.

I want to wrap up with timelines for an ICBM, because that's what everyone seems to be interested in these days. It's always challenging to forecast the future. A lot of things can change. But if they wanted a near-term solution, meaning something that would be operationally viable at the end of 2018, 2019, they could try to transform the Unha satellite launcher into an ICBM.

They'd have to replace the upper stages with something new, test it and then validate the design as well as the reentry technologies. So, you could see something for what I call emergency use at probably 2019 or so.

A more practical approach would be to use either the Hwasong-12 or Musudan engines to create a road mobile ICBM. They need to continue testing and more fully develop the intermediate range capability. But with a few more successful flights of Hwasong-12, I think they could, from a technical perspective, move toward ICBM testing.

When they could create that capacity and operationalize it really depends on what the requirements North Korea imposes on their systems. How reliable does it need to be, 50 percent, 75 percent, 99 percent like U.S. and Chinese systems or Russian systems? That's an open question. And that's why it's difficult to project a timeline with any real fidelity.

But assuming they want something that's as least as reliable, that it's successful most of the time, you can define most as you wish. But I think that you would have -- you would see at least a dozen flight tests with 75 percent of them being "successful." Then they would be operationally viable in my view, granted it would be under a more relaxed criteria.

That could occur in 2020 at the very earliest. 2021 is a more likely date, assuming everything went well for them. It could stretch out even further. But it might be, you know, good for emergency use, say if they were being attacked, by 2020.

Third option they have is to use this new solid propellant technology. Now, it's one thing to make solid rocket motors the size that you see in the KN-11 or Pukguksong-1 and KN-15 or Pukguksong-2. Quite another thing to build a 25- to 30-ton rocket motor for a first stage for an ICBM.

Typically, it takes countries five to 12 years to move from the size you see in the KN-11 to an ICBM size. So, it's a long-term project that North Korea would have to embark upon to create an ICBM based on solid technologies. Therefore, I would be very surprised if they had something that was operational by 2025.

I think the more likely date would be 2030. It will result in a lot of embarrassing mistakes. That's just the nature of the development. We see it with the Musudan.

So, I think that will be a long-term project. The most likely and viable system they could develop would be based on either the Musudan or the HS-12 technology. As I said, we could see that as the next president takes office in -- you know, after 2020. If it's not Trump, it's someone else.

So, I'll conclude there. And leave room for questions, comments, outrage, whatever.

(LAUGHTER)

DAVENPORT: Thank you, Mike.

And for those of you in suspense in the back, I did not even have to kick him. He stayed on time.

So, now to talk about how we might be able to address the rising tension, and to think about some of the options for engagement with North Korea going forward, I'm going to turn it over to Suzanne.

DIMAGGIO: Thanks. And please kick me if I go over, which I'll try not to do.

First, let me extend my thanks to the Arms Control Association, to Daryl, Kelsey, Kingston, everyone. It's such an important organization at this moment, maybe more important than ever. And if you aren't already supporting them, I urge you to do so. That's my pitch.

DAVENPORT: Thank you.

DIMAGGIO: Let me focus. I want to focus first on -- mostly on the policy options for the U.S.

So, as Kelsey said, the administration now has completed its policy review, and for all intents and purposes, it seems like it was a fairly cohesive interagency review. It declared that the end of strategic patience is over. I think an actual funeral was held...

(LAUGHTER)

... here in Washington. And that a policy of maximum pressure and engagement was replacing it.

Frankly, to me it still seems very unclear if this new policy is very much different from the old policy, or if it's just -- it's been given a new wardrobe. That being said, there appears to be several key elements to this policy as far as I can see. One is that it puts back on the table all options, including military action, more aggressive action.

For example, just today we know that there are naval maneuvers happening in the area of North Korea. And for the first time in a few decades, it includes two U.S. aircraft carriers.

Also, the joint ROK-U.S. military exercises that just happened in April included Navy Seals, a Special Op team that reportedly was focused on so-called decapitation exercises. So, this does seem like a little bit of a ratcheting up on that side of the equation.

And during his visit to the region in March, Secretary Tillerson's statements hinted at the possibility of a preemptive strike to destroy nuclear capabilities. He also stated that all options are on the table when questioned about a military option, opening a door to the idea of preventive war.

The problem with this approach, if we rely on it exclusively, is that when you threaten the use of force, you have to be prepared to use it. It's a major risk. The fact that we do not know how the North Koreans would retaliate.

We would imagine that they would respond in one way, shape or form. And that could escalate. It could inflict mass casualties, severe damage to our ally South Korea, as well as to our other ally Japan, and potentially to the U.S. forces that are based in the region.

And this leaves out the question how would Beijing react. A regional war? A full-scale war? We all know that there's really no military solution to the North Korea issue, and I feel very strongly about that.

The second element I see is a greater reliance on China to mount more pressure against North Korea, at least rhetorically. China, of course, is Pyongyang's biggest trading partner. Last year I think 90 percent of the total trade came from -- was China, including most of North Korea's food and energy supplies. So, it is a very unique position.

I think today the U.N. Security Council is considering a new -- a resolution, additional sanctions. While Japan, South Korea and the U.S. are pushing the more pressure, more sanctions, it seems China is resisting and is instead pushing for dialogue at an emergency meeting of the U.N.S.C. That happened last week and is continuing today.

President Trump recently tweeted that "China is trying hard" to reign in North Korea. And U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley recently stated that Beijing is using a back channel to try to stop the DPRK from testing. This indicates -- this is worrisome to me because it indicates, do they not have direct channels?

We've heard rumors of worsening relationship between the two. The fact that Kim Jung-un, since he's gained power, has not visited Beijing. He's not met Xi Jinping. So, we really have to question whether or not a reliance on China to help solve this issue is a wise approach. I'm very skeptical about it.

And of course, China's national interests are not necessarily aligned with ours when it comes to North Korea. We can go through a whole litany of things, everything from a fear that the regime's downfall could lead to a mass refugee influx. A collapse could allow U.S. troops to have direct access to the Chinese border. And of course, the recent implementation of THAAD is threatening to the Chinese.

The third element of this new policy I see is an emphasis on more sanctions. Of course, President Obama's administration also focused on sanctions as well. So, it's not necessarily new.

The fact is, is that this approach hasn't worked so far. In fact, I would argue, as was outlined in the previous presentation, as we layered on more sanctions against North Korea, we see them steadily accelerating the progress on their nuclear missiles program, in the face of increased sanctions.

There was a study done by researchers recently at MIT that found U.S. sanctions imposed against North Korea have been largely unsuccessful at curbing the country's illicit procurement. Because of, in part, North Korea has been able to adapt, there's a growing capacity to work around sanctions.

So, could sanctions and pressure on North Korea alone resolve the nuclear issue? It's very unlikely.

I think even if we look at the case of Iran, extensive sanctions on their own didn't bring the Iranians to the table. There were other factors. We can talk about them. And this is even less likely in the case of North Korea because Pyongyang is not as reliant on the global financial system as Iran.

So, in this new policy, it also leaves room for engagement. So, that's the fourth element that I see. And my thinking on this is with a new U.S. administration comes an opportunity to try to forge a diplomatic path, especially when it's clear that the current approach is not working.

Relying on a pressure-only approach is dangerous because it is inherently an approach of escalation that either leads to conflict or backing down by one side, and not necessarily to a potential political agreement, political solution. So, we risk falling into a cycle of tit for tat escalation with real potential for conflict either by design or maybe more so by accident. So, we need an off-ramp.

The Trump administration has left open room for engagement. Still remains to be seen if that will be pursued. President Trump warned in an interview in late April that a major, major conflict with the North was possible. He also said he'd prefer a diplomatic outcome to the dispute.

Although the U.S. has explicitly ruled out talks with Pyongyang unless the government took verifiable action to freeze its weapons program. The president then said he would be honored to meet with North Korea's leader Kim Jung-un, under the right circumstances. I think these are very mixed signals, mixed messages that urgently need to be clarified.

That being said, it's interesting that following that, senior North Korean diplomat Che San We, also their lead nuclear negotiator, recently said that the DPRK is open to dialogue with the U.S. under the right conditions. South Korean President Moon has said something similar.

So, I think the task now at hand is to find out what those right conditions are. And the best way to do this of course, the only way to do it, is through dialogue. So, what's needed now is what I would call aggressive diplomacy, backed up by all the leverage that the maximum pressure that I just talked about brings.

Now, when we talk about a diplomatic approach, I do think there are some lessons to be learned from the Iran deal that might be worth considering for negotiating with North Korea. Of course, both cases are completely different. I've traveled to both countries. I've experienced it firsthand.

The biggest difference is of course North Korea has nuclear weapons. Iran has never possessed a nuclear weapon. And of course, Iran is a member of the NPT. The differences go on and on and on.

So, I'm not advocating that the JCPOA is a model for North Korea. It's technically quite different. But I do think the process of diplomacy that the U.S. pursued with Iran could offer some insights on how to begin engagement with a very strong adversary whose leadership is extremely distrustful of the United States, and of course vice versa.

There are three elements of diplomacy with Iran that I think we should be looking at. First is initiate a low-key diplomatic channel authorized at the highest level.

Prior to the start of official negotiations with the Iranians, both -- diplomats from both countries engaged in a series of meetings that were held secretly. There were 12 such meetings convened in Muscat, Geneva and New York over a period of about 16 months. This eventually led to the multilateral, P5+1 talks, and an interim agreement called the Joint Plan of Action, JPOA, in November 2013.

I think, given the level of mistrust between Pyongyang and Washington, I think it would be a good first step to try to have dialogue without preconditions to find out what is possible. We can call them talks about talks, to help clarify what those conditions that would be acceptable, what are they? How can we identify them? How to meet or overcome them? What are the non-negotiables? And then move ahead with the negotiations with our allies and others.

I think this work before the negotiations begin, that American diplomats and Iranian diplomats engaged in, really helped pave the way to not only a successful interim agreement, but then to the JCPOA, which by the way is an agreement that is working.

The second element of diplomacy with Iran I think that should be considered is to focus on a limited set of realistic objectives, not a grand bargain. The U.S.-Iran discussions, when limited to what both sides deem to be very specific, manageable set of items in the nuclear field.

And of course, the U.S. priority has placed on preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. The Iranian priority was in exchange sanctions would be lifted.

So, now the U.S. really must decide on its highest priority with North Korea at this time. It must zero in on what that key goal could be. And also, something that's in the realm of achievability at this time.

So, to diffuse tensions I think the best bet would be to begin by pursuing an agreement that would freeze DPRK's nuclear missile testing. One of the key goals here would be to get IAEA inspectors, who do not currently have, and haven't for years had access to any aspects of North Korea's program, back into the country.

And when we look at the JCPOA, one of the things that's so remarkable about it is the extensive verification, monitoring requirements that come along with it. And that certainly is something to emulate.

So, suspension of testing of course is an interim step. Probably if we set the goal of a nuclear-free Korean peninsula as the end goal, this would be an interim set. It's not a solution.

As Graham Allison wrote in "The New York Times" this week, he said "Is United States national security really strengthened if a 33-year-old dictator with a record of executing his enemies can define red lines as left with an arsenal of 20 warheads and missiles that can deliver nuclear strikes against Seoul and Tokyo? We know the answer."

So, it's an important interim step, but it's not the final solution. It should be seen as part of a phased process.

The third element is what I would call pursuing a win-win approach. The U.S. and Iranians, in those early secret talks, both agree that they needed a win-win outcome, where at the end of the day, each of them could come forward and say they succeeded in filling their goals. This, of course, also came with the understanding that they would have to make compromises along the way so that both sides would be able to claim victory.

And then I think moving on, looking forward to what that phased approach might be. Bob Einhorn recently has written about this at Brookings, and I think it makes a great deal of sense.

Starting with the negotiations on nuclear freeze and missile freeze, setting the stage for an interim agreement that would freeze nuclear and missile development, and end proliferation. And then followed by further negotiations over next steps, with benchmarks that would be worked out over time.

Potential end goal could be a comprehensive regional security strategy, which I know is something Tom Pickering and Mort Halperin have been working on. That could take years.

So to conclude, I was on a panel recently and one of the experts on the panel was I think very much opposed to what I was proposing. And the reason was, is that he said we've tried this. We've tried diplomacy with the North Koreans. It's too hard. They cheat. They can't be trusted.

You know, I heard the same arguments with Iran for years. In fact, during the 35 years before the JCPOA, there were countless failed attempts, missed opportunities. And yet we now have an agreement that is working.

As Nelson Mandela put it, it always seems impossible until it's done. And I would apply that in that case. Because we've failed in the past doesn't mean we shouldn't attempt it again. We should learn from those failed attempts and move forward and try it. Test it.

That being said, there's no question the difficulties, obstacles of such an approach, the mutual demonization on both sides, the lack of interaction over years, the lack of relations, the lack of exchanges both on both the governmental level but also on a societal level, makes this all the harder.

So, I would just end on this note. If the administration decides to go down this path with any chance of success, it should also follow what President Obama did with the Iran deal. And that was put together an A team of diplomats, scientists, other technical experts to carry this out.

As I said at another event, this is not something you farm out to your son-in-law, if I may say that. So, this will require filling key staff positions, senior positions, a real negotiating team like we had with the Iran talks.

And it also means filling ambassadorial positions in key capitals throughout Asia and elsewhere. This would be a major undertaking of diplomacy.

Diplomacy is hard, especially with an adversary. But as the Iran deal showed, it's not impossible.

DAVENPORT: Thank you, Suzanne.

(APPLAUSE)

I'm now going to open it up for questions. And in addition to the standard instruction of please introducing yourself and asking a question, I'm going to ask everyone to make sure that they're really holding the microphones close, given the fact that we are trying to pick this up for the C-SPAN audience.

So, we'll start over there with Paul.

QUESTION: Thanks, Kelsey and Daryl, for a great event. Paul Kawika Martin, Peace Action.

It's my understanding -- and I agree that we need to touch out with North Korea on the diplomatic front. It's my understanding that there's some several thousand remains of U.S. soldiers that are still there from the Korean War. And that actually North Korea would like to give those back.

And that is touchpoint in which I think we can get even bipartisan support here in Congress. Because as we know, no member of Congress has been not elected for bashing North Korea too hard.

So, is there a way that we could touch out? It's my understanding that the Obama administration didn't do so on that specific issue. And maybe even get support, bipartisan support, even from Republicans, bringing our -- the remains of our servicemen home.

DIMAGGIO: I'm not so sure that the Obama administration didn't approach that. I think maybe they had tried. But I'm not certain. I can't verify that.

But I think that is -- you know, the fact that the North Koreans have indicated a willingness to talk about an issue like that of course should be pursued. I think what I had proposed, a quiet channel a secret channel, I think it'd be very hard to keep it secret. But a very quiet channel would be a way to begin discussions on these issues.

The fact is, given, like I said, the high level of mistrust, any effort that can be made to build confidence, wins along the way that could help do that, gestures by both sides that could help do that. We're in desperate need of that.

DAVENPORT: Greg, here in the front?

QUESTION: Greg Thielmann, Arms Control Association Board of Directors.

Suzanne, I very much agree with the objective of seeking an interim freeze on nuclear and missile developments in North Korea.

One of the things that I'm wondering about, though, and this is a question for Mike, is, is there also value in pursuing as an interim a limit on the kind of testing of systems that you were most alarmed by? That is to say, would it be worth presenting to North Korea a proposal to ban any flight tests of missiles above short range, for example?

Or even allowing space launch vehicles of the Unha series, as a bone to throw to Kim Jung-un? Wouldn't that still give us a very valuable security advantage in stopping testing of all these systems that you're most alarmed by?

ELLEMAN: Thank you, Greg. That was a nice softball you threw me. We've talked about this before.

I think it would be an interesting subject to explore with North Korea, that is a flight test ban on missiles that fly over -- or have the capacity to fly over some given range. That would be the subject of part of the negotiations what it might be. But it would certainly include intermediate-range systems, which you know anything that flies like more than 2,500 or 3,000 kilometers. So, it would capture Musudan. It would capture this latest HS-12.

Why would that be important? Well, in order to develop a missile, you have to test it. And that's why we see North Korea testing missiles. If you don't test it, and you look back you know from a systems engineering approach, or you look at kind of historical data from other countries that have developed intermediate or long-range missiles. Over the course of the first five to 10 launches the failure rate is greater than 50 percent, with few exceptions. Sometimes it's even much greater than -- you know, much greater than 50 percent fail. And that's just the nature of creating new technologies and new capabilities. So, if they're not allowed to test, they can develop or create a system, but they'll have no confidence that it works. And to field it would -- they would necessarily have to accept great risk that this system wouldn't work. If it's a systemic failure, it's likely all of them will fail. If it's something different with each launch, you know, then they have a 50-50 chance of getting -- there's -- 50 percent of them might actually reach their destination. So, I think that's something worth pursuing.

Now, what would you ask -- or what would they ask for in return? I think something logical would be allowing space launch activities. You know perhaps even providing some technological assistance.

But this -- you would have to have certain restrictions on what they could use and couldn't use. I would say they would be limited to using either Scud type fuels, which are low performance. It would necessarily result in very large launchers or very large, cumbersome ICBMs or long-range missiles if they tried to convert it at some later time.

You would -- if they want to use solid strap-on boosters, you would have some limitations there. You could provide them, say, with cryogenic technology, which would be less suitable for a missile system which has to work rather rapidly, 24-7.

There's a range of things you could do. And in fact, there is a small effort going on in trying to establish what those requirements might be. You would also need transparency, which would provide us with better insights as to what -- how they think, what they're doing. And I believe it would be worthwhile.

Now, this approach is not without risk. There is a risk that things will be diverted. There is risk that they're going to learn from their experiences in developing satellite launchers that they could apply to missiles later on. But I think those risks are much less than what we have now where they're allowed to launch whatever they want and learn specific lessons and develop specific technologies that are destined for long-range missiles.

So, yes, I think this is something worth pursuing. It would be outside the nuclear track. So, you know, you could get -- kind of get by with you know, not addressing the nuclear topic while addressing something strategic. You would lead to some confidence building, greater insights, et cetera.

So, in my view this would be worth -- a risk worth taking. But one has to understand that it's not a risk-free venture.

DAVENPORT: The woman here at the middle table.

QUESTION: Thank you. Hi. I am Kathy Crandall Robinson with Women in International Security. Thank you very much to both panelists.

My question is about the THAAD missile defense that we're delivering and deploying in South Korea. And Suzanne mentioned the concern and tension that's created in China. But it's also faced a lot of very serious protests from the civil society, the grassroots in South Korea. And a lot of tension around cost and so forth with the new presidential regime.

And I'm just curious if there's any value in changing the policy, if that would help in any way in moving forward with diplomacy and engagement with China. And if at this point any change is even possible?

DAVENPORT: Great. Thank you, Kathy.

Maybe we'll start on that question first. Mike, if you could just tell us a little bit about what THAAD can do and what THAAD can't do. And then, Suzanne, if you want to talk about how THAAD fits into the diplomacy?

DIMAGGIO: OK. Great.

ELLEMAN: OK. First, I want to separate regional missile defenses like THAAD, Aegis, Patriot from national missile defense here in the U.S., which is the ground-based interceptors, the system that was tested successfully a couple days ago.

Regional missile defenses are primarily aimed at blocking conventionally armed missiles. It's much like air defense. You're trying to limit what your opponent can inflict upon you, using aircraft or missiles. And when you combine something like THAAD with Patriot, you create a layered defense. And this greatly improves the efficacy of your capacity to block say 50 of 50 missiles over a given period of time.

You know, with what we presume to be the performance capabilities of Patriot, which is demonstrated, and what THAAD is currently tested and demonstrated in the design criteria, you could have 90 percent confidence that you could block 50 out of 50. Maybe one gets through, maybe two get through. But that would allow you to sustain military operations at key facilities, things of that nature.

This would be a great improvement over a single layer based only on Patriot. So, that's why it's being introduced into South Korea, in my view.

Now, against nuclear weapons or nuclear armed missiles, you know, there's a possibility that something gets through. It's not an umbrella. You know, no missile defense provides you with a perfect defense. And that's -- we need to recognize that, especially when making decisions over potential actions.

And it's important to remember, you know a 50-kiloton device is going to kill hundreds of thousands if not a million people in very dense cities. Is that a risk worth taking?

So, in my view, if you're looking at a conventionally armed threat from North Korea, THAAD makes some sense in preserving, probably military capabilities and protecting some critical assets within the Republic of Korea. It is expensive, yes. I think they probably need two THAAD batteries, by the way, maybe three, to really create a layered defense across the lower peninsula. And they would have to use Aegis to protect against a submarine launch missile. It's not the answer to all their questions.

As to the threat to China, THAAD does not pose a threat to China's current nuclear forces. There's a limited set of circumstances where THAAD can -- the radar can detect and track an ICBM that's headed to the West Coast, primarily, of the U.S. from I think it's three launch sites in China.

The information that would be gained is really minimal because you already have so many other sensors positioned around the world and in space. So, I don't know why China is so concerned with the deployment of this particular system.

I think it's a political maneuver by China. What they're concerned about is what comes next. Are they going to be -- is there going to be a ring of THAAD radars and other sensors as part of a larger architecture aimed at China?

That's why I think they've been protesting so vehemently, and using some really pretty crass tactics, if you will, in you know boycotting Lotte Industries and things of that nature. For that reason, I think it's difficult for South Korea now to back away from the deal because it would appear, whether it's done that for that reason or not, it's caving to the Chinese.

You know, I'm not a South Korean and I can't say what they should do in these circumstances. I'm not sure that it would lead to a more cooperative China in terms of solving this particular problem. So, I'd be inclined to leave it. But that's just a personal view.

And I think we also have to keep in mind that China cannot solve North Korea problem. But the North Korea problem cannot be solved without China's cooperation. And I think we're getting some. But remember, China's priorities are no instability, no war, and then no nuclear weapons in North Korea. So, it's going to be a difficult task.

DIMAGGIO: Well, just briefly I would just agree. I think it would be difficult for ROK to back out of THAAD now.

But of course, President Moon is coming to Washington later this month. We'll see if President Trump continues to insist that the South Koreans pay for it. That might have an impact on their decision.

Also, I also agree that you know the Chinese have overstated the case. So, I think for now I would agree to leave it at this stage. But I think the process by which we've moved forward with it, and now with a new administration in South Korea, I think we need to do better to be communicating with them on what they want and how they see it, and working with them in cooperation.

DAVENPORT: I think there's a question way in the back.

QUESTION: Thank you. I'm Professor Wayne Glass from University of Southern California School of International Relations.

A depressing topic to some extent, but I have good news. We have a whole next generation of policy wonks on arms control sitting with us from the University of Southern California.

(APPLAUSE)

My other comment here is from my experience with respect to the issues with North Korea. Congress's cooperation or involvement in this process is critical. And as we look forward to new moves, maybe if you look at it from the glass half full, pun intended, that the current political galaxy in Washington with the Congress under control of the Republicans, and the White House.

There's an opportunity to engage Republicans in Congress, as we strategize and take steps forward. And given the divide between the Congress and the White House, that produces an interesting dynamic as well.

Am I dreaming? Or are we going to be able to get ahead of this curve and incorporate Congress as talks about strategy and tactics move forward? Or is this a lost cause? I'm asking for some optimism. Thank you.

DAVENPORT: Well, not to load the answer ahead of time, but...

DIMAGGIO: Well, unfortunately I think...

(LAUGHTER)

... you know when you look at there're so few issues where there's bipartisan agreement these days. Unfortunately, I think one of them is North Korea, getting tougher on North Korea. I think Iran would be the other. But it's certainly worth trying.

You know, I also think Congress is part of the problem when we look at this because in the case of Iran you see Congress, especially the Republican side, trying to actively undermine the JCPOA.

And of course, this would lead -- if I was a North Korean considering engaging the U.S., entering into discussions on agreement, an interim agreement and so forth, I would really question whether or not the United States is prepared to fulfill that agreement, given the issues that are being placed against the JCPOA.

So yes, of course, we should always engage Congress in these discussions. But at the same time, we also have to be cautious about them playing the role of the spoiler as well.

When you look at the recent hearings on the Hill, there was one hearing recently where I think among the dozen or more senators who spoke there was really only one that even mentioned the word "diplomatic engagement," which shocked me.

ELLEMAN: Yes. I would just add one thing, and that is -- I mean, I do agree, Congress should be involved and co-opted, if you will. I mean, you want their inputs.

But I would urge some caution. Is what I would be afraid of is especially the more hawkish people in the Congress opposing any attempt to maybe work out a nuclear freeze as a first step. You know, tie the hands of the administration and not allow them to negotiate kind of interim steps. That would be dangerous and unwelcomed in my view.

So, in terms of what Congress -- it's more about what Congress shouldn't do than what they should do. So, I'll leave it at that.

DAVENPORT: We have just a few minutes left. So, I'll take a question there from that middle table. Right in front of you. Yes.

QUESTION: Michael Klare. I'm on the board of the Arms Control Association.

I have a question for Mike. You spoke about North Korea's missile development. Could you say a few words about North Korea's nuclear weapons development?

Because part and parcel of the process is, are they able to develop a warhead that would fit on an ICBM? (OFF-MIKE) anything about the timeline for that process, how that's pursued?

ELLEMAN: Well, the honest answer is no, I don't. You know the nuclear program is much more opaque than the missile program.

I mean, because you have to test missiles you can track them and you can get a sense of what their performance parameters are quite easily. Even the photographs that they provide and video can -- it offers many insights into what they're doing.

My presumption right now is that they can probably fashion a nuclear warhead that can be fitted upon the Nodong missile, you know, the larger diameter systems. Nodong has a diameter of 1.25 meters.

It's unclear if that would also apply to the Scud, which has a smaller diameter of 0.88 meters. But I think it's a safe assumption that they can shrink it.

I think the larger question is would it be rugged enough to withstand the reentry environment, and that is you know it has to be rugged. And you know there will be a lot of vibrations associated with launch and reentry.

What they haven't clearly done is develop the reentry technologies for a long-range missile. And I'm speaking specifically of an ICBM. But I think -- I don't think that's the long pole in the tent for an ICBM capability. I think that would be developed in parallel. But it would have to be tested to prove it right.

So, I think that's about as far as I can go because we just don't have the knowledge. And it's the reason -- suggestion that the IAEA should -- we should negotiate their reentry into the country would be so important because you learn so much just talking to people on the ground.

DAVENPORT: I agree with Mike that they certainly are likely to be able to fit a warhead on some of these missile systems.

But I think it's also important to note that the satellite imagery demonstrates that they're still operating their reactor at Yongbyon. That there is activity at the reprocessing facility. So, it's very likely that North Korea is continuing to produce fissile material that also expands the size of its particular arsenal.

So, just very quickly at the end, I wonder if each of you could just say a few words on what you might like to see come out of the U.S.-ROK Summit that's set to happen later in June. What do you think would be a positive outcome?

DIMAGGIO: I think some clarity on what their approaches are. I think obviously in order to move forward with the diplomatic approach they have to be on the same page.

As I said, we've heard some mixed messages from our administration and President Moon's administration is fairly new. So, I think you know, a joint statement that maybe spells out what they're willing to do. Not just on the pressure side, but on the engagement side as well, would be quite important at this time.

DAVENPORT: Mike, anything you'd like to see?

ELLEMAN: What I'd most like to see is very coherent collaboration and agreement between the U.S., the ROK and our Japanese allies in the region that whatever we decide as a policy is -- everyone concurs. And everyone understands the full risks because this notion that we can apply more and more pressure, and this talk about you know, left of launch solutions for missiles, destroying them on the launchpad is -- if they're not -- our allies are not completely on board, that could result in some real surprises or disastrous results.

So, I just want to -- I want to hear them make an offer, a very coherent strategy that everyone agrees upon.

DAVENPORT: Well, I guess we will see in a few weeks what happens.

After you join me in thanking our speakers, if you could all just stay seated for a few quick announcements from Daryl about lunch and moving forward.

So, thank you both so much for being here.

(APPLAUSE)

KIMBALL: Thank you, Kelsey, Suzanne and Mike. That was a great discussion. Very helpful.

We are now ready for lunch. We're going to take a 30-minute break. And then we're going to resume as promptly as possible at 12:15.

There are two food lines. So, please jump up, get in line, bring your food back to your table, and enjoy your break. Thank you.