Weapons of Mass Destruction: Cold War Legacies in a Post-9.11 World
Conference at New York Univerisity on November 26-27

Transcript of the Conference:

Trans-Atlantic Press Conference, 11/27/2001

Bill Hartung: In New York we have Kenneth Luongo, director of the Russia-American Nuclear Security Advisory Council, RANSAC; he's an expert on, among other things, U.S. assistance for reducing and securing Russian nuclear stockpiles. We have Robert Legvold, professor at the Harriman Institute at Columbia, an expert on U.S.-Russian relations. We have Pavel Podvig, who is currently at the Center for Arms Control, Energy and Environmental Studies, Moscow Institute for Physics and Technology. He's an expert in arms control, the Russian nuclear arsenal, and related matters. Paul Walker, who directs the Legacy program of Global Green USA, works on destruction of nuclear chemical and biological weapons. Also, he was a top staffer in Arms Services Committee back in the good old days. Joseph Cirincione, director of the Non-Proliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment, has a wide-ranging expertise on arms control and nuclear non-proliferation policy issues. Robert Alvarez, is currently a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, with expertise in safeguarding nuclear arsenals in the U.S. and Russia.

In Moscow, we're fortunate to have as experts Sergey Baranovsky, who is the president of Green Cross Russia, and knows particularly about nuclear and chemical disarmament and weapons disposal. Alexander Belkin, the executive vice-director of the Council on Foreign Defense Policy, with expertise in U.S.-Russian security relations, Russian defense strategy, military reforms. Retired General Major Vladimir Dvorkin, the chief for the Center for Strategic Nuclear Forces at the Academy of Military Sciences, expert on missile defense, nuclear strategy, and the Antiballistic Missile Treaty. Ksenia Gonchar, who's at the Russian Academy of Sciences; her expertise is in the militarization and conversion of the Russian nuclear weapons complex. And Dr. Sergey Oznobishev, director of the Strategic Studies Institute, expert on U.S.-Russian relations and arms control issues. Moderating in Moscow will be Mikail Pogarely, who runs the Center for War and Peace Journalism there, which is affiliated with the Center for War and Peace News Media here at New York University.

So what we're going to do given that we have this embarrassment of riches in terms of expertise, is try to keep it moving so we can get as many questions from the crowd as possible. There is also a group of journalists connected by phone in Washington. Paul Walker from this end is going to give a brief introduction to the issues, then we will turn to Moscow, where there will be a similarly brief introduction, I believe, but first a question will come from one of the journalists in Moscow. So with no further ado, let's get started. We'll try to cover as many question as we can in the hour and half that we have. Thanks.

Paul Walker: Good Morning, New York. Good morning, Washington, DC. Good evening, Moscow. I'm really delighted to see this many good colleagues and friends here, also very delighted to see our Russian colleagues with us in Moscow. I think first we have to thank the organizers of this whole tele-bridge, for putting together what I would call a very timely, and a very important event, that is on weapons of mass destruction. Let me just say a couple of major points, and I will raise a few questions, which I hope will sort of frame the context of our discussion for the next hour and a half.

First of all, we have all seen of course, less than two months ago, the September 11th terrorist attacks here in New York City. We sit now in the shadow of the world where formerly the World Trade Towers were; we've also seen Anthrax attacks in the States, and that is still ongoing. We've also had a recent Russian-American Summit, as you know at Crawford Ranch, and in Washington, DC. We also have ongoing threats, in the news, that a variety of individuals, al-Qaida, Osama Bin Laden, and others, have use of weapons of mass destruction, nuclear, chemical, and biological. My first point is that this really is a unique, historical moment, and it is one really of opportunity. It's the end of the cold war, we've heard talks last night by Michael Klare and Jonathan Schell, that in fact, East-West hostility has wound down for a good decade or more. It's the end of Soviet-American arms racing. I think it's remarkable if we look at the draw-down in weapons produced, weapons deployed, and the cost in fact of nuclear, chemical, biological, and conventional weapons. It's also a period of active summitry. It's in some ways almost a love feast. We've had four Bush-Putin meetings, if I count correctly, this year in 2001. We've had Texas barbecues, we've had back slapping, and we've had strong stares into the hearts and souls of each other, as we've seen in Crawford Ranch in Texas. Now that's an enormous change from in fact what we saw just a couple of years ago, and certainly, ten and twenty years ago. So the question for all of here today is how do we best take advantage of this very opportune moment in time?

My second point is that this unique historical moment is also one of challenge. Let me just pose some questions around weapons of mass destruction for us all to think about. Maybe this will help frame our discussion today. How do we reconcile proposed cuts that we've heard from both President Putin and President Bush in nuclear arsenals with the U.S. push to violate or even to scrap the 1972 ABM Treaty? How do we move forward with nuclear reductions 6,000 to 2,000, or less, when one side, that is Russia, as President Putin put it a few days ago, quoting former President Reagan, says "Trust, but verify," while the other side, namely the United States, says "We just need to trust. We don't need negotiated bilateral treaties anymore." With chemical weapons, how do we strengthen the four-year-old weapons convention and universalize it? How do we get the formerly called "rogue" countries to adhere to the chemical weapons convention?

Equally important, and something people pay little attention to many times, how do we move forward with U.S. and Russian demilitarization of their combined 70,000 tons of chemical weapons, when there is little agreement in either country on basic issues like [which] technologies of destruction [to use]. And there is a real lack of funding for the Russian program, both from Russia and the United States, as well as from our European allies. Biological weapons. How do we strengthen the biological weapons convention, which is now almost 30 years old, when there is no agreement this past week in Geneva on the six-year-old negotiated protocol, and the ad hoc group which is negotiating that protocol? In short, I would say, how do we make these horrific weapons taboo? And I think part of our discussion should range around the word: taboo. How do we make these horrific weapons taboo, when the eight acknowledged nuclear powers are all reluctant to give them up, as promised under Article 6 of the Non-Proliferation Treaty? How do we establish a truly effective non-proliferation regime, whether it's nuclear, chemical, or biological? For the long run, in order to forever preclude the use of these weapons. These are difficult issues and difficult questions, and I'm sure my colleagues have much better answers to these questions. I get the easy part, which is to pose the questions. They get the difficult part to answer the tough questions, in Moscow, Washington, and New York. But I challenge us all at this point to think very seriously about these issues. For they are indeed among the keystones to security of the 21st century. Thank you.

Bill Hartung: Thank you Paul. Now we're going to turn it over to Moscow, where there will be a brief introduction, and we'll get the first press question. Thanks.

Mikhail Pogarely: Good morning, Washington. Good morning, New York. I'm glad to meet all of our friends, old and new. I would like to say on behalf of all those present here, all these experts and journalists, to express our sympathy with the people of the United States, who have suffered those terrible terrorist attacks. I would also like to note that we, the people in Russia, came across these terrorist threats several years ago, and we know that this is not an easy task to fight terrorism, and it is impossible to do it as a one-sided effort. This is very much the same challenging task as the problem of nuclear, chemical, biological disarmament. When one side [relies on] unilateral decisions, it will be impossible to solve these issues.

So, this event would be one more step in the direction of combining our efforts in the direction of mutual understanding, broader and deeper. As I finish this introduction note, I will be glad to introduce the first Russian journalist to put the question to the U.S. experts.

Alexander Golts (Yezhenedelny Zhurnal): It looks that in spite of all the warm political statements that we heard the last decade, both countries, Russia and the U.S., still keep the doctrine of mutually assured destruction and the same program for mutual disarmament. The plan for the destruction of all strategic arsenals is the same as it was ten years ago. So, it looks as though the most difficult task is to make some practical steps in order to move out of this structure of mutual deterrence. What do you think could be such practical steps? Thank you.

Joe Cirincione: Let me respond to that very quickly, I'm sure others have remarks. You are absolutely right. Let me try to answer at least in part that first question. The agreement or statement coming out of the Crawford-Washington Summit falls far short of the requirements of this new era. They essentially recapitulate, or repeat, the agreement reach by President Clinton and President Yeltsin in 1997. That is, they have the same range of reductions, minus the binding commitment and the verification. You are correct in your question. Nothing has changed in nuclear force posture. The United States has not changed the strategic integrated operating plan. It still has thousands of warheads in that plan, targeted on Russian facilities. The irony is that while President Putin was in Crawford, the U.S. still targets his office in Moscow. As far as we heard from the President, nothing in that plan will change, nor do we have verification for what will happen to the warheads from the reduction schemes. In fact, how we count the warheads itself is very confusing. It appears that President Bush has essentially taken the numbers from Clinton and Yeltsin. That is, we will keep 2,500, but will count them differently. He will no longer count the warheads on submarines or bombers in overhaul as operational warheads. That will remove between 200 and 500 warheads from his count. So as you can see, much less has changed than meets the eye. How do we change this? We have to press here in the United States to have the President turn his goal into a binding commitment, into a commitment that we will provide the same kind of verification and transparency as previous agreements have. That's a necessary first step, before we can contemplate moving to further, deeper deductions that will take us out of this cold-war posture.

Bill Hartung: Is there anyone else from the New York panel who wants to talk about that question? Ok, we'll take a question from one of the journalists here in New York.

Jonathan Schell: I have a question, especially for our Russian colleagues, and that is, what is it, if there is such a thing on your side, that keeps the figures for ten years hence, as high as the ones that were discussed in Crawford? And related to that, how low do you think the Russians side would be ready to go, if the United States were ready to follow?

Russian Translator: Good morning and good evening, General Dvorkin responding to your question.

General Dvorkin: The Bush-Putin Crawford meeting was indeed hopeful and provided a lot of hopes for the future, especially for those who believe that relations between Russia and the United States have a bright future and should be developed further. This is important in terms of military and economic security. The statements by the Russian President in this regard can be regarded as perfect statements. At the same time, the concerns that we have are related to the fact [that] certain stances by the U.S. administration [indicate that it] does not seem to be prepared to accept the mutually binding agreements on ABM strategic arms. Well, the reason behind this is rather clear and very well known. But those reasons are not quite convincing. The U.S. policy position is that there is a lot of uncertainty about policy developments. The Americans seem to believe that it is impossible to forecast the future of military and political development, and some believe the U.S. should not be bound by any sort of binding provisions. I believe given these circumstances, we might find ourselves in a situation that could be regarded as an international legal vacuum. We can not allow ourselves to make such a sharp leap from the strictly binding strategic arms agreements to a situation where no such binding provisions would be in existence. Of course such detailed treaties like Start I might not be necessary at this point in time; you all know that those treaties principally came from too much mistrust or distrust of each other. [But] all of the verification [measures mandated] in the related provisions in the Start I document should be preserved. Those provisions were very much balanced and do allow us to provide for a perfect verification of all nuclear charges carried by any kind of delivery vehicles, land-, air-, or sea-based. Given the scene in place of such comprehensive agreements as Start I, what we would need would be a briefer document, which might be sort of a framework agreement, but that agreement should be a binding agreement for both sides.

A couple of words about the nuclear weapons ceiling. Those ceilings should be established and that would be most relevant in order to ease or diffuse to a certain degree the tension in this strategic and newer political environment. I don't think [there have not been] practical things of importance [that] have taken place over the past decade; I don't think you are right. Suffice to recall last December, or December of this year. Cuts under the Start I agreement were supposed to be completed by December of this year. Once we have those targets secured, we are supposed to go ahead, to proceed further, in order to achieve cuts of strategic nuclear forces to the levels indicated by the U.S. President. Though I must make a point here that Russia is prepared to go even further than that, that is, to bring the levels even deeper. Thank you so much.

Bill Hartung: Thank you. Unlike usual practice, we made Washington go last, which might be a good way to do other things too. We'll take a question from Washington to either the Moscow or New York group of experts.

James Kitfield (National Journal): I would like to address a question to Moscow. My question is, in terms of securing nuclear material and nuclear weapons in your country, much has been achieved, but much also needs to be achieved in the future. We have not had that material and weapons as secured as might be needed. What is the barrier to moving faster in securing Russia's nuclear fissile materials? Is it strictly financial, or are there still attitudes that have to be overcome to allow for the security of those materials?

Sergey Oznobishev: To give a short answer to that question, it is not a problem with us, though you know that for years it has been in a much worse position than right now. We could keep the security of disarmament on an adequate level. But we are very much attentive to the details, to the numbers of nuclear warheads. We are looking at the nuclear potential of each other. But we are not speaking about partnership; we should try to think how to support partnership. We continue to count the warheads, and to think about how to manage strategic stability, but we are not discussing what is the essence of strategic stability. We haven't even touched this question professionally. We have lost the opportunity provided by these ten years to do so. So we are in big, big trouble. What we should actually do, we should first assess cooperatively the existing threats. And then, again cooperatively, look at ways to overcome them. In this context, we will easily see that the problem around strategic potential is a minor problem, and we can manage it. The problem on the ballistic missile defense is a very minor problem if we can manage and discuss where and how to deploy it, perhaps in a very limited mode. But as the tragedy of September 11th demonstrated very, very acutely, we were speaking too much and not doing too much. We have acknowledged for years that terrorism is the primary threat. But we did almost nothing. We spent the 90s again in counting the warheads of each other, in discussing NATO enlargement and things like this that have almost nothing to do with our mutual security. Still, I very much want to call your attention to this fact. If we would be again counting warheads, looking at each other as a potential enemy, we will very easily lose once more the potential of partnership and our bureaucracy and military will again take away from each other.

Bill Hartung: Here in New York, Kenneth Luongo and Robert Alvarez who both have detailed working knowledge of this issue also want to make a response, so we'll start with Ken.

Kenneth Luongo: I think Sergey is right in the sense that there has been a lot of talk. But I also think there has been a lot of action. The problem is, we have lost the political wind behind this agenda of trying to secure nuclear materials, warheads, and components in Russia. And certainly, we have lost the sense of partnership that underscored this kind of work especially in the middle to late 1990s. The question from Washington is, is finance a problem in Russia, or is there a political problem? As it relates to nuclear--I don't want to speak on chemical or biological, but as it relates to nuclear--I think there is still a very keen interest in continuing to cooperate with the United States on this question of securing nuclear material. Key people in the Ministry of Atomic Energy, which is not known for its deviant views, have articulated their view that this remains an important agenda, and that they want to cooperate. But they want to cooperate in a partnership, not in a client-service kind of relationship, and unfortunately, that is part of what's happened here. The two things that really are required are investments of two different kinds of capital. Unfortunately we just squandered one opportunity for the investment of what I consider the most essential capital, and that's political capital. Both President Bush and President Putin failed to raise this agenda out of its second-tier status in the national security structure and address this problem in a more serious way. They provided very nice rhetorical statements about its importance, but there was absolutely no new action. The national security adviser said that they were very supportive, but then denied that they cut the budget, which in our view is incorrect. The second kind of capital that needs to be invested is additional financial capital, and we are about to squander that opportunity again. The Supplemental Appropriations Bill for September 11th does not contain one penny for improving security of nuclear material--not just in Russia, but anywhere overseas. There are some in Congress who are trying to reverse this, but the administration has not been very receptive. So my view is, both political and financial capital are required because without political capital, you can't break the logjam at the bureaucratic level that is holding up the programs, and spend more money to actually get this agenda accomplished in a more reasonable, rationale time frame than currently is being projected.

Bill Hartung: and Bob Alvarez.

Bob Alvarez: I think the question that was raised about excess fissile material, or loose nukes, is really drawing attention to what I call the unintended consequences of nuclear disarmament. What has really not been officially recognized by the United States or Russia is the need to address this in some kind of framework manner. There's also been a tendency, which I think is not correct, to believe that only the Russians have a problem in securing their materials. I think the root cause problem we are facing here is that both the United States and Russia built up very large research and industrial capabilities to amass nuclear arms without giving a single thought to what would happen when this all stopped--that once this stopped, there would be a large accumulation of excess nuclear explosive materials for which there is no adequate storage or safeguard in security. In the United States, we have approximately 230 tons of excess nuclear weapons materials that are sitting in deteriorated structures, in unstable solutions, in canisters which have not been opened for over 20 years, in wooden buildings, and some sitting outside exposed to the elements. Now, we have the money to guard this material and to safeguard it accordingly in our society. But I think September 11th has sent a very big message home that these conditions are unacceptable. We have to start to look at this problem, not just in the context of counting warheads, counting missiles. We have to look at this in a multilateral framework arrangement that addresses the means of taking down the arsenals, and storing them safely and securely. As long as we keep dealing with this as if it's some sort of side issue, if we just throw some money at it, and plug holes in the dyke as they say, this is a problem that is going to fester.

Bill Hartung: Now we're ready for another question from one of the journalists in Moscow.

Yuri Golotyuk (Vremya Novostey newspaper): The safety of nuclear charges is a matter of considerable concern. I would like to know what our American colleagues are thinking about the really separate category of warheads munitions that are kept beyond the continental United States or overseas, in foreign facilities. To me, those warhead munitions are particularly vulnerable. I wonder if the United States has any plans to improve the security of the stocks of those materials.

General Dvorkin: I wonder if our American colleagues are aware of the fact that the U.S. Atomic Energy Agency and the Russian Minatom have already completed a good deal of work in order to put in place the state of the art monitoring and verification systems not only related to policing nuclear charges, but also checking out the available stocks of fissile materials. To tackle this task, we have top-of-the-line software and hardware materials. The problem remains a lack of relevant political decisionmaking.

Bill Hartung: We're going to start with Joseph Cirincione.

Joseph Cirincione: Specifically to your question about the tactical nuclear weapons outside the boundaries of the United States: To the best of my knowledge, the United States has only 150-200 tactical nuclear weapons at bases in NATO Europe. These are air-drop ammunitions carried by a variety of NATO aircraft. All other tactical nuclear weapons have been withdrawn to the United States as part of the mutual, unilateral agreements reached in 1991 when President Bush announced that he would withdraw all U.S. tactical weapons from U.S. surface ships and from the U.S. army. So the U.S. navy is now effective de-nuclearized, the U.S. army is de-nuclearized. We have only 150-200 air-drop weapons abroad. The tactical nuclear weapons that were withdrawn remain in storage in the United States. According to the Carnegie Endowment, we have about 1,670 of those tactile nuclear weapons. I've never heard concerns raised about the storage of those tactical weapons in the United States. There is some concern about the storage facilities in Europe, but those are by most accounts, still highly secure.

Of course they serve no military purpose whatsoever. It is difficult to conceive of any scenario under which the United States would use a tactical nuclear weapon stationed in Europe for any reason. So those also should be withdrawn. I don't believe Europe is any longer so insecure that it will feel the withdrawal of those nuclear weapons would somehow present a decrease in U.S. commitment to Europe. There were supposed to be talks between the United States and Russia on tactical nuclear weapons. This was part of the 1997 agreement between Clinton and Yeltsin. START III, which was going to reduce the levels of strategic weapons, was also supposed to start, for the first time, actual negotiation on tactical nuclear weapons, in which the U.S. would talk about the thousands of Russian tactical weapons, and Russia would get to talk about the sea-launched, nuclear-tipped cruise missiles. They are of concern to Russia. Unfortunately, this vital issue has been dropped from the agenda. No one in the United States, or Russia for that matter, is raising this issue of tactical nuclear weapons. It is precisely these weapons that pose some of the most serious security concerns. Primary I'm thinking of the Russian arsenal, but as your colleagues in Moscow says, there also are some concerns with the European-based weapons the United States has. Other comments here?

Bill Hartung: Yes, Pavel Podvig.

Pavel Podvig: Let me add just a few words. I think Joe is absolutely right. The tactical nuclear weapons in Europe serve no military purpose or any purpose whatsoever, and I'm speaking about U.S. tactical nuclear weapons, as well as Russian ones. But these serve as a very good illustration of what's wrong with the current situation. Because if we look at the politics of these tactical weapons, then we see that in fact in the United States and in Europe, there are concerns about the safety and security of Russian tactical nukes. People would argue that they are not very well-secured. But at the same time, we see that for some reason, the United States and its European allies value having the U.S. weapons in Europe much higher than their concern about Russian nuclear weapons. So basically, my point is that this is the choice the U.S. and its European allies must make themselves. Whether it is more important to keep tactical weapons in Europe--as a means of holding together a NATO alliance, or for whatever other conceivable purpose. Or to try to open negotiations with Russia on how to eliminate and control and secure all tactical nuclear weapons, including Russian ones, if there are concerns about their security.

Bill Hartung: If there is no other response, we need a question from New York.

Mark Anderson (Wired News): I have a question for some of the experts in Moscow. There have been a few articles published in the press about an island in the Aral Sea, Vozrozhdeniye, that supposedly was the center of Soviet biological weapons labs. There is supposedly a large stockpile buried there, or so some of these articles claim. I would like to get specifically at what is there, and what is being done to secure this. I don't see a lot of discussion about this, and I am curious to know some of the specifics about that location and the biological weapons there.

Sergey Baranovsky: I will try to take the question. I'm not an expert in biological weapons, but trying to answer your question. First, I'd like to mention that Vozrozhdeniye is not Russian territory. It was part of the former Soviet Union; during the Soviet period, it was a big military lab where there was testing of biological weapons. After the end of the Soviet Union, most of the materials and things related to the biological weapons were withdrawn from the island. And the American side could check it, because a big American delegation had the chance visit Vozrozhdeniye and the lab. On the Russian side was the delegation of the former Chief of our Russian biological program, who in an interview stated that nothing was left on the island now.

Bill Hartung: Paul Walker would like to say a little bit more here from New York.

Paul Walker: I would like to add that the United States has actually identified this island in the Aral Sea as a very important issue. The fear is what will happen as the Aral Sea dries up--the island is now about 40 times the size of what it once was. The fear is that there are left over diseases on the island--and the thought is that there probably are, whether it's plague, anthrax, or other biological weapons tested during Soviet times. That in fact, animals from the island could exit in the next few years, once access is given to the mainland, and spread diseases to Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, which currently split the island a third and two-third. The Cooperative Threat Reduction Program in the United States has identified this island as a major clean-up target. So, I know the United States government will be helping Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan to clean the island in the near future. As far as I know, no one quite knows what's there, as Sergey Baranovsky, my colleague in Moscow, has stated already. But I do think it's a very important problem. The other thing I would add with regard to biological weapons is that it's very important that we go through and destroy and clean all former biological weapons production facilities. One of the largest anthrax production facilities in the world is in Kyrgyzstan. Although the plant has been shut for a long time, it's thought now that there could be strains of anthrax still remaining there. And that this as well as other former production facilities in Russia, in the former Soviet Union, must be cleaned and any remaining stockpiles destroyed. This is due to be addressed under the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program in the very near future.

Bill Hartung: So it's back to our colleagues in Washington if there is a question there.

John Cavanagh: I like to ask people in either Moscow or New York what they feel that September 11th means for the debate over national missile defense.

Bill Hartung: Why don't we start in Moscow and then we'll come back to New York.

Alexander Belkin: I'm not quite sure I will be directly answering your question because what I've heard during this discussion just gave me another proof that we are all hostages of the old equation of potential and intentions in arms control. During ten years of our discussion of this potential and intentions formula, and we were trapped in this counting number of nukes on both sides. Even now, we have spent almost one hour discussing nukes at the moment when New York and other cities are exposed to anthrax rather than any kind of immediate nuclear threat. I'm not quite sure the tragedy of the 11th of September brought us closer mutual understanding in the field of building nuclear and missile defenses on the U.S. side. But I am sure that it gives us another opportunity for more close cooperative relations between the two countries. The first opportunity we simply lost during the past ten years when we had very high expectations, very high potential for improving relations in many fields, not just on strategic issues. And in fact we failed. Again, in Europe, the new President, President Bush Jr., had to stress that the cold war is over. The cold war was over ten years ago. That is why we are discussing now nuclear issues rather than the threat of biological or chemical agents, when this threat is a real one, which both nations are facing. Just imagine what may happen if a biological agent is used or chemical agent or a combination of those is used somewhere here in Moscow. And hundreds of people will go out in the world, many of them going to the United States, without the knowledge that they are the carriers. Are your airport facilities ready, first of all, to cap the threat and deal with it? This is a real thing, rather than those numbers we are counting, those 2,000 nukes or 1,500 nukes aimed at each other.

This brings me to another angle in our discussion. It's not the issue of potential or intentions, it's the issue of intelligence. Even if we cut our nukes to 100 on both sides, intelligence on our part and your part will probably remain the same. We are still hoping for the best, but still looking at each other with a great part of suspicion. It's a not a bad kind of suspicion, but it's still the old mentality of the cold war. And without paying much more attention to improving our relations and understanding in this field, I do not think that just counting nukes or decreasing the number of nukes left will improve things there much. My hope is that this understanding will be both in the Kremlin and the White House, and both presidents will be more concerned about what people think about each other and the threats that we are really facing today.

Bill Hartung: And here in New York Robert Legvold would like to address this question.

Robert Legvold: Let me respond on two different levels. First of all, in the immediate context to the September 11th and national missile defense, I think most people in this room and Moscow and Washington know the initial expectation on the part of critics of national missile defense was that September 11th would undermine the rationale for, therefore the political basis for, national missile defense. Clearly national missile defense would not have protected us from the attack on the World Trade Center or the Pentagon. But that was to misunderstand the psychology and politics of September 11th in the United States. With a moment's thought, one would have anticipated what in fact happened. It seems irrational for the United States to risk the ABM regime and a number of other things in order to build a national missile defense against suicidal, utterly irrational attacks on the part of the North Koreans and the Iraqis against the United States. Yet after September 11th, those who argued that you protect against any potential danger, no matter how irrational, of course were able to carry the day. In fact what the attacks did was to influence those people who were on the fence in terms of support for national missile defense, including the Congress. So the Senate voted the $8.3 billion to fully fund national missile defense; the vote was 99 to 0, and that was only because Strom Thurmond had fainted the day before, and that's why it wasn't 100 to 0.

Now as to the context with which the United States will go forward with national missile defense. There too I think September 11th had some effect. Up to that point, it was clear that the United States was prepared to move unilaterally, if necessary, not least because for a number in this administration, beginning with key figures in the Pentagon, the highest priority was to do away with the ABM agreement. Since September 11th, in the context of what I think is a watershed change in U.S.-Russian relations, one that creates possibilities that are much broader, along the lines Sergey Oznobishev was alluding to in his comment, there has been some retreat from that commitment to altering the general strategic context and regime unilaterally. In broad terms of U.S. foreign policy, I think this administration has begun to move to what a colleague of mine calls unilateral-multilateralism. It's no longer a kind of pure unilateralism, but it's multilateralism under the guidance of the U.S. I think that's still basically the approach to redesigning the strategic nuclear regime between the United States and Russia, the expectation is that we will negotiate in good faith with the Russians over an alternative strategic nuclear regime, but it will be essentially by American design at the end of the day. The real question, I think, is whether the administration moves far enough along so that we can have a genuine, mutually designed, new strategic nuclear regime between our countries. I think that's available to us, because I believe President Putin is willing to either to renegotiate the ABM agreements substantially to permit a limited nuclear missile defense and the testing along the road to that, or indeed, even willing to scrap the ABM agreement and negotiate an alternative framework. But the commitment, I think on the U.S. side, has to be to negotiate a framework that is mutually designed. It will not be good enough for the United States to continue to insist on simply trusting, as Paul Walker said. It's going to have to be something that we reach in common. The simple, fundamental test in the coming months--in terms of whether we take advantage of this potential watershed in U.S.-Russian relations in dealing with a broad strategic nuclear regime--is whether this administration is willing to move from a handshake to a contract.

Bill Hartung: Any other comments on this end? Yes, Joseph Cirincione.

Joseph Cirincione: I agree very much with what Robert Legvold has just said. Before September 11th, President Bush's number one foreign policy objective was to pull off national missile defense. Now, it is winning the international war against terrorism. He will be remembered for whether he wins the war, not whether he deploys missile defense. This changes everything. There is a deal to be made out there. Russia is willing to make a deal on national missile defense, and I think eventually, the President will make that deal, because his view hasn't changed. As Dr. Legvold said, September 11th didn't change anybody's opinion about missile defense. Each opponent and proponent both saw in September 11th a validation of their previously held beliefs. But it did fundamentally shift the political and diplomatic terrain. Prior to September 11th, five cabinet officers journeyed to Moscow in one month just to convince Putin to agree to national missile defense. Senior officials who have been spending almost all of their time pushing this system, are now almost devoting all of their time to winning the war against terrorism. This is a very real bureaucratic and political shift that I think makes national missile defense a strongly held belief of the President, but no longer one of his top priorities. I believe in the next couple of months, he will revisit the Crawford Dialogue, and we will have a deal.

Bill Hartung: OK, we are ready for a question from one of our journalists or colleagues in Moscow.

Victor Litovkin (Obshaya Gazeta newspaper): To me, the 11th of September, and the follow-up developments, graphically demonstrate that the ABM issue does not contribute in anyway to the evolution of the problems of kamikaze attacks, or enveloped anthrax powder, or any other horrific attacks that might come out of mal-intentioned brains, so to say. Dear colleagues, don't you think, over there, that in the perspective of the terrorists, terrorism as a phenomenon largely comes from the common wealth being unjustly or inadequately shared or distributed? Is this a problem of mistrust on the part of the poor against the rich? Don't you think that some of the terrorists are motivated by the desire to change things in the world, even going as far as committing suicide, or committing kamikaze attacks? It probably wouldn't be rational at all to infuse huge amounts of money in order to put in place an ABM system. A thousand ABM systems would not keep you from terrorist attacks. More money should probably be spent combating illiteracy and poverty, because these are the breeding grounds for new terrorists. There is always a risk of opening new avenues to Osama Bin Laden should we fail to address these problems.

Bill Hartung: Thank you. Does anyone want to take a crack at that? If not, I will take the prerogative of the chair. I think there is no question that inequalities of wealth, and of political power, are a breeding ground for terrorism. That doesn't mean that every terrorist, therefore, has a benign agenda for the world. I'm not so sure at this point whether Osama Bin Laden is a really a sort of businessman who runs a terrorist organization, or whether he truly believes all of the things he talks about. Nonetheless, I think the ability to sustain terrorist organizations, and the resort of terrorism, are linked in part to the issue of not having legitimate political outlets for raising issues about inequality and wealth. Many of the regimes where the terrorists have come from are long-standing undemocratic regimes, which deny rights to women, and where there is no real way to express political differences or to make a difference. Certainly that element of desperation is part of the problem, and I would hope that United States policy doesn't continue to focus so narrowly on the military solution to terrorism without looking at some of these longer term issues that help sustain it. I don't think anybody would assume that anything we do now is going to stop Bin Laden from the course that he has chosen, but looking ten to twenty years down the road, these issues of inequality certainly have to be dealt with.

Ok, so we're now back to New York.

Judith Karfogo (Independent Media Center in NYC): This is directed mostly to the New York panel. A case can be made that the globally dominant U.S. economy is based not only on petro-chemical energy, but on the military expenditures used in large part to dominate those global regions from which such resources are procured. Over the last three election cycles, tens of millions of dollars have been contributed to both the Democratic and the Republican parties in the United States by defense contractors. Do you believe it is possible to reduce strategic weapons and weapons of mass destruction without a major shift away from the current dependence of the U.S. and the global financial elites on such a policy of petro-chemical exploitation, and militarization?

Bill Hartung: Does anyone on the New York panel want to address that, or am I going to be left out here hanging by myself again?

Paul Walker: These are very difficult questions, both the prior and the current one. Let me say that there are two issues that are very involved in all of our discussions about abolition of weapons of mass destruction. One of them is campaign finance reform. In a democratic system such as ours that's financed by wealthy corporations and wealthy individuals, it's very difficult to make any major change unless in fact you pierce the veil of heavy corporate and private giving. Politicians are bought, we know that. That's the name of the game, that's the system. It doesn't necessarily mean that they're bad, but they're bought, and that's what they need to run and take office. I think campaign finance reform should be on every one of our agendas, regardless of what field we're in. The second issue I would raise is the dependence on oil and our lack of proactive, foresightful measures in conservation and renewable resources. In the work of Global Green and the Green Cross, of which Sergey Baranovsky is president, we have a major program on energy and resource conservation across the globe. I think we have seen snippets of this, with regards to discussion around environmental security and energy security, but I think clearly, we've got to wean ourselves away from oil over time, and that means major socio-economic changes in this economy. So the two issues of campaign finance reform and renewable energy and conservation are very much linked, I think, with the abolition of weapons of mass destruction. Those are major security issues for the 21st century.

Bill Hartung: If I can add briefly to that. It's a national disgrace that one of the responses to September 11th has not been investment in an alternative energy policy. I have to believe that it's not a mistake, and part of it has to do with the fact that our national security adviser was formerly on the board of Chevron, and has a tanker named after her, that Vice President Cheney worked at Haliburton, which is a major oil exploration and construction services firm, and that President Bush himself has dabbled a bit in the oil industry. If you look at their stimulus package, which gave hundreds and millions in tax breaks to Enron, which is one of Bush's biggest contributors, it's clear that--I don't know if they need to be bought, they're part of the club--this is the way they think. I think that's one of the biggest glaring things that stares at me. In terms of the issue of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, I think the military lobby really has an influence on the levels of military spending, the fact that we've overdeveloped our military tools at the expense of diplomacy. I think there are some in the military sector who would be willing to go quite far in eliminating nuclear and biological weapons on the theory that they'd still have plenty of business, building F-22s, new ships, and you name it. But there are little sub-lobbies within the military-industrial complex; certainly the weapons labs are not going to give up easily, so it's a complex picture. I think to a certain degree that if you get public attention focused on issue of the use of nuclear weapons--if the danger and irrationality of this idea were fully understood--it would trump even the needs of special interests in terms of national policy. But I think part of the problem is motivating the public to feel like they can raise their voices and make a difference, which is one of the biggest challenges we have currently.

Francis, do you want to address a question to Moscow as long as we're here?

Francis FitzGerald: To our Russian colleagues, is it possible to proceed with the whole issue of securing fissile materials if there is no binding or verifiable agreement on either the ABM treaty or on a treaty on strategic weapons? Do those two go entirely in tandem? Equally, is it possible to make this agreement on fissile materials a part of a strategic arms agreement?

Gen. Vladimir Dvorkin: An extremely compelling question, and a very exciting one too. The question of monitoring the fissile materials has so many specifics and very particular technical questions to it. Even if you should fail to term it as some kind of agreement, just the challenge of drafting relevant procedures for verification with regards to those materials will take quite some time. The whole effort will just be useless or even impossible unless we do have a mutually binding document on our hands. The promises and statements of mutual trust will not achieve much. It is not that people will really remain deep down mistrustful of each other, but the task involves a large number of very specific things, which would have to be taken out or closed. And any document covering the questions of security of fissile materials might even be thicker than any agreement governing the questions of nuclear arms control.

Bill Hartung: Yes, Bob Alvarez in New York.

Robert Alvarez: I think the large number of technical issues associated currently with how we are going about to try to verify things like how much plutonium is in a can, or what kind of shape does it have, and all these kinds of things are indeed very complicated and expensive. But I also think that they are made needlessly complicated and expensive because of bureaucratic imperatives--secrecy, isolation, and the privilege of institutions that have not been accountable to the people they are supposed to be protecting. The large number of technical questions that have to be addressed require the courage and the leadership of our respected leaders to overcome these barriers of technology and secrecy that have more to do with bureaucratic imperatives than with achieving the end point of making the world a safer place. First of all, I think we need to step aside and stop getting lost in the weeds of the technicalities of what it's going to take to look inside a canister. We need to start by agreeing that we need safe, secure storage of materials. Both nations need to publicly admit that this does not exist on either end. We then have to proceed from that point of view in addressing the technical questions.

Bill Hartung: I'd like to take a question from Washington and a question from Moscow, we'll answer those, and that will probably be it. But I'd like a Russian colleague to get the last question, so can we move to Washington first?

James Kitfield (National Journal): I'd like to address my question again to the Russian panel. In excess of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, what most concerns me and U.S. policymakers is Iran, which is listed by our state department as the most active sponsor of terrorism. Russia is helping Iran build civil nuclear reactors, a policy that this administration and policymakers disagree with very strongly. My question is, is there any give on this issue of Iran and Russia's help to its nuclear program, or is that something that the two sides just can not see a way to agree on?

Bill Hartung: Before we get the answer, is there is another question from Moscow you would like to put on the table?

Vladimir Dernovoy (Vek newspaper): It is known that the Russian Federation demands absolutely unique technology, both in the area of verification and the area of combating terrorism, starting from conventional weapons going all the way to the most sophisticated electronic accelerators. So the question is, what is the thing that will prevent us from bringing our efforts together in order to really combat terrorism? Given a good measure of will and intention from both of our sides, the U.S. and the Russian Federation could really dominate in any region of the world.

Bill Hartung: Let's start with the answer to the question on Iran, and then we'll make time to answer that question after.

Yury Golotyuk: Let me just remind our American colleagues that those very terrorists that you are trying to catch right now in Afghanistan, they were first contacted by Iranian authorities. Then when it came to the question of deterring the Taliban, the Russian Federation joined in. And it was only quite recently that the United States applied its forces in order to back up the efforts pursued by Iran and Russia. Given this scene, the Russian Federation was very interested in Iranian efforts aimed at securing the right level of stability in that very explosive part of the world. And one addition, I will assure you that for a certain time I was dealing with export control, and every case was taken under very serious consideration. Our export control regime is being developed and modernized in a positive way. We can very easily move it in the right direction, and in a very cooperative manner if we can preserve our partnership with the U.S. on this issue.

Sergey Oznobishev: By the way, there is not a single provision in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty that has been violated by the Russian Federation. What I'm talking about is the effort that is underway to build that lightwater nuclear reactor at Busshel, in Iran. The experts are very much aware of the fact that in general those lightwater nuclear power stations and reactors are producing a very tiny amounts of weapons-grade plutonium, which in no way can be applied to a nuclear weapons program by the Iranian authorities, if they are maintaining such a program at all.

Bill Hartung: Here in New York, Bob Alvarez wants to speak to this.

Bob Alvarez: It's important to look at the efforts to sell nuclear technologies to Iran in the context of the drawdown of our nuclear arsenals. One of the unattended consequences of nuclear disarmament is a curtailment of payments from the Ministry of Defense to the Ministry of Atomic Energy. The Ministry of Atomic Energy is being told to fend for itself and make money to make its bureaucracy intact. Therefore export markets for nuclear technology are becoming its life blood. Additionally, the importation of spent fuel is being looked upon now as a potential source of hard currency to help deal with these problems that are in tandem with the significant drawdown of our nuclear arsenals. Unfortunately, these problems are becoming so entangled that they are having the effect of creating paralysis. We need to figure out a way disentangle these issues right now and re-think this whole problem. I respectfully disagree with my colleague in Russia about the potential of threats associated with selling this technology. The threat is not the plutonium that will be generated from this reactor, it's the creation of an infrastructure of people who will be able to transfer this technology eventually into the production of nuclear weapons for military deployment. These are things we have to really seriously reconsider in the context of the NPT. Is the spread of nuclear technology itself, the so-called peaceful uses of nuclear technology, really a valid need in this day and age? Or is it something that is going to lead to a more dangerous world?

Bill Hartung: Thank you. Are there any further comments in New York on either the question about Iran or on the other question that was raised about the potential for greater technical and political cooperation between the United States and Russia on terrorism and non-proliferation issues? Yes, Kenneth Luongo.

Kenneth Luongo: I just want to say a word about Iran. We inquired of the Bush administration, right after they took office, whether U.S.-Russian cooperation on the question of fissile material security or other parts of the so-called Nunn-Lugar program were in fact linked to Russian-Iranian cooperation on this Busshel reactor. We got back a letter that said "There isn't any direct linkage, but there is intrinsic linkage between the two issues." So I think they didn't want to say that they are linking them, but in fact they are linking them, and it's impeding progress on this agenda. There has been some kind of informal agreement inside the administration not to advance many new initiatives in the face of this problem, in part because of the assurance made to Congress. I would think a primary area of discussion would be how to cooperate in getting around this major impediment in the process. It's a stick in the eye for the U.S. body politic, and unfortunately, the U.S. response on this subject is also a stick in the eye to the Russian body politic. It's not clear to me how we will solve this issue, but I certainly would think that in the new era, if we really believe that there is a new period of cooperation between the two countries, that some kind of productive discussion on this subject, maybe including some additional monitoring, maybe including some additional involvement of the IAEA, International Atomic Energy Agency, might be able to help solve this problem.

I don't completely agree with what Bob Alvarez said about exports being the engine of financing for the Ministry of Atomic Energy. In fact, the Ministry as I understand it has made some kind of split--or was thinking about making a split--in which the weapons side remains on the governmental side, and then there will be some kind of export bureau, with not all of that money going into the Ministry for national security-related activities. That would be wise.

Bill Hartung: I think we're going to have to wrap it up now. I want to thank our colleagues in Moscow, particularly Mikhail Pogarely at the Center for War and Peace Journalism for helping to organize this. Of course the Institute for Policy Studies and the Center for War, Peace and the News Media here at NYU. Hopefully this will be the beginning of an ongoing dialogue.

Mikhail Pogarely: I would also like to thank all the participants and organizers of this event for this excellent chance to communicate over the ocean to discuss the problems or even to define a set of problems that are to be discussed further on. Thank you very much, good bye.

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