Mass destruction. He spoke to the Arms Control Association about the Trump Administration strategy for north korea, relations with russia and the iran nuclear agreement. Welcome back everyone. Welcome back then please find your seats so we can resume here at the Arms Control Association net annual meeting with our first keynote speaker of the day. Thank you. Once again, im darrell kimball, director of the Arms Control Association. My friends are here for our 2017 Arms Control Association annual meeting. Please to have with us today Christopher Ford whose special assistant to the president and senior director for weapons of mass instruction and counter proliferation policy at the National Security council. Chris who has extensive experience on these issues has been on the professional staff of the Senate Relations committee, banking committee, easter on the personal staff of a senator Susan Collins as her National Security advisor and before that he served at the state department as a special representative on nonproliferation and was a Deputy Assistant repertory for state for arms control nonproliferation disarmament verification and clients during the george w. Bush administration. And as chris knows and as most of you here recognize, probably the most serious responsibility for any us president is reducing the global risks posed by Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear Proliferation. Why is that . Why has the presidency not as a risk . As john f. Kennedy said in 1951, every man, woman and child lives are hanging by the slender risk of threads that could cut any moment by accident or miscalculation or by madness. Ronald reagan in 1985 noted that a nuclear war can never be one and must never be fought. Last year in hiroshima, president obama said those nations that hold Nuclear Stockpiles must have the courage to escape the logic of fear and pursue a World Without them. For decades american president s have with varying degrees of success, republicans and democrats all pursue their commitment in the npt to end the arms race. And pursue disarmament. A negotiated agreements that limit and cut Nuclear Arsenals or to curb the spread of Nuclear Weapons. They did Nuclear Weapons in the atmosphere and underground but for the rest of miscalculation with Nuclear Weapons so we seen much progress in many areas. As larry weiler, one of the original negotiators of the npt remind us this morning, there are many challenges ahead. And in some ways as we heard this morning, the risk of Nuclear Weapons use appears to be growing and the tensions between Nuclear States situation and as some key nuclear arms restraint measures. So even before President Trump took the oath of office and came into the white house , there were already tough challenges to make. In the area of Nuclear Weapons policy such as how to use pressure and diplomacy versus north Koreas Nuclear program. How to resolve the dispute with russia over compliance with the intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty and to reengage russia in the Nuclear Risk Reduction process, how to make sure all sides abide by the 2015 agreement between iran and the six world powers that has been holding irans capabilities in check. How do we Forge International agreements about how to strengthen the Nuclear Nonproliferation treaty, 50 years old and perhaps reaching a middle age crisis next year. And how do we manage the rising costs of the United States own arsenal while reviewing the United States own requirements and policies about the role of Nuclear Weapons in our longterm strategy so these are tough questions. Unless you have an important job, not to put any pressure on you. These are the types of issues anybody in government has to deal with. So far we havent heard a lot about the administrations approach to these issues. And speaking frankly in my view, what we have heard from the president on these issues is sometimes created more confusion than answering the questions that we might have so because of all that, because its important to, we are pleased to have christopher with us today to help update us on the administrations approach and these very important issues, its the most consequential set of issues and in discussing this event and his remarks today, i told chris we know hes not going to be able to answer all our questions and part because some of these issues are still the subject of policy review but we hope you will be able to do his best to help explain the administrations approach on these issues so with that, i welcome chris to the podium. And after chris is delivers his remarks, we will take questions from the floor and there are cards on your chairs and if you have a question, please jot them down. We know there will be questions to the side and my team will collect those and throw out some of the more interesting ones andpass them forward, thats the process of the q a. Chris, thank you for being here. [applause] thank you very much. Is this mine perhaps . Thank you. Thank you very much everybody. Its a pleasure to be here. Is this also necessary . Okay. Its great to have a chance to talk to you, im grateful to the arms control administration for inviting me. As indicated, darrell asked me to say a few words about the new administrations policy of Nuclear Weapons. Asthma at challenging assignment in that on these kinds of topics are still in the way as i outlined in my remarks this morning. I have a contest in march. Its a popular review and the Ballistic Missile defense review led by the department of sense are for example still in progress and we have also not yet completed our review of various arms control and arms related institutions, regimes and approaches. These are still ongoing. But yet of course it remains true that what our approaches to Nuclear Weaponry is agreeing on but we resolve to try to be forthcoming as i can and also mindful of the fact that we are apparently on the record and on camera. Not that we dont hold that to be in the business of doing these days. So to try to level set some baseline understanding of the approach that we are beginning to try to bring to these issues and frankly to try to reign in some of what i think is the more donald i assumptions that are sometimes made in Media Coverage about what the president has said on these weapons topics, id like to try to walk through some of that bit. Heres some of our tricks tell it, the administration is been shackled to an incoherent series of rants across the spectrum of nuclear issues, pronouncements and suggestions that actually taken as guidance as Nuclear Policy would result in essentially all the immediate catastrophe. I hope i can persuade you that the reality does not reserve that. To the contrary, there are concepts and insights that inform the president s comments, that will ground sound and effective us approach to nuclear strategy, an approach that you will see emerging time as our various policies find their course. So lets start with proliferation. The president s remarks duringlast years Election Campaign on nonproliferation in the east asia , have been widely the subject of much penryn as you see all over the place. They are often quoted essentially for shock value, apparently on the theory that they send signals some kind of cavalier attitude toward Nuclear Weapons and the challenge of proliferation. If thats your concern, i urge you to read assessor comments more carefully. The president has spoken about the proliferation dangers better doing on what he has made clear he feels to be a us course in recent years of relative military decline, a trajectory along which he has said our military has become depleted and are Nuclear Arsenal become outdated. In terms of our position the president has said and ill be intermixing quotes from time to time. Im not going to go through do the weird scare quotes thing but in terms of relative military capability the president has said we are not the same country as we used be. This decline has had a detrimental effect on our relationships and on peace and security in various regions. Incidentally, it is the impact, to this impact he has linked his likelihood about potential Nuclear Proliferation in south korea. Were we to allow this to continue, the New York Times, there could come a point is which we would be unable to respond if these allies called for our help in the wake of some terrible provocation. It is that, hypothetical point the future us weakness that the president suggested that might conceivably make sense for those countries confronted by an x essential threats to require Nuclear Weapons to defend themselves. After all, he said our allies, as we ourselves let our strength dk, i dont think they feel very secure. Indeed he said if the United States eats on, its great of weakness, they are going to want to have us strengthened geostrategic resolution wesley. He made a similar point Anderson Cooper around the same time. Characteristically, the president made his way in ways that are perhaps more plugs and more visuals here than traditional discourse but at their core i would argue these comments restupon a good deal of common sense. Moreover they rest upon some of the same arguments weve heard from nonproliferation rates for years. How many times have you heard us officials or think tax dollars went down to get the credibility and capability inherent in us deterrent. Relationships are essential to ensuring allies of the validity and thus also to reducing proliferation incentives in regions of the world in which us allies in front the specter of aggression by a rogue state or a large neighbor with territorial ambitions. Ive seen and heard that point made by many people over the years including dollars published by such diverse institutions as life down the road. The Brookings Institution next door, the National Institute of Public Policy and the National Bureau of research and also i myself have made as a protector. I dont think the president was wrong to fly one in which it mentioned it might be reasonable for such a wouldbe victim state to contemplate weaponization which is also a point ive made myself although not to Anderson Cooper. However, President Trump made it very clear the conditions of us decline and weakening deterrent credibility that might make such alliteration seem reasonable to the would be victims. His unacceptable outcome for this administration. The whole point in other words isthat we need to prevent proliferation from occurring for countries , the president has said clearly and with great clarity to the New York Times and in the first residential debate in september that proliferation is a huge threat to us National Security as well as interNational Security, he has said that in a range of concepts, i have a bunch of quotes here, Nuclear Proliferation is thebiggest problem world has. It is one of the very big issues. The Biggest Issue of our time. It is the single greatest threat, the greatest threat this country has. He spoke clearly suggested he could hardly have been more clear that he is intent. Now there are of course many tools with which one can and i would argue that we must fight a Nuclear Proliferation. A range of instruments i can assure you the administration is committed to pursuing including supporting International Nonproliferation regimes, securing or eliminating Nuclear Material worldwide, preventing the spread of dual use and other technologies and capabilities, ensuring effective safeguards of Peaceful Nuclear activity and interdicting shipments and otherwise doing what we can to slow the development of the press. The president made clear that he believes our chances of meeting the grave challenges of proliferation made clear that he believes our chances of meeting these challenges and arresting some of the dynamics of proliferation are better when the United States is strong and resolute then when we are not. So optimistic antiadministration hype aside, i would argue this at its core is a job maximally simple and consequential and its a central one to understand in the administrations approach to National Security policy in general and Nuclear Weapons issues in particular. The president underlying point about the importance of us strength and resolution to the preservation of peace and security is one that resonates through decades of us foreign and National Security policy. Defining traditional and even reaganite reasonings once again with Nuclear Weapons remain as novel today as in 2017 only become a come on the heels of policy as articulated by a view in which the United States explicitly prioritize reducing the role of us Nuclear Weapons in its Security Strategy over maintaining Strategic Deterrence and stability over strengthening regional deterrence and reassuring us allies and over saving face in a secure and effective arsenal. You will find that his support of the peace through strength idea is a motif that runs through all the president s comments about Nuclear Weapons and as for how we are approaching our current policy. Is a recurring theme i would say, one represents and shows the deep commitment to reducing nuclear danger. It is also one entered an appreciation for the role that american strength and resolve have found in Nuclear Posture and policy can play in helping ensure National Security and strategic stability. Our post of these issues is built on the understanding that us nuclear and conventional strength lies accommodation of assertiveness and strength to show in his possession preserving the security and peace. And his equivocal importance in preventing the nuclear contact these could suffer the ministration i have tried so hard to put the president is willing to counter. The president tends to express himself differently and more directly in such matters and most policymakers but i would argue that you can see this but im discussing quite clearly in his remarks which unmistakably suggest that foreign perception of us weakness and decline in the National Security has helped to produce a world in which aggression and conflict are more likely to remain stronger and more firm. He told Anderson Cooper last year that the Obama Administration that we dont want to get bigger. But he noted at that point in 2015 that nobody is afraid of our president , nobody respects our president. My context, the peace through strength approach to determinants could help forestall some of nuclear challenges that considered true american decline. The gq magazine he made clear that he intended to ensure our military is strong and respected and it was this strength and respect he felt would help us prevent Nuclear Weapons used by deterrence and aggression and would prevent proliferation. Thats the territory policy and for us territory policy the president has said in a Perfect World, anybody would agree using Nuclear Weapons would be so destructive that nobody would ever use them. Using them as confrontation would clearly be in his view a very bad thing. And as he put it to the New York Times, i would very much not want to be the first one to use them. Nevertheless, he has understand the importance to deterrence that meaning obtaining a degree of strategic ambiguity of not telling a potential adversary when we what or why not use such tools. Ultimately told today in april 2016 i dont want to rule out anything. And he hoped to b