Toward a Fundamental Change in Nuclear Weapons Policy Conference

Toward a Fundamental Change in Nuclear Weapons Policy Conference

United States Capitol Visitor Center

April 27, 2017

PANEL #1

THE GROWING DANGER OF NUCLEAR WAR – POTENTIAL FLASHPOINTS:

HOW A WAR MIGHT START

Introduction

Laicie Heeley

Fellow, Stimson Center Budgeting for Foreign Affairs and Defense Program

This is an edited transcript.

HALL: I would like to introduce the Moderator for our first panel at this point, "The Growing Danger of Nuclear War -- Potential Flashpoints: How A War Might Start." Our Moderator is Laicie Heeley. Laicie Heeley is a Fellow at Stimson Center working on budgeting for Foreign Affairs and Defense. Her areas of expertise include U.S. budget process, defense strategy and nuclear weapons proliferation.

Prior to joining Stimson, Ms. Heeley was Policy Director at the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation where her research focused on nuclear proliferation in emerging states such as Iran and North Korea, as well as budgeting and strategy at the Department of Defense.

We're honored to have her with us here today. Please join me welcoming to the podium Laicie Heeley.

HEELEY: And at this time, I'll also ask my panel to just go ahead and make your way up. Thank you so much Hank for having me. Thank you all for being here. I'm very excited about this panel in particular; a very, very distinguished expert group that we have. I'll let them make their way up.

And I'll just point out that most Americans, I think many in the room are probably aware when asked about the greatest national security threats today are likely to say terrorism, probably ISIS specifically, maybe Russian hacking, maybe depending on their political party today, an erratic and unpredictable President.

Nuclear weapons however conjure up images of mushroom clouds and very serious men in dark back rooms making decisions with red buttons that they can never possibly hope to influence. However the issue is really so big and to most people so old and far removed from their day-to-day lives that they just shut down. But the nuclear threat is still the most consequential we face today. And that's really what we're here to talk about.

From confrontation between India and Pakistan, to the growing body of evidence that North Korea has increased bomb production capacity, to the possibility of a nuclear accident, to say nothing of Russia and China - the threat today is very real. And a substantial recent investment in nuclear weapons may actually have increased this threat rather than decreased it.

More highly qualified experts are here to join me today. I will not read all of their bios as you do have them in your very extensive packets. However, our order of events today will be as follows:

Dr. Mian will cover South Asia. He's a Physicist and Co-Director at Princeton University's Program on Science and Global Security, where he also leads the project on Peace and Security in South Asia.

Joshua Pollack is the Editor of The Nonproliferation Review and a Senior Research Associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. He will discuss North Korea and Northeast Asia and the risks of war and nuclear war involving both North and South Korea.

Dr. Shen Dingli well is a Professor and Associate Dean at Fudan University's Institute of International Studies and will cover U.S. and China.

And Dr. Bruce Blair is the Co-Founder of Global Zero, the international movement for the elimination of nuclear weapons worldwide and will cover two topics for us today; U.S., Russia and the possibility of accidental nuclear war.

Following their presentations we'll have a short break and then we'll come back for questions and answers. So, just so that you all know the order of events I will go ahead and turn it over to Mian who will be first.