In early May, CISAC convened the fifth Young Professional Nuclear Forum (YPNF), a program sponsored by the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University and the Moscow Engineering and Physics Institute (MEPhI). The program brought together a lively group of young Russians and Americans working on nuclear issues over three days.

Since 2016, the forum has alternated between Moscow and Stanford.  

By 2016, US and Russian governments closed almost every door on opportunities that previously allowed experienced nuclear professionals on both sides to cooperate with each other.  Stanford Professor Siegfried Hecker saw that at least one door - that of cooperation on the university level - was still open. He started the YPNF to foster interaction between the younger generation of Russians and Americans who study, do research, or start a career in the nuclear power or nonproliferation fields.

This year’s agenda focused on two major areas: US-Russian arms control and the future of nuclear power.

The American group included a new cohort of six incoming young professionals from Los Alamos National Laboratory, UC Berkeley, Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, and Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non‑Proliferation. They were joined by CISAC research staff members Gaby Levikow and Elliot Serbin and current and former fellows Chantell Murphy, Kristin Ven Bruusgaard, and Cameron Tracy. The Russian group from MEPhI brought a team of 12 young professionals most of whom are pursuing their graduate degrees in nuclear physics and engineering and software engineering, along with junior professionals in international relations and nuclear fields.  The team of experts included Professor Hecker, Dr. James Toevs, Dr. Ning Li, Ambassador Steven Pifer, Professor David Holloway, Dr. Larry Brandt, Dr. Chaim Braun, Dr. Pavel Podvig, and Dr. Mona Dreicer, —all of whom provided advice and feedback during the exercise.

Participants come from loosely defined “technical” and “policy” fields, and the forum agenda has traditionally included one nuclear-power related and one policy-focused subject. Forum activities vary between lectures, expert briefings, discussions, and table-top exercises, but the small-group work during the exercises is the core form of interaction.

By design, this agenda exposes each participant to new fields, new counterparts, some fun interactive time off - and encourages a lot of cultural learning. Forum after forum, we hear back that the group work and social time are the most exciting aspects of the forum experience. Participants noted they learned, among other things, “general ideas and thoughts of American participants and their attitudes to the present American policy, new words and abbreviations … [and] a great deal about new reactor designs and their implications for nuclear energy and security policy.”  Still more participants enjoyed “learning to collaborate in groups of Americans and Russians but also between policy and technical experts on topics of both camps,” and some “got new friends.”

Encouragingly, participants requested more interaction between the bi-annual meetings and a variety of topics in yet untapped – or suspended - areas of cooperation between Russia and the US.

New work continues to emerge from the forum. Eight short articles written by the young professionals to showcase the results of the projects from the Moscow meeting in November 2017 was published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in June 2019. The next meeting will be held in Moscow this November.

On Tuesday [June 4], the House Subcommittee on Strategic Forces debated the draft Fiscal Year 2020 National Defense Authorization Act.

It voted out, on party lines, language that prohibits deployment of a low-yield warhead on the Trident D5 submarine-launched ballistic missile.  That makes sense:  The rationale for the warhead is dubious, and the weapon likely would never be selected for use.

Read the rest at The Hill

This article originally appeared in the American Ambassadors Review (Spring 2019).

For nearly five decades, Washington and Moscow have engaged in negotiations to manage their nuclear competition. Those negotiations produced a string of acronyms—SALT, INF, START—for arms control agreements that strengthened strategic stability, reduced bloated nuclear arsenals and had a positive impact on the broader bilateral relationship.

That is changing. The Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty is headed for demise. The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) has less than two years to run, and the administration of Donald Trump has yet to engage on Russian suggestions to extend it. Bilateral strategic stability talks have not been held in 18 months.

On its current path, the U.S.-Russia nuclear arms control regime likely will come to an end in 2021. That will make for a strategic relationship that is less stable, less secure and less predictable and will further complicate an already troubled bilateral relationship.

Fifty Years of Arms Control

Bilateral nuclear arms control talks between Washington and Moscow began in 1969 with the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT). They resulted from a growing understanding that negotiated limits on the superpowers’ nuclear arms competition served the interests of both. Over the next five decades, arms control treaties and unilateral force decisions led the sides to reduce their active arsenals to 4,000-4,500 nuclear weapons each—down from a U.S. peak of more than 30,000 in the 1960s and a Soviet/Russian peak that exceeded 40,000 in the 1970s.

Early treaties such as the 1972 Interim Offensive Agreement and the 1979 SALT II Treaty (which never entered into force but whose limits were observed into the mid-1980s) merely slowed the growth of nuclear arsenals. Later treaties had a more dramatic impact. The 1987 INF Treaty banned the entire class of U.S. and Soviet land-based missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers. The 1991 START Treaty required the sides to reduce their accountable strategic nuclear warheads by some 40 percent while cutting strategic missile launchers and bombers by about 30 percent.

Arms control agreements often had a beneficial impact on the broader relationship. SALT helped advance détente in the early 1970s; progress on INF and START spurred an improvement in the overall U.S.-Soviet relationship in the late 1980s; and the relatively quick conclusion of New START gave a positive impulse to the Obama administration’s reset with Russia, even though the reset proved short-lived.

Today, the U.S.-Russian relationship has hit its lowest point since the end of the Cold War. Arms control, or the looming collapse of arms control, rather than helping, may contribute to a further deterioration of relations.

The Demise of the INF Treaty

The INF Treaty is on a death course. Russia violated the treaty by developing and deploying the 9M729, a prohibited intermediate-range cruise missile. Neither the Obama nor the Trump administration employed an effective strategy to persuade Moscow to return to compliance.

On October 20, 2018, President Trump announced that the United States would terminate the treaty, surprising allies and administration officials alike. NATO subsequently backed the U.S. decision, though European officials privately grumbled about a fait accompli. In early February, U.S. officials stated that they had suspended U.S. treaty obligations and given Russia the required six months’ notice of the U.S. intention to withdraw from the agreement. Russia then suspended its treaty obligations.

The United States could not remain forever in a treaty that Russia has violated. However, the way the Trump administration handled its departure amounted to diplomatic malpractice. Washington will get blamed for the treaty’s end.

There was a smarter way. First, U.S. officials should have informed their European counterparts in early 2018 that the United States would have no choice in 12–24 months but to leave the treaty if Russia did not correct its violation and urge them to apply political heat on the Kremlin, including at the highest level. Russia’s intermediate-range missiles cannot reach the United States; they threaten Europe and Asia.

Second, the U.S. military should have deployed conventionally armed air- and sea-launched cruise missiles to the European region to show that the Russian violation would not go unchallenged.

Third, NATO should have begun a study of long-term countermeasures, with one option being deployment in Europe of a conventionally armed U.S. intermediate-range ballistic missile. While the Alliance likely could not have found consensus to adopt that option, discussing it would have reminded military leaders in Moscow how much they disliked the U.S. Pershing II, whose deployment in West Germany in the 1980s proved key to securing the INF Treaty.

Fourth, U.S. officials should have indicated to their Russian counterparts that, if they addressed U.S. concerns about the 9M729 violation, the United States would consider ways to address Russian concerns that the Aegis Ashore missile defense facility in Romania could launch offensive missiles.

Would such steps have brought Russia back into compliance? Perhaps not, but they certainly would have increased the odds. Even if they did not succeed, they would have positioned Washington far better with its allies and put it in a stronger position to lay blame for the treaty’s end where it belonged—on Russia.

In the actual event, the Trump administration hardly tried. In January, Russian officials offered to exhibit the 9M729 to U.S. experts. U.S. officials could have taken that proposal and insisted on procedures for a meaningful exhibition. Instead, they flat out turned it down.

Much of the problem on the American side may lie with National Security Advisor John Bolton. He generally disdains arms control agreements as constraining U.S. capabilities and options (which is true, but they also constrain Russian capabilities and options). He had previously called for U.S. withdrawal from the INF Treaty.

Exhibitions of the 9M729 and Aegis Ashore facility could have opened a path to resolve each side’s compliance concerns, but Moscow and Washington have not shown the needed political will. It looks like the treaty will meet its demise in August.

Questions about the Future of New START

In contrast to the INF Treaty, Russia has complied with the limits of the 2010 New START Treaty, which required reductions by each country to no more than 1,550 deployed strategic warheads and no more than 700 deployed strategic missiles and bombers by February 2018. The United States also met the limits, though Russian officials question the adequacy of measures the U.S. military took to remove some strategic systems from treaty accountability.

New START by its terms will expire in February 2021, though the treaty allows extension for up to five years. Russian officials have proposed discussion of extension. In 2017, Trump administration officials said they would first have to complete the new nuclear posture review and see whether Russia met the February 2018 limits. Both of those boxes were checked more than a year ago. U.S. officials now say they are studying the question and see no rush.

New START extension should be a no-brainer. First, it would extend to 2026 the limits on Russian strategic forces and provide a mechanism to address new nuclear systems that the Russian military has under development. Second, extension would not affect U.S. strategic modernization plans, which the Pentagon designed to fit within New START’s limits. Third, extension would continue the flow of information that the U.S. military and intelligence community receive about Russian strategic forces from data exchanges, notifications and on-site inspections. That information lets the U.S. military make smarter decisions about how to equip and operate U.S. strategic forces.

When asked about extension, however, Bolton has raised two alternatives: renegotiation of New START or a treaty modeled on the 2002 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT). Neither holds much promise.

Renegotiation would allow Washington to try to improve New START, perhaps with additional verification measures or expanded limits to capture nuclear weapons not now covered by the treaty. But Moscow would seek changes as well, starting with limits on missile defense and conventional strike systems, both of which are anathema to the Trump administration. Renegotiation would take a long time and have, at best, an uncertain prospect of success.

As for the SORT model, SORT limited just warheads (though with no verification measures); it did not constrain strategic missiles and bombers. While Moscow accepted such an agreement in 2002, Russian officials since 2008 have made clear that a strategic arms control agreement must limit missiles and bombers, as does New START.

Bolton opposed New START when the Senate discussed its ratification back in 2010. Neither Secretary of State Mike Pompeo nor Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan seem to be advocates for the treaty. Although extension would be very much in the U.S. interest, the Trump administration appears inclined to let it expire.

No Strategic Stability Talks

U.S. and Russian officials in the past have held strategic stability talks to take a broad look at developments that affect their strategic relationship. Such talks are useful, particularly when new developments, such as those in the cyber and space domains, emerge and when Russian nuclear doctrine has provoked concern in Washington and led to changes in the U.S. nuclear posture. Even if strategic stability talks do not spin off specific negotiations, they provide a venue for the sides to exchange views and better understand the concerns of the other.

During the Trump administration, a one-day session of strategic stability talks took place in September 2017. As of March 2019, it has not agreed to a second meeting.

An Unsettling Future

For most of the five decades of U.S.-Soviet/Russian arms control negotiations, the American side took the lead. Moscow often struck a pose not of disinterest, but of less interest—likely for bargaining purposes. That is no longer the case. The Kremlin now faces a White House that attaches as little priority to reducing arms as it does—perhaps less. The U.S. President evinces no understanding of arms control, while his national security advisor apparently seeks to end it.

With the INF Treaty all but dead, New START’s fate uncertain after 2021 and no sign of new initiatives on either side, arms control as practiced for some 50 years may be coming to an end or, at a minimum, to a pause. That occurs at a time when Russia and the United States have significant nuclear modernization programs underway. While the bulk of those programs aim primarily to replace old weapons with new ones, the sides are also developing nuclear capabilities that neither previously had in its arsenal. Economic constraints may limit an all-out arms race, but the strategic nuclear relationship seems headed for uncharted territory.

The end of the U.S.-Russian nuclear arms control regime would have wider impacts. If the two nuclear superpowers no longer are reducing—and no longer limiting—their nuclear arms, what credibility will they have to insist that other countries, such as North Korea, forgo nuclear weapons or that third countries sanction proliferating states? Will China decide to adjust its nuclear posture and move from its current modest stockpile of under 300 weapons toward a larger and more diverse arsenal?

The current course will lead to a less stable and secure world. The United States and Russia will be less able to predict future developments on the other side and thus will have to make expensive worst-case assumptions. It will make for a more complex and dangerous relationship. Perhaps then they will recall the lessons of the 1960s and 1980s that arms control, however imperfect, can offer a useful tool for managing great power competition.

On January 18, 2019, Stanford Global Studies and the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE) hosted a book talk by Professor Michael McFaul. McFaul served for five years in the Obama administration, first as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council (2009–2012), and then as U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation (2012–2014). He is also one of several contributing scholars to Inside the Kremlin, SPICE’s lesson plan on Soviet and Russian history. McFaul’s talk was given to approximately 30 community college and secondary school educators from the San Francisco Bay Area. Three of the educators—Nancy Willet, Phillip Tran, Don Uy-Barreta—are 2018–19 Stanford Education Partnership for Internationalizing Curriculum (EPIC) Fellows, and this article highlights their reflections.

Ambassador McFaul has described From Cold War to Hot Peace as “three books in one.” First, it is a book that explains the arc of U.S.–Russia relations since the end of the Cold War. Second, it a book that describes the “reset” in U.S.–Russia relations and its aftermath during the Obama presidency. Third, it is a book about McFaul’s life that describes how his involvement with the debate team at Bozeman High School, Montana, sparked his interest in Russia and led to his subsequent study of Russia at Stanford University, Oxford University, and in Russia itself. During his talk, he touched upon all three.

McFaul’s reflections not only provided the educators with important content on U.S.–Russia relations and insights from his youth to his ambassadorship, but also prompted the educators to consider effective teaching and pedagogical strategies. McFaul’s use of storytelling, presentation of multiple perspectives, emphasis on interdisciplinarity, and sharing of first-hand accounts gave the educators a glimpse into McFaul not only as an academic and diplomat but as a teacher.

EPIC Fellow Nancy Willet, Co-chair of the Business & Information Systems Department, College of Marin, noted, “I was most impressed with Ambassador McFaul’s engaging storytelling. His first-hand insights of his time spent studying and working in Russia challenged some of my misguided assumptions and helped expand my understanding of the complexities of U.S.–Russia relations. I grew up during the Cold War and the Ambassador disrupted some of my deep-rooted misconceptions about the former Soviet Union and further opened my mind for a more nuanced understanding.” In a follow-up communication, Willet said that she is devouring From Cold War to Hot Peace and plans to share McFaul’s scholarly insights with her law students—particularly when discussing democracy and rule of law—here and abroad.

EPIC Fellow Philip Tran, Instructor of Business, San Jose City College, remarked that “Ambassador McFaul’s talk reinforced the complicated notion of human relations and the importance of an interdisciplinary study of it—including political science, business, economics, etc. Interdisciplinarity is a key to grasping a better understanding of human relations.” He continued by noting that the biggest take-away from McFaul’s talk was that it cautioned him as a teacher to “refrain from the natural ‘knee-jerk’ reactions and to seek a deeper understanding of the situation from all sides…. Even though Ambassador McFaul is a subject matter expert on U.S.–Russian relations, he displayed humility and acceptance of ambiguity in his responses to some of the toughest questions regarding the U.S. relationship with Russia and Vladimir Putin.”

EPIC Fellow Don Uy-Barreta, Instructor of Economics, De Anza College, reflected upon the significance of sharing first-hand experiences with students. He noted that “Reading about Ambassador McFaul’s experience is very informative, but being able to ask questions and hearing it from the source is a whole different level of experience. As he was telling us about his days in Russia, it felt like I was right next to him, and it gave me goosebumps.” Uy-Barreta found inspiration in McFaul’s talk as he prepares for his presentation on global economics at the EPIC Symposium on May 18, 2019 during which the 2018–19 EPIC Fellows will present their research at Stanford.

McFaul has given numerous talks on From Cold War to Hot Peace but this was the first geared to an audience of educators. As I observed his talk, I was primarily attentive to the pedagogical strategies that he utilized to engage the educators. For me, his effective teaching made the history and insights in From Cold War to Hot Peace come alive and feel more like “four books in one.”

This book talk was made possible by a U.S. Department of Education Title VI grant that provides professional development opportunities for K–12 teachers and community college instructors. Among these opportunities is EPIC, a program that provides one-year fellowships to community college instructors. Title VI grant collaborators include Stanford Global Studies (SGS), SPICE, Lacuna Stories, and the Stanford Graduate School of Education’s Center to Support Excellence in Teaching. SGS’s Denise Geraci and SPICE’s Jonas Edman organized and facilitated the talk by Ambassador McFaul.

SPICE also offers professional development opportunities for middle school teachers and high school teachers. To stay informed of SPICE news, join our email list or follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

This article originally appeared at Radio Free Europe/Gandhara.

Political scientist Asfandyar Mir has studied security affairs in South Asia for years. Now a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University, Mir explains the latest developments, old conflicts, and potential conflagrations in the ongoing crisis between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan.

RFE/RL: Where do you see the military situation moving after India and Pakistan engaged in what appears to be retaliatory air strikes and cross-border shelling?

Asfandyar Mir: The current stand-off between India and Pakistan hasn't fully de-escalated, but it isn't as tense as it was some days ago. After Pakistan retaliated with air strikes against India on February 27, the crisis intensified -- it appeared the Indian government was considering a follow-on retaliation. In that backdrop, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan's gesture of returning the Indian Air Force pilot, captured by Pakistan after his plane was shot down, lowered the political temperature, eased the situation somewhat. That said, military forces on both sides remain mobilized in large numbers, and the Indian government still hasn’t given a clear-cut signal of wanting to de-escalate.

RFE/RL: Do you see the current leadership in India and Pakistan as capable of deescalating given the domestic pressures they currently face?

Mir: The leadership of the two countries has different political incentives. On the Indian side, Prime Minister [Narendra] Modi still has incentives to re-escalate. He is going into a national election. His government’s economic performance has been weak, so he appears to be relying more on foreign policy issues like confronting Pakistan -- an issue the Indian electorate cares about. Pakistan’s shooting down of the Indian aircraft and capturing of the air force pilot also deeply embarrassed him and his political party, the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP).

On the Pakistan side, two leaders matter: Prime Minister Imran Khan and chief of the country's powerful army, General Qamar Bajwa. After the first Indian military raid, both were left embarrassed before their key domestic audiences: Khan in front of his voter base and Bajwa in front of his officer corps.

However, Pakistan's retaliatory strikes not only reversed that damage but enhanced their domestic political standing. Now both the leaders want a deescalation. Khan has made his first move to deescalate. He is also insisting with a dialogue offer to India on terrorism on India's terms. What he hasn’t done and could do to defuse the situation is a crackdown against the group behind the February 14 terror attack, Jaish-e-Muhammed.

Khan, however, would need Bajwa’s support for such a crackdown. It remains unclear whether Bajwa would agree. The Pakistani military hasn’t acted against Pakistan-based jihadis operating in Kashmir. Instead, it has seen them as valuable allies in confronting India in Kashmir.

RFE/RL: What happens to the Kashmir issue now?

Mir: We remain very far from any meaningful progress on the dispute over Kashmir. In recent years, India has intensified its crackdown in Kashmir against violent and non-violent separatist groups. India also employs a heavy-handed counterinsurgency strategy, which frequently targets the civilian population. As a result, resentment in the Kashmiri population toward the Indian state remains very high. The Indian government continues to see a coercive approach instead of a political approach involving concessions as the way forward in the disputed region.

Pakistan also remains firm in its territorial claim over Kashmir. Given India’s unwillingness to make concessions and the deep alienation in the region toward the Indian state, Pakistan is likely to continue political and military support for the insurgency in Kashmir.

RFE/RL: What dangers do jihadi groups present to Pakistan?

Mir: It is commonly assumed that jihadi groups operating against India in Kashmir pose a direct threat to Pakistan. This was true a decade ago, when factions of Kashmir-focused jihadi groups defected toward transnational jihadis like Al-Qaeda. It appears that the process has stopped. Major Kashmir-focused jihadi groups based in Pakistan do not challenge the Pakistani government. These groups have also consolidated control over their cadres, preventing fragmentation toward Al-Qaeda and [the ultra-radical] Islamic State (IS).

This is not to say there are no indirect bad effects of such groups on Pakistan. These groups spawn a large jihadi infrastructure, which is a source of radicalization in the country. Pakistan continually faces international opprobrium, even from its allies like China privately, for allowing such groups to operate from its territory.

RFE/RL: What has the international community's role been in the current crisis?

Mir: [U.S.] President [Donald] Trump made an important statement in Hanoi on February 28, suggesting that the U.S. government has been involved in mediating an end to the India-Pakistan crisis. Besides the U.S., Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, China, and Russia have sought to deescalate the tensions.

Overall, Pakistan is under pressure from the international community for not doing enough to curb anti-India jihadi groups. Still, it is striking that beyond condemnation, the U.S. and other major powers have not pledged any material support to the Indian government like sanctions against Pakistani leadership or military support for Indian operations.

RFE/RL: Did nuclear weapons play a role in the current crisis?

Mir: Nuclear weapons have played a role. Following the first Indian air strike on February 26, the Pakistani military spokesman stated that the government was activating the body which decides the deployment and use of nuclear weapons. This was a clear-cut signal by Pakistan that it would use nuclear weapons if the crisis exacerbated. I believe that deterred a sizable Indian response after Pakistan conducted its retaliatory strikes on February 27.

Following the abrupt ending of the highly anticipated second bilateral summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Hanoi, APARC and CISAC scholars evaluate the result of the summit, its implications for regional relations in Northeast Asia, and the opportunities moving forward towards the goal of denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.

This Q&A with Noa Ronkin features Andray Abrahamian, the 2018-19 Koret Fellow in Korean Studies at APARC, whose work with the nonprofit Choson Exchange has taken him to the DPRK nearly 30 times; Siegfried S. Hecker, top nuclear security expert, former Director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Research Professor of Management Science and Engineering, Emeritus, and Senior Fellow at CISAC/FSI, Emeritus; and Gi-Wook Shin, Professor of Sociology, William J. Perry Professor of Contemporary Korea, Director of APARC, and founding Director of the Korea Program.