New New START or New Finish?

Jeffrey Lewis 0:02

If you're not your pants, it doesn't work. You are listening to the Arms Control Wonk podcast, a podcast on arms control, disarmament, and nonproliferation. I'm Dr. Jeffrey Lewis, the founding publisher of the Arms Control Wonk blog and a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.

Aaron Stein 0:23

And I am Dr. Aaron Stein, Chief Content Officer at War on the Rocks. Jeffrey, it's good to see you again.

Jeffrey 0:30

Oh, Aaron, good to see you. You know, I... Part of the nicest bit about being at the Carnegie Nuclear Policy Conference is how many people like our op-ed on how deterrence is functioning between the United States and Russia, which is, I mean, it was good.

Aaron 0:50

It was good. I think you wrote that, we wrote it together with you on an Amtrak train across the country. Stranded. Stranded, I think you were in Chicago. And I've since wanted to write a follow-on piece, pitch it to you, and you keep saying, aren't we just saying the same exact thing? And I have to tell myself, you're right.

We're just saying the same exact thing. We are deterring the shit out of Russia, aren't we?

Jeffrey 1:15

We are. We are. And it's very interesting because I think that there has been so much news lately about how the United States and Russia are talking about nuclear weapons, which is the thing we want to discuss in the podcast. But the fundamental idea that the threat of nuclear war is in many ways constraining the actions of both parties in this conflict, people continue to forget or they obscure it because they're complaining about it because they don't like the fact that they're constrained from doing some things that they wish to do.

And so that Creates this kind of weird unreality in our conversation. But the reality is that nuclear weapons are really shaping the way that this conflict is playing out. And some interesting stuff is starting to happen in terms of messaging from the United States to Russia, both about conflict and cooperation. And I feel like we probably need to tease all these stories apart.

Aaron 2:20

Right, I think there's three distinct stories that are swirling around. I think they're being lumped together, but they are distinct, which is the possibility of US and Russian interlocutors talking about aspects of New START. Let's get to that later. There's the potential of a new start expiring without a new agreement. We'll also get to that later. But I think what we should start with is the Wall Street Journal report.

But I think we already probably knew, but it was good to confirm, is that the U.S. and Russia have been communicating throughout this conflict via Jake Sullivan, basically setting out clear expectations and red lines and what escalation and what would trigger escalation.

Jeffrey 2:59

Yeah. So, you know, I think this comes on the heels of some press reporting that suggested that the reason we saw such a reaction in mid-October from the Biden administration is that there was some sort of intelligence. It wasn't really explained whether it was signals intelligence, although that's what's implied. This was in, I think, the New York Times.

Yeah, it was New York Times. There was some sort of intelligence, probably signals intelligence, but might have been other kinds of intelligence that Russian generals or Russian high ranking officials, but not Vladimir Putin, were discussing the conditions under which they would feel compelled to use nuclear weapons. And the reporting was, by the way, the reporting was really good.

So I don't want to at all criticize the reporting, but it was very vague because it was a game of telephone. Which is we know there was a conversation, like probably on a telephone, that somehow got pulled into the U.S. system, which would have been translated, analyzed, briefed to policymakers, and then turned around and they would describe it to reporters.

And so we don't really know much of the details other than a subject came up It appears to have been scenario-based. We know nothing about the scenarios. We don't even know when the conversations happened, although that intelligence started circulating in Washington in mid-October. And the other great part of the reporting is it explains that that is why you saw this reaction from the Biden administration, where they began to reach out, I think publicly messaged, but also apparently also privately messaged.

That escalation to nuclear use would be a significant change in the situation and presumably our involvement.

Aaron 4:50

Yeah, the dynamics were around when the Russians started floating out that story that the Ukrainians were preparing for a dirty bomb attack, I think, around this apparition nuclear power plant and concerns that they were going to use this as a false flag for escalation. And if I'm And if I'm recalling correctly, the Biden administration, I think what was one of the major tipping points or concerns is that the Russians reached out proactively at the administrative defense level to sort of brief on this.

I think to the French, the Turks, I think ultimately to Secretary Austin. And you had counter messaging from the US with the UK and France. So the three sort of major nuclear powers reaffirming aspects of nuclear war shouldn't be discussed. Reaffirming aspects that nuclear war would lead to bad places. Let me say that again. Reaffirming aspects that nuclear use would lead to bad places.

Jeffrey 5:43

Yeah. And I should say, I wrote a small Twitter thread on this. This doesn't change. This doesn't lead to too much Bayesian updating for me in terms of assessing the risk that the You know, there's a fair amount of historical evidence of frustrated generals wanting to use nuclear weapons because they see it as almost a magic wand, right?

It's going to get them out of the predicament they're in. And I... Often when they sit down and think about it, they realize it isn't a magic wand. Or when it's briefed to policymakers, they realize it's not really going to get you out of it. But you can hardly blame a frustrated general who is angry and embarrassed and losing.

From lashing out or grasping for options. And, you know, the example I always give is a frustrated and angry Nixon was bullying Kissinger by talking about using nuclear weapons to destroy dams, to murder, and maybe also a drunk Nixon.

Aaron 6:54

I was making a motion of cocktail drinking on the Zoom.

Jeffrey 7:00

Yeah, you know, there's that famous transcript where I guess when Nixon would go to Camp David, he would just get hammered before and during the helicopter flight. And so by the time he got to Camp David, he was always just totally blotto. And so there's a very funny transcript where I think the British prime minister is trying to reach Nixon and Kissinger and Scowcroft are discussing it on the phone and they're like, you know...

I'm doing the Jonah Hill no sign with my hand here. No, no, he's gone. He can't talk right now.

Aaron 7:32

He's hiking the Appalachian Trail for the next four hours until he sobers up.

Jeffrey 7:36

That's right. He's hiking the Appalachian Trail. It is definitely the case that musing about nuclear weapons use is a thing that happens. And that talk is cheap. And so it doesn't surprise me that that stuff is happening. I think the Biden people were right to be like, whoa, hey, just FYI. So, you know, so I think they were right to take it seriously.

And I think the messaging was was was interesting. Pretty good. Although, as always, all U.S. government messaging runs afoul of my Swedish design preference for extreme minimalism and simplicity.

Aaron 8:20

Yeah. We'll call it the Ikea of wording. Flat boxes and quick and easy to put together. Yeah.

Jeffrey 8:27

I would only ever say two things, right? Which is that one... We are committed to providing Ukraine sufficient assistance that would allow it to prevail alone on the battlefield. Just full stop, right? We're committed to providing the assistance that will allow them to win. Nothing more. And then if you really want to talk about nuclear weapons, I think you would just make it clear that...

Vladimir Putin, and I would say Vladimir Putin, I wouldn't make this general. I would say Vladimir Putin is not going to win a nuclear war. And if you want to say nobody wins a nuclear war, that's fine. But I think just the only two things you say are, is that we're going to provide assistance that will deny him a conventional victory on the battlefield.

And just very sternly, but very minimally, that make clear that nuclear use does not provide an escalation path to victory for him either. And that's it.

Aaron 9:28

I would not say anything more than that. And no more Aeroflot flight attendants. I mean, you know, if those of us on the outside want to, like, you know, color it up.

Jeffrey 9:38

But I think maybe teasing him about his Aeroflot flight attendants maybe is – that's for you and me, Aaron.

Aaron 9:43

That's not for Lloyd Austin. And our dear listeners. But we're getting off topic. But the point is, is that following this, the Wall Street Journal released the stories that these messages are transmitted in person or at least sort of functionally in person directly from – Like the person who functionally speaks for President Biden, the National Security Advisor to the Russian government.

And so it is reaffirming that aspect of deterrence. It's not just in the release of messages. It's not just in sort of screen grabs for official Twitter accounts. It is coming verbally and that there is still a pathway for the Russians and the Americans to talk about these things, which I think we all welcome amidst You know, I think I agree it's musings.

It's nevertheless serious musings that people have to take seriously considering the stakes involved.

Jeffrey 10:33

Yeah, I mean, it's the funny thing about nuclear weapons. We are adversaries with the Russians right now. We are committed to ensuring that Putin swallows a humiliating defeat. That's about as hostile as it gets. And at the same time, we both have a shared interest in avoiding a nuclear war.

Aaron 10:56

Yeah. And I think we all agree that he does, too, which is why deterrence is working.

Jeffrey 11:01

Yeah. That's why I say it's a shared interest.

Aaron 11:04

Yeah.

Jeffrey 11:04

You know, we have a shared interest in mutual survival while at the same time we wish to do great harm to his military, his regime and his his hopes and dreams.

Aaron 11:17

While they are linked, they are separate. There's the deterrence problem, which I think we're handling well. But then there's the arms control problem, which not everybody agrees is a problem or something to be pursued. But I think the name of the show implies we do. There's an arms control problem that also must be managed as well. And there's been news about this as well.

And I think this is on two separate tracks, which is on... Resumption of New START inspections and the issue of the expiration of New START in general? And I think we have some reporting on that.

Jeffrey 11:51

Yeah. So the United States isn't, as far as I can tell, and I think there were U.S. government official statements to that effect, that the U.S. was not interested in negotiating with the Russians about a follow-on to START. Until they believed that the Russians were willing to negotiate in good faith. And they would sort of have a pornography definition of that.

We'll know it when we see it. And I think that's still true. At the same time, we have an arms control agreement with the Russians, the New START treaty, and inspections under that treaty have been suspended initially because of COVID. And I think that was a real reason for suspension. And I think there are Difficult technical questions about how you resume those inspections because the treaty doesn't spell out COVID protocols because it was negotiated before we imagined a pandemic.

Aaron 12:51

I'm going to stop you here just because the word has been so screwed up in our domestic political discourse. These inspections are highly managed. And so the issue of managing protocols, like say an inspector tests positive, it is something that can be hand-waved, but you would have to agree to hand-wave it. Or if you don't agree to hand-wave it, you'd have to agree on a series of how you would manage it if one of the countries had a problem with a COVID-positive person wandering around a military base.

Jeffrey 13:21

Yeah. And I mean, we, we see this with every meeting we go to where every organization decides for itself, some completely different COVID protocol. You know, the Carnegie COVID protocol was not at all like the COVID protocol for a meeting I had at NTI a few months ago. Right. They're just fundamentally different, right. Different requirements. People have different access to vaccines.

And so if you imagine you're now in a semi adversarial situation where we are having a very different COVID experience than the Russians are, that we have different vaccines, we have different stories about the efficacy of those vaccines, we have different measures. It's quite difficult, I think, to negotiate mutually agreeable procedures. Even if there weren't this additional complication, which is, you know, we are at the moment spending billions of dollars to kill large numbers of Russian soldiers who are doing something we think is bad.

So like that makes it harder to come to an agreement on this nominally, you know, pandemic related disagreement.

Aaron 14:36

Yeah, and if you step outside those red lines, as Jake Sullivan probably says, we'll vaporize you. But hey, we want to come visit. Yeah, that's right. Let's try to take a look at the nuclear vessels. Yeah, hey, come on. Let's put that aside. We're going to go walk around your base, even if your warheads are shrouded, and take some pictures.

Jeffrey 14:57

So this actually came up at the Nuclear Policy Conference where someone asked Alex Bell, the Deputy Assistant Secretary, about this issue. And, you know, Alex was clear that she really felt like You have to do things in order, first things first. And whatever kind of political spin people were putting on it or geopolitical spin, they had a job to do to work out the COVID protocols.

And it was not trivial. And so I think the rest of us can say, well, maybe the Russians are making it harder than it needs to be because they're angry. And sure, that's all true. But you have to get in the room. And you have to sit down and you have to see if you can work out the protocols.

And then that will tell you whether the Russians are dragging their feet or whether this is gonna get resumed.

Aaron 15:50

Yes, and I think that that is the recent news hook that we built this original show around, which is that there are reports is that there'll be in-person talks between the US and the Russians. I think the reporting is in Cairo that came from Bloomberg, but I also saw in Reuters. And when we sat down to take a look at it, that's part of the what's called the bilateral consultative commission commission.

Jeffrey 16:18

Do you remember when this was briefly during New Start ratification, a like subject of a Republican conspiracy theory? No, but has this all been this has all been this is faded from memory.

Aaron 16:35

No, I don't remember this.

Jeffrey 16:36

Yeah. I mean, OK, so Republican listeners, I mean, one of my frustrations with my Republican friends was the arguments they made against the treaty at the time weren't serious. Like I have objections to the New START treaty. Like there are technical issues with it that I don't like. And if we talk about extension later, there are things about it that are a problem and need to be fixed.

Yeah. But those were not the arguments that opponents made at the time. And so the big argument was that the Bilateral Consultative Commission, and this is what Mitt Romney actually said, would have broad latitude to amend the treaty with specific reference to missile defense.

Aaron 17:17

Oh, I remember. I do remember this.

Jeffrey 17:19

So basically they were like, oh, it's a secret negotiating. So basically they claim that it was going to be this secret negotiating forum by which the Obama administration was going to secretly amend the treaty to eliminate our our capacity to defend ourselves, which is like a straight up conspiracy theory.

Aaron 17:39

Right. But the broader context was Obama was caught on the hot mic with now since very drunk Dimitri Medvedev, who's very drunk and very prone to his telegram account and Twitter saying on a hot mic, he'll have more flexibility on missile defense after the election, I think, in 2012. That was the broader context.

Jeffrey 18:03

Yes. I mean, the most the most anodyne political statement ever from a political leader. Like, you know, after the election, things are easier. Like, yes, that is that is true of all elections. Yeah.

Aaron 18:15

Dimitri doesn't remember it, by the way, because he was he was pulling his best Richard Nixon at Camp David.

Jeffrey 18:21

Mean, it's sort of going to be hard to explain to future generations that people thought Medvedev might have been a, might have been a a softer reformist president following Putin. He's a whack job, but but they're getting the band together with the BCC. It's getting the band, yeah, they're going to meet in secret to amend the treaty to ban missile defense. It's

Aaron 18:44

Well, it seems like they're going to meet on the sidelines in Cairo, I should say, and maybe at the sides of the pyramids. And I think the actual point of this, and while it is linked to potential follow-on and new start, it's actually to work out the resumption of, to test the waters, let's say, of on-site inspections.

Jeffrey 19:05

That's right. They are not meeting in secret in Cairo to negotiate a world government agreement. No, I don't think so. Or a new start extension. They're just going to try to figure out what you do if an inspector comes down with coronavirus during an inspection. And, you know, we'll learn valuable things about whether the Russians plan to ever allow inspections again.

You know, they might not. They, you know, the Russians are in the ass right now.

Aaron 19:35

Yeah, they might not. But I don't think it's actually a signal for Well, there is some signaling involved in about the future of New START, but the New START treaty expires in early 2026. It's already been extended by the Biden administration. It cannot be extended again. We can talk about like sometimes they do lapse and they use the interim period to simply agree to continue it as if it were still in force as they have time to negotiate a new treaty.

But I think the backdrop to this with the war in the Ukraine and with the escalation dynamics that we were talking about makes this a lot more difficult than Republican concerns about the BCC.

Jeffrey 20:24

Yeah, I should probably just stop mocking. I'm just so bitter about the, you know, I have scars from listening to people talk about the BCC as like little starlights of madness formed in their eyes because, you know, yeah, there are other challenges. So I actually don't think, I don't know. I guess I am slightly skeptical that we're going to get a follow on to New Stark.

I'm of the mind this might be the last arms control treaty we get for a really, really long time. In part because we're not willing to limit defenses and all the interesting, annoying things that the Russians are doing are designed to defeat our defenses. So, like, I don't know what we have to talk about.

Aaron 21:15

Well, I think for listeners of the podcast, our pessimism about the future of arms control, because in addition to everything that's going on with the Russians, you'll have similar voices that are coming back pointing to the Chinese, right? And so the political hurdles will be far greater than they were in the past because people will want to make it a trilateral without being able to make, without being willing to make any of the concessions that would Satisfy or appease our adversaries in this regard.

Jeffrey 21:48

Yeah. I mean, it's, it's like Tom Brady's like, you know, on the, on the verge of a divorce with Giselle and he suggests like bringing another supermodel into their relationship. Like, man, you're not even good at the bilateral. Like you got, you're not, you're not doing yourself any favors here.

Aaron 22:05

Yeah, exactly.

Jeffrey 22:06

Yeah. As a, as a serious point though, and this was, this was related to the talk I gave to the CNS advisory board. We have, I think, so long been in the business of building things, like seeking treaties to make the world a safer place. We may well be entering into a period where all of the energy that we are expending is not in creating new treaties that will make the world safer so much as it will be trying to keep the world from getting more dangerous.

So it may be that we don't have any prospect of getting a new treaty, but possibly we could head off Huge numerical increases in our two forces, which I think could happen. We might want to head off, or three forces, we might want to head off a resumption of nuclear testing. I don't think we're going to get the CCBT ratified in the United States and China.

I will be satisfied if we can just keep all three parties from resuming nuclear testing. So we may be just entering a period where the balance of our activity is in keeping things from getting too much worse, more so than it is Having a proactive agenda to put in place things that make us safer.

Aaron 23:24

It's like hitting the reset button towards the early days of arms control. And I say that kind of as a joke, and I know you picked up on it because I saw you smile. So many of the dynamics remind me of like the early push for arms control, but obviously it already exists. But, you know, it's like reaffirming the like the basics of The next generation that's going to have to deal with this, because the hope that these, like, let's say, even with Obama in 2009, when he gives the product speech, and for all the problems with that, it was laying out a vision for deeper and further reductions, and I don't think that vision is actually ever going to happen. I see you rolling your eyes, but like, that's the point, is like, there was a, a recognition, at least on one side, is that we were moving towards further cuts, and I don't think that that recognition would even have like widespread political support now.

Jeffrey 24:15

Oh, I think we're not moving forward for the further cuts. I mean, I think the big fight, whether it probably not in this administration, but I think the big fight in the next administration is going to be, do we need more nuclear weapons? Totally. Right. So the stockpile stockpile number is going to go up and testing might resume.

Right. And I'm worried about those two things because I think that while I understand, you know, we, we are entering a dual arms race. And we're going to be deploying new capabilities in order to run that arms race. And I'm sort of bummed about that because the first arms race was scary as hell. I think people forget how frightening 1983 was.

I was eight. I still remember it. It was bad. But once we start running that arms race again, there's going to be a whole bunch of questions about what capabilities do we want? Which capabilities do we forego? Foregoing capabilities sometimes is a matter of just allocating money more optimally. But then ultimately, sometimes that's a matter of talking to your adversary to agree on mutually foregoing an outcome.

Because sometimes your dominant strategy for both of you results in a worse payoff, right? I mean, that's the very classic Tom Schelling prisoner's dilemma. Your optimal strategy selfishly leads to a worse outcome if you can't coordinate even with your adversary.

Aaron 25:39

Yeah, I can't say it any better than Tom. That's exactly right. Yeah, and I just think bringing it back full circle before we do the sign-off here, the terror... Is completely obvious in how people react on social media. And yes, social media is a bubble to even what I think is sort of asinine nuclear chatter about potential use in Crimea or in Ukraine and how fearful and how circular it becomes and how quickly people get consumed that we're on the precipice of escalation.

Now imagine that really amped up into an actual crisis.

Jeffrey 26:14

Yeah, welcome to the next 30 years, right? Like people have whitewashed How scary the Cold War was. And like, I'm sorry, I'm old enough. I remember it was terrifying.

Aaron 26:27

Right. And so that's the fear we're signing up for. And that's the ultimate paradox of nuclear weapons is that people count on them to ultimately guarantee your survival. It only works if you're shitting your pants. But you're terrified. So again, we should be a marketing- If you're not shitting your pants, it doesn't work. It's sort of like- Like a mass call for Xanax and for, you know, drinking too much wine to unwind at the end of the night.

Jeffrey 27:00

I mean, it's, it's one of these things that you often see in books and movies. And I think a lot of people, it doesn't resonate, but like the classic, like nice liberal thing is to be like, how can we bring a child into this world? And I think people don't understand what they're saying, which is, I don't want to have children just to watch them perish in a nuclear holocaust.

Like people were like genuinely afraid. You know, Alan Enthoven famously reported that the dudes at RAND didn't make retirement contributions because none of them expected to live that long. They were like, what is the point of a retirement contribution when we're just going to have a nuclear war? And we've like, because it didn't happen, we've forgotten that people lived with that terror, but they did.

Aaron 27:51

Right. And we're just seeing it reemerging. And I now imagine it amped up on the social media era. Oh, yeah.

Jeffrey 27:59

I mean, can you imagine the Cuban Missile Crisis with Twitter?

Aaron 28:02

It's going to be lit.

Jeffrey 28:04

Yeah.

Aaron 28:05

Well...

Jeffrey 28:07

Well, maybe if Twitter self implodes. Biden tweeting out, you know, satellite images of Russian missiles prowling around Belarus.

Aaron 28:17

I think this is the one advantage of having an octogenarian president, maybe not the most ambidextrous with his iPhone, is that he can't tweet late at night after one too many pinot grigios. But as is typical in arms control wonk fashion, our final sort of conversation takes us slightly off the rails. And it's always my job to bring it back.

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To do that, to join our Slack channel, you go to patreon.com slash acwpodcasts. $3 if you're a student, $5 if you are not, and join the most exclusive nuclear club on the planet. With that, Jeffrey, it's good to be with you. Good to talk to you, Aaron. And wishing everybody well and happy sipping.