russia relations the future of efforts to reduce the nuclear arsenals of both countries the touchstone of this effort is the first karmas reduction treaty start one which significantly reduce u s and russian nuclear arsenals and included unprecedented transparency verification and data sharing provisions it was a foundation of the us russia post cold war relationship and heralded a new era in which armed missiles some marines and bombers were being dismantled and destroyed it seems that both countries were beginning to emerge from the doctrine of mutually assured destruction in which security was measured in terms of the massive destruction that each could inflict on the other this treaty however will expire in early december taking with it the carefully negotiated in detail verification and inspection regime that has been so important in building trust between moscow and washington in march both president obama and president medvedev announced their joint intention to agree on the terms of a successor agreement to start one by july in april president obama restated his commitment that the u s will seek a and i quote a new agreement by the end of this year that is legally binding and sufficiently bold and this will set the stage for further gods and we will seek to include all nuclear weapons states in that endeavor this is a tall order but one that so far both the u s and russia seem willing to accomplish the vice president has famously called for pressing the reset button in the u s russia relations this new treaty would do that in the arena of strategic nuclear arms reduction but it is also a placeholder for the real nuclear arms reduction treaty given that this is the committee's first hearing in quite some time on these important matters i think it's important to take a step back and review some of the fundamental a first key question are reductions in u s russia and others nuclear arsenals a good with a few exceptions nearly everyone agrees that few or no clear weapons makes for a better more stable world it is after all the basis of our nuclear nonproliferation significant unilateral reductions unanswered by russia and other powers are probably unwise but i'm convinced that significant bilateral or multilateral reductions are in the u s national i believe the only appropriate role for nuclear weapons is to deter the use of nuclear war by others there was no other reasonable real world scenario i've seen that justifies any other mission if you agree with this judgment in the us and russia and indeed other declared nuclear states can drastically cut their nuclear arsenals i can't fathom that a us president would authorize the use of nuclear weapons against a non nuclear threat knowing that the consequences would be the crumbling of the entire nuclear nonproliferation regime other states would rush to acquire nuclear arms if for no other reason than to defend themselves against a us and us united states willing to use such weapons against a state that is not used or even poses some argue that we may need to use nuclear weapons against chemical or about chemical or biological weapons or deep underground facilities ignoring asserting that the capabilities of advanced conventional weapons to do the same job is very strong it would be irresponsible to ignore the impact of our first use of nuclear weapons on the long term national security state our allies do a task great importance to the so called us nuclear umbrella of extended turns and we need to be mindful of their interest but there is no longer a soviet union and a warsaw pact poised to send ways of tanks and infantry into western europe nor do i believe that china will see an empire in east asia based on conventional conquest in this is also important to note that terrorist groups can't be deterred with the threat of nuclear attack much of the debate about the use of nuclear weapons seems divorced from reality it often seems that proponents of retaining large stockpiles of nuclear weapons are casting about for any however farfetched to justify or higher numbers of nuclear weapons for their own sake therefore if the mission is really limited to did during a nuclear attack then both the us and russia should be able to reduce the number of deployed in reserve warheads significantly below the levels contemplated in the two thousand and two moscow treaty and lower than the levels reportedly contemplated in the star one successor agreement now being negotiated secondly i would argue that the retention of significant levels of nuclear weapons by united states does harm our national security interests in other  longer the nuclear weapons are seen as the hallmark of a great power then the greater the incentive for other states to also pursue acquire and accumulate their own nuclear arsenals to attain the same recognition influence this is there is probably not a hard linkage between reductions in the u s nuclear arsenal and the efforts by iraq north korea and others to acquire a nuclear capability but the us retaining more weapons and needs provides a useful pretext for these and other countries to argue that we are insisting on a double standard that on the one hand we want to deny developing countries their right to peaceful nuclear energy as provided  under the n p t treaty and nonproliferation of nuclear weapons but on the other hand we are not upholding our commitment under the same n p t along with russia china the united kingdom and france to quote pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and two new and two nuclear disarmament when other countries do not believe that the united states is  serious about fulfilling this legal obligation they are less inclined to support or gration activities for them the in international nuclear nonproliferation regime is fundamentally discriminatory and only serious progress on nuclear disarmament by the united states and russia who still possess proper some of the ninety five percent of the world's nuclear weapons can reduce and eventually eliminate discrimination that leads to the next question is it a good idea to pursue a legally binding treaty on reduction and legally binding verification provisions and i'm going to do something i don't do it myself an additional two minutes of the last administration clearly thought the answer was no they conceived of arms control as an exercise between enemies once the soviet union dissolved it was said there was no longer a need for a legally binding arms control agreements however the real objective seems to be that such agreements and there are intrusive verification and monitoring provisions needlessly constrained of electability of u s forces for other missions as i've argued i believe the need for such flexibility makes no sense when considering the appropriate role of nuclear weapons in two thousand and two the bush administration concluded fencer reductions or start but this agreement does not include any monitoring or verification the fact that the start one verification regime remained in force compensated for the lack of verification measures in the moscow treaty but as we contemplate willingness by the united states to make significant concessions in order to reach a deal moscow's highest priority is to place limits on our missile defense programs a second objective is to impose significant reductions on conventional capabilities such as our non nuclear cruise missiles launched from submarines experts on russia's behavior and russian policies point to the frequent statements from russian leaders that they are pleased with the progress to date in the close as an indication that russia is making headway in securing concessions from the u s on these and many other important issues the u s has already indicated that our plan deployment of ground based missile defense components in europe is on the table but a retreat  missile defense in europe would set a dangerous precedent for similar restrictions worldwide and would ensure that the american people remain vulnerable to nuclear ambitions by others  north korea's believed to be planning to launch its next missile at home why this possibility is regarded by the pentagon as sufficiently serious that secretary gates has quickly beefed up our missile defenses there this retreat from european missile defense would also put our forces abroad and other critical allies such as israel and japan in peril from countries such iran and north korea whose increasingly capable missiles are being prepared to carry nuclear and other unconventional weapons payloads arms control for arms control is what appears to be guiding these negotiations and it simply does not work as ronald reagan demonstrated it is only when the u s negotiate from a position of strength in the weapons that actually threaten are possible protecting our population from the struction is a strength not a weakness and it should not be negotiated away or a piece of paper filled with russian promises the russians know that our deployment in europe of defenses against iranian missiles cannot be used against them it's a phony argument that they're using to demonstrate that their former subject nations in central and eastern europe that moscow still exercises a veto over their foreign policies and security measures as for the unnecessary limits on our conventional weapons system such as cruise missiles and bombers moscow is claiming that because these could be deliver delivered nuclear weapons even though they have never been configured for that purpose they must be limited also this is absurd and we should be we would be foolish to accept this limitation on our conventional weapons capabilities worldwide there is yet another consideration that needs to be raised namely that the new limits on the u s strategic arsenal under a binding treaty with russia might mean for our security in the future if china decides to deploy a vastly expanded strategic arsenal there are some who say that the u s does not need to be concerned about this scenario after all they say china has a very small number of  in the future given the nature of the chinese military planning and operations there can be no guarantee that beijing will not choose to directly challenge us it has already built a mass of missiles aimed at taiwan that not only poses an increasing threat to that nation but also to the u s military forces pledged to its defense i will soon be introducing a resolution that calls on the president to ensure that any agreement with russia ostrich farm does not leave us unable to defend ourselves as against the build up by china or any other country i also recently introduced house resolution three nineteen expressing saw strong support for our continued missile defense efforts in europe i know the concerns about conceding to russia on missile defense has been at the heart of the discussions in the armed services committee particularly during committee consideration of bents authorization bill that is on the house floor this week i'd like to state my strong support for an amendment being offered by mr turner to prevent funding for the implementation of any reductions in our  nuclear forces that may result from a treaty between the u s and russia unless the president certifies that the treaty does not place any limits on our missile defenses this amendment has bipartisan support on the armed services committee i strongly urge my colleagues on this committee to vote for this amendment and thereby ensuring that the american people are not forced to live under the threat of a nuclear attack this amendment is that the heart of our hearing today mr chairman why is the u s prepared to trade our defenses based on the promise of potential russian cooperation on other issues that is the question i posed to our witnesses today as it currently stands it  stanford university joining appointment at the f s a in the school of engineering on the board of directors of l g s bell labs innovations and several emerging high tech companies the chairman of global technology partners secretary perry was this country's nineteenth secretary of defense serving from february one thousand nine hundred four to the beginning of one nine hundred ninety seven he previously served as deputy secretary of defense and undersecretary of defense for research and engineering secretary perry recently served as chairman of the congressional commission on the posture of the united states this commission issued its final report which includes recommendations printing pertaining to the size and mission of the u s nuclear arsenal ambassador thomas graham jr executive chairman of the board of saurian power a u s funded company that conducts research on nuclear power  is also the chairman of the board of for peace and security a charitable foundation established to provide long term support to selected arms control nonproliferation and conflict strategic studies and missouri state university dr prange served in the department of defense as deputy assistant secretary of defense for forces policy in this position he was the head of u s delegation and numerous allied consultations and working group two negotiations b m d cooperation with the russian federation general we're really pleased to have you here and  want to begin by relating findings of the commission and the task force to the emerging administration policy as it has been expressed by president obama in his speech in prague in april first of all president said we have faced with an emerging throughout nuclear proliferation of nuclear terrorism but he's dead we must continue to hedge against the possibility of a resurgence of an old that the commission and the task force strongly agree with that  both the commission and the task force agreed that binding to question a third president said that success in preventing flipper ation depends on cooperation from all nations especially the other nuclear powers and getting that fo cooperation entails progress in disarmament by the united states and russia the commission and tasked with both agree to that although i must say some of the members thought that the link between those two points would we whereas others thought it was strong all agreed that the fourth very important point on missile defense the commission said we should move forward on missile defense and europe as long as the threat from iran persists and we should seek to find some way of cooperating on this with the russians who are after all threatened by this nuclear missiles in iran at least as much as we are the commission agreed with those findings there are some differences in commission members on the relative emphasis but i missile defense we all agreed on that basic finding that we should move forward and we should find a co op of cooperation with the russians he talked about civilian nuclear programs in our view we should get the loose  material under control but find a new international framework of enrichment processing again both the commission of the task force agreed on those points the president said we should seek a world without nuclear weapons and that therefore we should seek in the meantime to reduce the number and salient a nuclear weapons body said as long as nuclear weapons exist we need to maintain a safe secure and reliable deterrence all of the members supported his statement about the deter maintaining deterrence and all of them is supported reducing the numbers of nuclear weapons provided it was done by loudly but some in the commission did not believe that a world without nuclear weapons is feasible and a few of them thought even if it's feasible it is not desirable so our commission is split on that aspect of it but in a statement the president said quite explicitly we should seek new treaties  start follow on treaty and the commissions and the task force both agreed on them desirable is seeking a new start treaty the fissile material cut off treaty again both agreed and that the president said he would seek gratification of the comprehensive test ban treaty i strongly agree with that conclusion i believe the united states cannot assume leadership in stopping political relations if we do not ratify this treaty the council on foreign relations task force also agreed that binding movies take you out of geisha in the t t bt the commission on the other hand split right down the middle on that about half of us agreed with that binding and the other half disagreed and in the commission recommended that be at two stage that approaching strategic arms to be a two stage process the first age desirable a completed before the expiration of the old start treaty which is going to be this december and therefore the commission very clearly and explicitly said keep it simple and keep it modest do not try to make a big reduction or do not try to move forward with bold new ideas keep it simple and modest the second page they're going to involve difficult issues talk a little bit about those that are going to take much longer and be much more controversy we went on to say that we are on to observe that the strategic watch your commission short inform both the administration and the congress on the nuclear posture review which is now in preparation and the nuclear posture review should inform the arms control strategy and deed i believe that is happening th first phase of the nuclear posture review as i understand it is focused on the near term treaty and that part of the the nuclear posture review is essentially finished the second stage of nuclear part two you will be focused on the longer term and more difficult arms control issues in that part just getting underway a broader arms control strategy should consult with allies and with friends especially those covered by extended terms i want to make a major point that our commission put a major effort into this at many meetings with allies and their views are clearly we've elected in our report and we understand that this confrontation is already to sustain that deterrence we understand those recommendations have been received quite positively by the administration and a basically a fundamental but to that portion of the nuclear posture review as just being  now on the second issue which is my contact with the russians i've got an excellent opportunity to see how these issues are regarded by the russians i have made for recent trips to moscow the most recent of which i just returned from i've talked with a number of russian technical experts a number of duma members key government leaders including the president the foreign minister and the national security advisor now i might say rather that agree i maintained a dialogue on security issues w russian colleagues for thirty years and during the time i was secretary of defense i work very closely with the russian government in the dismantlement of nuclear weapons in the former soviet republic under the so called nine boogaard program nevertheless i had stopped visiting russia in two thousand and seven and two thousand and eight because i got the relations between our two countries have become so strained that a constructive dialogue become impractical but this february as  security conscious and munich vice president biden said it was time to press the reset button on u s russian relations many predicted in fact i thought myself the directions would be active that was cynicism always skepticism i had an opportunity to test this firsthand in march when i visited moscow by meeting chaired by former prime minister primakov and former secretary of state henry kissinger the highlight of this meeting was a discussion was confident that our two presidents would have a positive and constructive meeting and that confidence was justified by the summit meeting in april and i believe it will continue to be just by next month at the summit meeting in moscow the russians are strongly opposed to a system in eastern europe they believe that accounting rules agreed to and sort i just advantageously them and they have not agreed to include non state nuclear weapons in which they have a large numerical advantage all of these are very important and very critical i believe that these issues will not prove to be a barrier to the star follow on being negotiated this year i can see a suitable compromise being worked out with accounting rules for start follow on and i believe that both sides will agree not to consider non state nuclear weapons this year however there will be very difficult  difficult issues and any follow on agreement on balance i believe that we can negotiate our star follow on that is compatible with our security but that in doing so both chairman honor to appear before the members of this very important committee have been here a number of times in the past and it's always a pleasure to return i will try hard international leader to call president bush we opened our bases in central asia we provided logistical support to the northern alliance and what happened  time the truth may be somewhere between those two extremes but the result of that has been to cancel the us russian nuclear cooperation agreement which was many a new post started reman by the end of this year i would like to take a few minutes to make a point about the apparent direction of this engagement because some of the early indications are somewhat troubling conclusions of the nuclear posture review that is just under way in the pentagon identifying specific arms control ceilings now prior to the conclusions of this study would be putting the cart before the horse second the russian and russian president medvedev said that russia would like a number of these launchers to be reduced several times below the sixteen hundred permitted now that is a smart position for russia it's a very bad position for us  because the number of employed russians strategic i c b m s s l b m as embalmers will drop dramatically with or without a new arms control agreement based soley on russian sources it's possible to anticipate that within the next eight to nine years the number of russian strategic launchers of dropped from approximately six hundred eighty today to fewer than half that number simply as a result of the aging of their system and the pace of their simply my conclusion it's a conclusion of russian officials and russian commentators as expressed in russian publication on the bad and go shooting principle of giving up something for nothing there will be serious downsides for the united states third the forthcoming negotiations appear to exclude the entire arena of non strategic nuclear weapons tactical nuclear weapons yet this is where russian maintains most of its nuclear arsenal according to open sources russia has approximately four thousand deployed tactical nuclear weapons that's an astonishing ten to one numerical advantage over the united states russian tactical nuclear weapons are of greatest concern with regard to the potential for nuclear war and the potential for nuclear proliferation they should be our focus at the administration appears to have already agreed to negotiate only strategic forces at this point if that position holds it will be a serious mistake for the russian side has demanded numerous additional limits on other u s capabilities as the price to be paid for an early agreement on strategic nuclear forces for example president medvedev recently said that strategic reductions are only possible if the united states russian concerns about and i quote u s plans to create a global missile defense in fact no limits on u s missile defense are necessary for significant reductions in russian strategic forces launchers and more have no limits are necessary and the need for us b m d capabilities could not be clearer given recent north korean nuclear missile rattling and iranian political upheaval u s ballistic missile defense is not about russia yet the russians are demanding this linkage it would seem self evident to clude limits on u s ballistic missile defen as a price to be paid for an agreement that requires nothing of the russians discarding the systems they plan to eliminate in any event and will not touch the real problem i e russian tactical nuclear  weapons before establishing new nuclear arms control in which it would seem reasonable to resolve russian violations of existing arms control agreements in my opinion the most important these violations has been discussed openly in russian publications the russian testing of  six then finally president obama has endorsed the goal of nuclear disarmament and some have suggested that the post engagement with russia should be seen as a useful step towards nuclear zero the congressional posture commission rightly concluded that for nuclear as zero to be plausible there would have to be a fundamental transformation of the world order that a dramatic transformation would be necessary for nuclear to be plausible suggest that taking steps now  not to be predicated on that elusive goal any new agreement should be judged on its own merit not on its potential for moving towards nuclear not in the hope that it constitutes a step towards nuclear  these are the six major concerns i have with regard to the apparent early direction of the administration's effort to reestablish start or start like negotiations as a centerpiece of u s russian engagement it's important to establish the right agenda at the beginning of negotiations if the results can be unacceptable no matter how well our team negotiates appreciate this opportunity to share my concerns you know thank you  because no one else is here i'm going to yield myself as much time as it takes for someone else  and the ranking member in her opening statement a number of i thought interesting questions which should be dealt with d raised some of those and a number of other ones as well so it seemed to me good to get a little dialogue going among the panelists on a few of those issues first on the issue of the urgency of doing it as i understand it because it started to expires in december all of the verification provisions at that point if there is not a new treaty will disappear the limits will still apply but there are no verification procedures under sort isn't that in and of itself a reason from our national security interests to want a new treaty in  proceeding promptly with the start of the first one is the one you mention which is this the start treaty does expire in december and that is the only treaty that has the verification procedures which i think quite important i would add to that as possible if we reach that point and still do not have the treaty is possible that we could get an extent extension of the start treaty i think much better solution is actually having the new start treaty vote on treaty ready at that time that's what i would recommend beyond that point and not directly related and importantly indirectly related to continuation they just start with russia and containing the iranian nuclear program so that's an indirect i think very important reason for moving ahead i'm dr payne let me just hear your thoughts on both of dr point and on the first point for the purpose of maintaining a verification process you either are going to need a new treaty or you're go need a mutual agreement to extend the current treaty i think be extended for five year blocks i guess the parties could have could agree to something different  i also agree with dr perry that we need to work closely with the russians on counterproliferation and on counterterrorism seems to me that that ought to be the focus where we work with the russians at this point in addition to extending the  i think it's very important to include a start treaty that can be accomplished the relationship that we've had with russia has been so bad for so many years and they are essential to our is is very important to them as a practical matter given the changes that are being contemplated not just the reduction to fifteen hundred but the accounting rules and verification changes i think it's unlikely that it will be completed by the end of the year that it will be enforced by the end of the year may be completed by the end of the year but still ratification in our senate will be required and i just mentioned there is a and i just don't think i mean we have to go so far to make real progress to make this world more secure or as i said in my opening in afghanistan gave an interview yesterday to al jazeera and he said quote god willing the nuclear weapons will not fall into the hands of the americans about the pakistani weapons and the m arsenal and the whole issue of deterrence with iran north korea pakistan and other countries  to india as it relates to their nuclear development part of the nonproliferation treaty how does that factor in if we're talking about a world with nuclear weapons i mean i guess i have to plausible your question is absolutely right when is this possible going to be possible when countries decide they don't need nuclear weapons for their security when might that be possible within one of those two conditions i just described which may come about never say never but visited japan and have witnessed the horrific effect of a nuclear attack generation which weren't even there during the attacks are feeling and have you know been impacted by the attack and i think if people think that this is something that can take thirty or forty  years you know i really worry about that because as long as we've long term trajectory to begin to even turn in the direction you know there's always the threat of more countries becom reagan i doubt if you study far side cartoon but i would like to refresh your memory about one of those there is a bear standing in the woods with his hands up with a birthmark conventional force day and they live in a world which is they live in a dangerous neighborhood and at this point they believe that their nuclear forces compensate for the weakness of their conventional forces and therefore they're differ much from dr perry i think that one of the major issues with respect to the u s led effort to move toward nuclear weapons over over many many years is example number of our very key allies great concern that we are going with united states are going to go down too far too fast with our nuclear capabilities and leave them vulnerable because they've been relying on our nuclear umbrella and what that may encourage them to do by their own statements is to have to move towards nuclear weapons themselves so we need to be careful about where if we look like we're moving too quickly north korea is testing nuclear weapons and long range and minimum range rockets they're still a few years away from putting a nuclear device on a missile while these have been conducted japan has  that first of all program to reverse the north korean nuclear program and missile program more robust than it has been in the past and i made several of accommodations that might be done which is beyond the scope of this hearing but yes i think we capabilities and our extended nuclear umbrella is what allows that they don't need into alternative ways for security which could include their own nuclear capability actually assisting in a goal of non proliferation i don't know whether i agree with that but it's a it's a good point i also think it's interesting that as opposed to strategic arms nuclear nuclear weapons their emphasis is on tactical weapons because of the shelf life being assumed to be expired but i think it also one can draw the inference that they clearly don't see the united states as a views and i do agree with your testimony ambassador graham that this is one of them might be the single most important state to state relationship that we have and we should do everything we can to of complaints that i just simply based on pride what do you hear in terms of the complaints about american behavior coming from russians in which ones do you consider legitimate let me use one example about nato expansion they are adamant in going back to history and the understanding that they claim was from between secretary baker regarding reunification of germany and the expansion of nato wasn't going to happen and now we're knocking on the door  our response and graham i do concur with your brief but i think accurate observations about the conflict last august between georgia and russia i think the russians just simply watched the p r battle probably as a result of a by product of a presidential election but i don't consider the judgers a very stable prospering democracy and i think if we continue to accept that we can make some serious mistakes so anyhow feel free to give me a  of authentic and legitimate complaints that the russians have about american behavior and what what our response should  all that aside nato has expanded the expansion has taken place maybe i'll just comment on one or two aspects bring the baltic states litany of complaints but let me just say though that your opening point that the russians don't see us as a direct threat i think that's true for some russian but i assure you that if you look at their internal writing if you look at their military exercises it's certainly we talk as if we are a direct threat and our military exercises including the use of nuclear weapons against us at least a section of russia that i believe by their own statements think there's a good chance of getting away with less doctor pain you disagree with all right so one can still have a sense of urgency and believe we can achieve that agreement without un wisely constraining our own flexibility here next question there was a reference in the ranking members opening statement to the russians wanting to constrain some of our systems which are configured designed intended simply to be instruments of conventional defenses and the different kinds of bombers and cruise missiles are the russians going to insist for the purposes of these negotiations in trying to if a number of the russian launchers will be outdated soon they're going down anyway and why are we why are we willing to reduce  our knowing that and i guess the two questions i have an idea of the witnesses one prevents them absent such a legally binding constraints agreement why can't they reverse the logical outcome of the current situation by making such a decision and maybe even more importantly in what possible way is our national security adversely should give them any reasons for expanding that program and getting into a new arms race you want to i'll assume ambassador graham someone agrees with dr perry's conclusion and give the remaining that they're spending twenty five percent of their budget for new weapons on strategic systems and the product of that is a very low production system that's why they're going to be going down to very low numbers one way or the other it's because as they they get rid of their old systems the replacement systems are coming on very slowly even though they're going as literally as fast as they can with those systems and less oil went to down to the low numbers anyway even though the russians are going down in any event let me suggest one that i think is very serious and that is that our leverage with them in these types of negotiations obviously stands at our strategic why that is because we don't have to we don't have any number of nuclear weapons if we use up the levers that we have in getting them to go down in directions they're going down anyway we're not going to be able to get a handle on their tactical nuclear weapons which is repair relations with russia which have become quite bad in the last five or six years to the point where they don't cooperate with us that is that as a means to improving our relations with russia areas work and in fact my guess is that the other areas that we in the russians could cooperate on such as counterproliferation nonproliferation counterterrorism where our interests and the russian interests overlap more as one that has suffered a maybe it was dr payne i think you share the a view that currently their relationship as deteriorated over the five is significant and yet i believe since the election of president obama there is some optimism once he says statements and i understand there are only statements coming from coming idea of providing the base for the united states i think that's news that just recent i mean within a matter of the last day extension of the start treaty that might not be the centerpiece but i'm somewhat optimistic i  happen to believe in public diplomacy people to people exchanges and on the two occasions that i then to russia i really stand by their view of our  enemy that we were cast that we were legitimate casting during the time of the soviet union i have some ideas about really launching an effort to  under the public diplomacy to start to generate more people to people contact at multiple levels because a good idea t e program or there was some program at the time where u s farmers would go to russia and russian farmers for six months and they thought that was fabulous and really showed american goodwill another answer i got was that there was a s goodwill none of them talked to high level in my dialogue with people people in the in government who i believe to be supportive of improving their relationship they're concerned about what they see as a level of anti american and yet i spoke recently with a former minister of sport he says we've got to really do some things in terms of changes at the i'm not disposing of that or maybe this is around the edges yeah but i think that these programs are valuable and to the extent we're able to do so i think should be continued and expand ed now you one of you spoke about the issue of the russians wanting to control the muscle the missile defense system i presume that the invitation of putin's you know to to use can't i'm not saying control but cooperate i think that was a word others might have used but to me that seems to be a interesting offer that we should seriously consider because in my conversations with the russians they seem to recognise that there got a lot more to lose with a nuclear iran than we do given the capacity the now recent years iran has been helping them in a number of areas both in and also in the wars in other places but it wasn't always that way