Video Above – Pentagon: New Nuclear Weapons Will Deter Russia
Dr. Christopher Ford • May 26, 2021
Good morning, and thanks for inviting me to participate. It’s a pleasure once again to be part of one of Peter Huessy’s breakfast series for the Mitchell Center – and to join my old friend Susan Koch in speaking to you. Peter suggested we say a few words up front about how to improve arms control verification and the possibilities of getting a new arms control framework that could involve both Russia and China, so let me offer a few thoughts.
First, I’d like to say a few words about arms control verification, then a few more about arms control compliance. I’ll finish up with some thoughts upon the security issues that underlie the arms control arena – and about some of the challenges that I think we face today.
I. Effective Verification
First, verification. I hope this won’t seem evasive, but I think it’s difficult to say much right now about future arms control verification. It’s not clear what limits a future arms control agreement would actually impose, and discussion of verification purely in the abstract – without relation to what is being verified – doesn’t make that much sense to me.
As I see it, the point of verification isn’t to conduct a general assessment of someone else’s armaments program; its point is to offer at least some minimum degree of assurance that one will detect a violation of whatever limits you write into your agreement.
