Alissa Tabirian
NS&D Monitor
12/4/2015
Former U.S. and Russian officials this week called for an urgent restoration of the two nations’ communication and nonproliferation cooperation due to shared nonproliferation concerns. Speaking Tuesday at a conference hosted by the International Luxembourg Forum on Preventing Nuclear Catastrophe and the Nuclear Threat Initiative, former Sen. Sam Nunn (D-GA), a primary architect of the decades-old Cooperative Threat Reduction program, warned of the “corrosive lack of trust” between the two countries.
This relationship, he said, has been exacerbated by officials’ “reckless rhetoric” about nuclear weapons. Nunn called for officials to “stop using irresponsible rhetoric” and instead work to foster mutual respect through increased communication. “Not talking . . . is not a strategy,” he said. Nunn highlighted the need to prevent military misunderstandings between the U.S., Russia, and NATO through confidence-building measures and collaboration in the fight against the Islamic State. The common ground, he said, could be found by “keeping weapons . . . out of the hands of terrorists,” including nuclear and radiological weapons.
Former National Nuclear Security Administration chief Linton Brooks and former Russian State Duma member Alexey Arbatov agreed that preventing terrorists from obtaining weapons of mass destruction could serve as common ground to prompt collaboration between the two countries. Arbatov said the likelihood of terrorists gaining control of those weapons is increasing, particularly considering the rise of the Islamic State, and cautioned against the breakdown of the relationship between U.S. and Russia, which increases the likelihood of failures in the international arms control regime. Arbatov called the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty the “most contentious” existing agreement between the two nations, but said that both seek to preserve the accord. Brooks argued that the concerns of both the U.S. and Russia over the treaty – which each side claims the other has violated – must be addressed to achieve stability.
Brooks called for policies that would disincentivize first use of military force or nuclear weapons by either nation, arguing a “regime of restraint ideally codified in formal agreements” could promote stability through transparency. “In an ideal world . . . arms control would be complemented by a rhetoric that emphasized restraint rather than a rhetoric that appeared sometimes to emphasize nuclear coercion,” he said, adding that “we need robust military-to-military discussions to help understand each other’s’ thinking and doctrine.” Failing these discussions, Brooks said, “the next best thing” would involve communication regarding restraint and de-escalation among retired senior officials with influence in their respective administrations.
