LESSON 3.1
uh Canada US
relations during the Biden and the Trump
Administration so you'll probably
remember January 6
2021 when uh the uh Capitol Hill
insurgents invaded the house of well
actually the entire Washington almost
house of Congress and so on and the the
military deployed and the date is called
January 6
2021 so the US Congress immediately
resumed the election certification on
that date and uh although there was this
this prot Trump mob and there's
President Joe elect Joe Biden he made a
speech very stirring very lengthy about
domestic terrorists and then later we
heard many assertions by President
outgoing president Trump that the
election had been
stolen within a few hours Twitter uh
locked Trump's account uh it has since
been reopened uh they said that he was
inciting violence and Trump would be
banned obviously that did not
happen and stunned North Americans then
saw firsthand evidence that the US
president could be perhaps uh unhinged
meaning a little bit uh crazy irrational
irresponsible so later he was impeached
and then before he left office uh where
this is a class in Canada abroad uh this
guy who was very supportive of trump
back then and asked whether Trump could
be trusted not to incite further
Insurrection so that was a radio show
everyone Canadians that her thought that
the president's failure to condemn the
supporters was a dereliction of his duty
to to protect the US
Constitution still uh president Trump's
finger former president Trum Trump's
finger remains on the nuclear trigger
now and uh while literally thousands of
intercontinental ballistic missiles are
poting at hundreds of Russian cities and
vice versa so he's now at the Apex of
power in
202 five and he could still um order a a
nuclear strike on
Russia so the question is do you think
president Trump could order a nuclear
strike on Russia we do not know but guy
Roberts seemed to think not as Roberts
put it unless deterant failed and Russia
or China strikes the United States then
the US would retaliate because
deterrence have failed but guy Roberts
has always had a great deal of faith and
you you can see that last week in the in
the discussion he has a great deal of
faith in deterrence
working so we might expect uh threats
from uh Kim Jong-un and we talked about
that last week if he thought his power
would be usurped or lost and we have
heard his threats to uh demolish the
United States with missiles
before but the opposite argument and Guy
Robert remember he recommended that you
read the day after and a lot of people
will say oh you should watch the movie
Doctor Strange Love and so on but really
the nuclear command and control system
claims that it has many many blocks and
you'll hear Tariq Ralph uh say many
processes and and procedures that would
make sure that it was not made by a
single uh person a single de decision so
it would somehow prevent a lunatic
president nevertheless president Trump
has actually undermined deterrence
strategy because he presents himself as
unreasonable and irrational and
deterrence is based on uh rationality
now other people argue it's based on
irrationality you have to seem in insane
Herman Khan made that argument for
deterrence to succeed you have to you
have to seem irrational um president
Trump might have to appear irrational
for it to work so what is deterrence I
realize that um I haven't given you a
definition uh I put a picture here of of
Henry kisson during he didn't actually
have a definition either in his books
about deterrence but just straight from
the Oxford dictionary it's the action of
discouraging something through
instilling doubt or fear of the
consequences and there's some sentences
here uh where we use deterrence so guy
Roberts believes in the tenants of
deterrence he talks about extended
deterrence uh last week and then he
argues I think that nuclear deterrence I
argue it has to be perfect or close to
perfect and if it fails cat catastrophe
will result whereas he would argue that
um we need more deterrence especially in
the cyber warfare uh world that we're
going into so moving quickly along you
can study that at your own
time deterrence cannot survive as a
credible strategy if we perceive that
its ex executors are irrational and
incapable of weighing cost benefit R uh
uh rationality uh choices so this was
admirably pointed out by an author from
Rand a famous Think Tank where he
pointed out and there's so many books on
deterrence this is just one of them that
it's the perceptions that count it's
those perceptions not the actual
objective conditions that are important
so perceptions are the dominant variable
as he put it so I want you to think
about that in the context of President
Trump because it does seem that often he
is illogical and and more narcissistic
and more self-focused and so the
travesty of of democracy right now is
that we're relying upon deterrence as a
credible strategy and yet it's based on
either rationality or irrationality and
it's it's
unclear moving on uh so we haven't
talked a lot about the new Ban Treaty
the prohibition treaty or What's called
the tpnw the treaty on the prohibition
of nuclear weapons and our guest speaker
this week refers very quickly to the
tpnw very strong advocate of the tpnw uh
in Geneva and so I asked him to come in
I'll explain who he is in in in the next
uh two subl lessons slowly but the
non-nuclear countries are resoundingly a
majority of them at the UN General
Assembly are supporting this
treaty so they're asking themselves what
could happen if to the globe to the
Earth if there was a limited nuclear war
so they bring up examp not just of India
and Pakistan but of nuclear winter if
100 tactical nuclear weapons were used
and that is just a small small
percentage of the global number of
nuclear weapons that we learned about so
the pandemic would be like as I put here
romp in the park compared to the number
of
deaths so you heard guy Roberts talk
about that and afterwards after we got
off the taping he he actually said to me
that he thought a nuclear winter would
be good because it would cope with the
effects of a nuclear uh sorry nuclear
winter would would help to cool down the
Earth because of um climate change where
the Earth is getting warmer so we talked
about that there's no evidence um either
way no one really knows what would
happen but it was interesting idea that
he didn't put forward on the tape so
there're the leaders at NATO
headquarters where guy was the head of
the nuclear Planning Group and all the
Diplomatic staff there for 10 years uh
so the NATO allies reject any attempt to
delegitimize nuclear deterr they are all
strong Advocates of
deterrence NATO has paned meaning
criticized absolutely refuses to join
the tpnw and will not even send
observers so only lately have they
started to send NATO allies as uh
observers there's Yen stoltenberg he is
no longer the UN Secretary General he's
the former Chief the former Secretary
General he repeatedly warned uh that the
tpnw would uh undermine Global disarming
efforts because he argues that the npt
is
strong so Secretary General uh Antonio
GES said in October 2021 that any use of
nuclear weapons would have catastrophic
humanitarian consequences so that's the
vocabulary that we use now gueras uses
and the UN
uses catastrophe and they argue that the
new treaty that the tpnw is a meaningful
commitment toward the elimination the
abolition of nuclear weapons which they
say is is the un's highest priority the
number one
priority so gutas calls the treaty a
tribute to the survivors of nuclear
explosions which who are called the
hiusa and the hiusa who survived the
bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
there's hardly any of them left they're
in their 80s they would have been around
2 years old or so the survivors and they
are they just got the Nobel Peace Prize
last year for their for their um efforts
now the fact of the matter is is that
the treaty was rejected by the Democrats
under Biden and also um under like vice
president Harris also didn't argue for
it during the um
election so it's now time with the onset
of the new bound treaty to reject
Reliance on the US president we're
seeing that even today in bulletin
Atomic scientists articles that we need
to make sure that it's not just the
decision of one person like Vladimir
Putin or Kim Jong-un or president Trump
because it could lead to the end of the
world as we know it that was the UN
General Assembly and I'll show you more
pictures of that in weeks to come but
here's a picture of the Korean Peninsula
and you can see that um I asked guy
Roberts whether there would be an attack
on pongyang and he argued that uh it
North Korea would be obliterated the
peninsula here at the top um if they
were to use nuclear weapons um or if
they were to try in a rogue attack to
like Pearl Harbor to attack the United
States so the that's an important fact
for us to and that brings me into the US
ballistic missile defense project so guy
was very reluctant to go there I
couldn't push him to go into that
direction he wasn't going to move um and
so even when we were talking about Kim
Jong-un and so on and the threat from
Kim Jong-un he wanted to se into South
Korea being a threat which took me
completely by surprise uh to argue that
South Korea is a threat um and and he
usually argues that China is a threat so
he didn't even argue that so you can see
my face as we're going through it I'm
going well what about the dprk and you
know their army the biggest conventional
army in the world approximately a
million men um very undernourished but
approximately 10,000 are fighting with
Russia along Ukraine but he didn't go
there nor did he go into chemical
weapons even later although Sudan um is
using chemical weapons now in fact he
explained to me that the a new POS new
under the president Trump Administration
is that there will be a separate
secretary of defense for biological um
assistant secretary of defense for
biological and chemical weapons and
nuclear will stand on its own because
it's such a big
portfolio Okay I'm getting into too much
detail but remember I get excited about
these things I'm passionate about I'm
very interested and I hope that my
interest will make you more passionate
so we talked a little bit um in in guy
Robert's interview about the the
possibility of uh North Korea using it
nuclear button and I always do like to
draw attention to the January speech by
Kim Jong-un he he tends every year to
make this speech and then argue that um
they can strike the United States where
would they strike around Seattle they
they they might be getting as close as
Seattle now so we don't know whether
president Trump will renew their
friendship but maybe that's something
that they can push
for okay what were the Tweets in reply
to those threats that's interesting now
because we look at that in mindsight and
go well interesting that uh president
Trump said that he had a bigger uh and
larger and more powerful nuclear button
um and that and his button Works meaning
that the modernization
worked I have to move quickly so there
that's some a picture of the
um that incident and then more threats
from Donald Trump so here he is making
threats by by Twitter by by tweeting
threats like this and that makes nuclear
weapons more usable and that's what a
guy talked about at length and when we
stopped the taping he went on and on
about usable nuclear weapons how that
enhances deterrence and he talked about
the the DAV Crockett and the supersonic
cruise missiles and how all these
nuclear weapons are more usable and that
means deterrence is more credible do you
get it so the DAV Crockett is an old
type of nuclear weapons then I start
talking about nuclear weapons that
Canada had the bow marks uh we had the
lacrosse and the Hest John and so on you
don't need to know about that right now
but moving on so at all times the US
president and the Russian president are
accompanied at all times by one single
soldier who carries the briefcase with
the codes the nuclear codes the soldier
never leaves the president's side we
don't know about the Russian
side so that is kind of risky but that
leads to the question going forward many
many questions about whether Canada
should join with the United States in
building the ballistic missile defense
project and there has been visits by
different people um to Canada arguing
that we have an obligation to be part of
that North American what called Fortress
America so should we continue to
participate in NORAD we are in NORAD
we've we've committed to it again we are
in northcom and we are rebuilding the
north warning system so those are the
figurative walls of Fortress America and
then there's the roof so we have not
built that yet it's not possible yet to
build
that and the problem is the the amount
so we're going to engage in excessive
militarization uh president Trump is
talking about the NATO allies spending
5% of their GDP Canada doesn't even
reach 2% so 5% would be a significant
hike in defense spending for all the
NATO allies and that tab which might be
more than 2% uh could rapidly escalate
because of the cost of building um a
fortress America so if Canada did decide
under the next um prime minister which
might be Pierre pev or it might be
Christia Freeland or Mark Carney we
don't know U might Canadian firms
actually benefit from working on that
sort of research it's an interesting
question most of those firms are in
Ottawa so what do high level officials
say we at need answers and these are
difficult questions I've invited quite a
few people to my class classes that are
from the United States I had um a
visitor Dr John man Mano when he was uh
NATO's assistant Secretary General in
charge of all of NATO's operations
visiting Detroit and then visiting my
class on the way there uh and he argued
in the class in front of the in-person
students that um Canada should
definitely definitely participate in in
the US space force and in the ballistic
missile defense which should be spelled
with an S there from the American
perspective but from our perspective
with a C
problematically in future years the US
missile defense system could establish
uh what's called a preemptive or um
first strike from space capability and
that would lead to the Chinese and the
uh Russians feeling insecure um and
feeling like our finger is on the
nuclear Tri trigger and that will make
them more insecure so Russia has been
very vocal about being opposed to a
ballistic missile defense system and the
question is whether those interceptors
would be up in Alaska or even in
Canada's
Arctic I'm moving fairly quickly but we
have to remember that we have a lot to
cover um and then we'll be ending on
nuclear proliferation but I was very
pleased that um guy Roberts came in my
lectures twice you heard the second one
if you were in my other classes you
heard the first one and now you could
hear he is more focused on South Korea
as a threat Saudi Arabia proliferation
all the things that I was worried about
before now he's worried about and he's
not so much worried about China what
does Tariq think I'm going to talk to
you about who he is in a
minute so guy Roberts strongly believed
as the at the head of when he was in in
charge of the project uh that the United
States had to modernize I was interested
because he did talk about the
modernization but he wasn't so worried
about Russia modernizing and uh the
global partnership program he was more
worried about the United States and that
brought me to bring in this quote from
uh president Trump before uh topof the
line best in the world so to me they
always want to make a better product um
and that's motivating
it but joining in bmd ballistic missile
defense could make Canada more insecure
this is a cartoon there is no such thing
that is operable right now but what
would happen is they would somehow
intercept incoming ballistic missiles
which no one can intercept right now and
then they would these errant missiles
would explode and the Fallout would
mainly fall over Canada because they
would be coming over the uh over the
North Pole over the Arctic the Russians
or the Iranians uh we don't know
so Quebec Quebec has a huge amount of of
land in the north and Quebec is solidly
against ballistic missile defense that's
very very interesting because they just
do not want to participate in this at
all I put a picture of Artis PP there
and Pierre Jasmine and other artists who
are um solidly against ballistic missile
defense and Steve Staples who spoke to
my class A couple years ago I'm not
using that lecture
anymore so to end do you think that the
Earth's orbit should remain a
demilitarized zone I put the options
here and the right answer is no right
answer because this opinion question you
cannot you can't ask these sorts of
questions in multiple choice because
it's your opinion it's your opinion so
there's no right answer that's the right
answer I wouldn't put that SRA of
question in in it but just so you know
okay I I think we're ending there and
now I want to go on to the next
part okay
LESSON 3.2
welcome to lesson 3B which is on the
nuclear nonproliferation treaty the MPT
and the prohibition band treaty and
we're getting more into issues to do
with Ukraine to do with arms control to
do with our guest speaker and then that
equips us to understand our guest
speaker and hopefully equips you as a
global
citizen I put a picture of myself there
because there's no room for the video uh
often I like to put more pictures in
it's more useful for us to have pictures
so uh what do I want to say here um in
the last lecture I I I mentioned that I
can't test you on opinion whether we
should have a a a fortress America
whether a space force is a good idea or
not I can test you on whether people
think that's a good idea I can test you
on facts and dates so a lot of students
keep a separate list of dates as I'm
lecturing and they just memorize them um
if you want to serve Canada abroad or
you want to be a global citizen or a
student traveler you do need to think
about issues to do with nuclear weapons
and the bound
treaty the Bay of Pigs uh Fiasco uh was
was uh featured by a decision by John F
Kennedy pictured here I do often put in
pictures of famous diplomats and ask you
to identify them so I don't just I ask
you about the pictures as well he set up
an
XCOM uh which All Bright space does not
like it will frequently change the word
XCOM here to X it does just doesn't like
it it will automatically change it to
something else it doesn't understand oh
bright space anyway he wanted it to
guide his decision-making during the
Cuban Missile
Crisis the Cuban Missile Crisis happened
60 years ago more than 60 years ago and
since then we've had a number of other
crises let me talk about former US
President Joseph Biden during his uh
Reign he ignored the wise and Sage
advice of military personnel and
Military brass on the crisis in
Afghanistan and he actually ignored the
advice of his defense secretary so we
are talking to the assistant Secretary
of Defense guy Roberts and um Biden also
ignored lyd Austin's advice and then
pull the troops out of a of Afghanistan
by August 30th 2021 that was contrary to
the advice of many diplomats who argued
that the United States should undertake
a conditions-based negotiations withdraw
when it was a good time in Afghanistan
rather than when it was a time decision
time-based decision for the United
States the US wanted to withdraw due to
the cost and the numbers of of dead and
and uh named people
the US Secretary of State then uh
Anthony blinkin appeared bullish another
word for hawkish on Russia and Ukraine
for example he spoke firmly against
Russian signals that they would invade
at the NATO foreign ministers meeting in
Ria I'll show you where R is in a minute
uh on December 1st before the actual
February 24th 22nd 2022 Invasion so
recall that Kennedy himself ordered or
encouraged behind the scenes the excom
adviser General Maxwell Taylor I said
recall but um you haven't learned that
yet but he asked him to declare
bellicose threats in favor of conducting
a nuclear strike in order to see what
the XCOM would argue meanwhile behind
the scenes Kennedy's own brother Robert
Kennedy pictured here or sometimes
called Bobby Kennedy he was also
assassinated later uh so both Kennedy
brothers were assassinated they
counseled enormous restraint not to
preemptively strike Russia not to
undertake a first strike against Russia
during the entire
crisis so 60 years later the Cuban
Missile Crisis is over and you heard me
and Guy Roberts refer to the nuclear
taboo which is the idea of a normative
meaning a a learned inhibition against
the first use of nuclear weapons the
idea that most states do not want to go
down in history as having used nuclear
weapons first the United States so far
is the only first country in history to
use them first in Hiroshima and Nagasaki
and so that we saw the results of it you
didn't but we've seen it um in many
pictures and so on and those new
findings suggest the view that even a
medium scale nuclear war would bring
about a global nuclear winter and you
heard guy Roberts refer to that
too the US decision to deploy
intermediate range nuclear missiles in
Europe so you heard guy talk about
intermediate uh intermediate uh nuclear
weapons some people call those tactical
nuclear weapons uh and so the the the
vocabulary is not well defined what's
tactical what's strategic and so on what
we do know is that Russian President
Vladimir Putin say that these are a
great danger and threat to us and he has
claimed that the arms race between
Russia and the United States was
intensifying now the uh Russians uh talk
about Washington's withdrawal from the
1972 anti-ballistic missile treaty and
the American withdrawal first from the
1987 open Skies treaty the ABM Treaty
which dates back to
1972 was put in place after the Cuban
Missile Crisis uh in 1972 so the Cuban
Missile Crisis in 1962 and then the ABM
Treaty the United States withdrew from
both first uh the United States was
non-com CL client non compliant um
before Russia so guy Roberts was
incorrect but during the dis you you saw
me um be ambiguous you never correct
people publicly on tap no actually never
correct
people Russia finalized its withdrawal
from the 1992 open Skies treaty on
December 18th
2021 the United States withdrew from it
first President Putin often complained
about activity near Russia's borders and
he claimed that Russian forces could
closely observe these different um Navy
command ships so they were worried about
a possible attack by NATO uh and the
exercises by NATO with different uh
warships concern them I bring that up uh
now because we will talk in the future
about the Black
Sea moving on on Russia's troop buildup
near Ukraine NATO's Secret AR Jen which
uh guy Roberts will say SE gen uh
stoltenberg stressed before The Invasion
that there will be a high price to pay
these are the deterrent threats that
they put in place before the Russian
aggression and obviously that failed and
they they uh Ukraine is still not one of
um the NATO allies they extended out
invitations for it to be a partner but
uh uh Ukraine and Georgia are Partners
but they are not allies at the time
Sweden and Finland had not joined after
the Russian invasion Sweden and Finland
joined NATO so now there are 32 members
of NATO
32 I'm moving quickly covering a lot of
time a lot of things here's Ria uh laia
uh and here's here's Lavia and there's
Ria and they wanted to consider how they
would deal with Russia's troop buildup
near Ukraine and they discussed how to
deter but obviously they didn't they
weren't able to deter they were very
aware that in
2014 Russia annexed invaded occupied and
annexed the Crimean peninsula here which
was part of and is still part of Ukraine
but it is now annexed by uh Russia and
so the president of Ukraine uh who we
nobody knows who he was back then but
now we all know who he is and the prime
minister of Georgia visited NATO
headquarters during the covid
pandemic at that time uh Canada decided
to send more armed forces the Canadian
Armed Forces to op what's called
operation reassurance in Central and
Eastern Europe in order to detour to
Signal Canada's willingness to be part
of a collaborative Collective defense by
NATO after the meeting in R blinken and
Biden told the world press that the
United States would respond to a
possible Invasion with a range of high
impact economic sanctions and we're
going to have a special guest speaker
who help put in place those sanctions so
that's going to be a very exciting um a
Foreign Service Officer from the
government of Canada has agreed to talk
to us about this and that should be
quite interesting and that is also part
of the strengthening of Alliance
defenses on NATO's Eastern flank
okay President Biden and President Putin
held a video call uh here you can see uh
it from president uh Putin's perspective
to quell the crisis I under NATO
Arrangements at that time shrouded in
secrecy guy Roberts does refer obliquely
to the tactical nuclear weapons that are
owned by and controlled by the United
States their American nuclear weapons
and they're in five NATO Allied
countries
there's approximately 150 of them we we
don't really know for sure how many
there are and these are dual capable um
on Dual capable
aircraft meaning they could deliver
conventional or nuclear weapons and
that's another
[Music]
issue so under the NATO Arrangements
which are still shrouded in secrecy
there's five states Belgium Germany
Italy the Netherlands and turkey that
host up to we don't know 150 nuclear
weapons and they may have been moved out
of the United Kingdom maybe they're in
Scotland we're not sure they're here in
Turkey which some people think is risky
because if Turkey was taken over uh
these are in a small village in surck uh
and then there's some in in Italy and
Germany and the
Netherlands in May 2023 Russia began
deploying Tactical nuclear weapons in
Bellas so Bellas is a military
dictatorship that is situated north of
Ukraine and east of kenrad which is the
Russia's Baltic Sea Enclave here on the
Baltic Sea during the 1990s
Bellas along with Kazakhstan not
pictured here and Ukraine surrendered
their nuclear arsenals to Russia in
exchange for security assurances so you
heard uh guy Robert let talk about
security insurances they they allowed
the um Russians to pull back their own
nuclear weapons back into Russia in
exchange for security insurances from
Russia the United States and the United
Kingdom that's why you'll hear many
people are very critical uh that uh the
United States did not defend uh Ukraine
in the wake of the invasion belus is a
military ally and that is where the
Russians are deploying troops it's a
staging ground for Russian forces uh and
it continues to be so um during their
Northern
Invasion they're coming from the north
into Ukraine in early
2022 so where is kenrad in this giant
picture uh it's interesting the maps are
always red of Russia and so this is
their Russian Enclave kenrad where they
are also deploying uh tactical nuclear
weapons the secret agreement back in 196
2 uh was and the real outcome was that
the United States agreed to withdraw its
tactical nuclear weapons which were
called Jupiter missiles from Turkey so
the United States pulled them out of
turkey in exchange for Russian
withdrawal of its tactical nuclear
weapons from Cuba that was the exchange
behind the scenes in Secret Letters
between uh kushev the Russian uh
president and uh President Kennedy now
with tensions at their worst since 198 9
1990 when the Cold War ended 30 years
ago three decades ago we see that the
Russians are threatening and they have
have threatened to deploy nuclear
missiles as
well the Russian incident on the Black
Sea uh in June 2021 led to more uh
tensions the Russians have been
complained for a long time about NATO
exercises on the Black Sea which they
consider to be threatening the drills
the thousands of troops dozens of ships
and um they do need to have more
transparency more new thinking about the
Black Sea um at NATO
headquarters here's Yen stoltenberg he
was one of NATO's longest serving
leaders since 2014 since uh and he his
term was extended by two years and then
two years during the crisis and he
remained focused on Military Readiness
increasing defense spending investing in
major equipment new technology cyber
warfare outer space the new Secretary
General is Mark Ruta who is the outgoing
prime minister of the Netherlands so
he's the former Dutch prime
minister in Washington both the
Republican and the Democratic parties
acted in a bipartisan fa fashion and you
hear guy Roberts speak about that at
length in terms of the amounts of
spending that are being put forward by
both part parties in agreement the 200
2022 spending was 768 now it's actually
842 billion and you hear guy talk about
that that's as he puts it a you know an
unfathomable amount of money to be spent
per year so how much is it approximately
well he says around 850 but they agreed
on 842 billion I would add that the
United States then is the most powerful
military country on Earth uh despite its
own decaying infrastructure its lack of
free medical care and the onslaught of a
pandemic that surpassed 1 million total
deaths far more than in
Canada proportionately taken together
the consequences of military escalation
over Ukraine are very serious for
humankind and for all Earth species
because of the nature of war and
technology in this Century military
satellites in spaces vulnerable atmosph
feric Zone combined with complete
Reliance on Military communication by
computer mean that the former cold Wars
bipolar system between the United States
and Russia is now multi-polar and
therefore more less controllable quickly
uncontrollable Decisions by Third
parties unlike during the Cuban Missile
Crisis here you see Kev and Kennedy
meeting together um we don't see that
we we the problem is that Decisions by
Third parties like China and the United
Kingdom's decision to increase its
nuclear warhead stock Ball P caps can
defy logic you heard guy Roberts start
to talk about Game Theory uh and the
need for um understanding the the the
Chinese buildup I can't recall if during
the taping he talked about the Chinese
buildup but he um here to four has
always been very concerned about Chinese
missiles and their
buildup back then in Game Theory
traditional Game Theory uh I have not
taught that to you and I will not be
teaching Game Theory to this class but
if you took my other classes we talk
about Game Theory and we talk about new
ways to amarate the tensions so things
like letters um but that that's all been
jettison now in favor of digital
communication so we're in a new age as
you
know and now I mean you heard guy Robert
talk about threats to annihilate he kept
I couldn't he kept talking about uh how
we've issued we the United States have
issued threats uh to North Korea and so
on so now threats to annihilate are
hurled in seconds using Twitter and
they're not really as newsworthy because
they're distributed so widely people are
are kind of deja vu they're they're used
to it uh former US Secretary of Defense
assistant Secretary of Defense Roberts
hinted that they are in news releases
phone calls and in explicit threats
delivered by diplomats including with
press uh to by to the Press so that was
quite fascinating uh very interesting
part of our
taping just need to move on we're at 17
minutes and I need to be done in 20
minutes uh here's uh Fidel Castro he was
the president of Cuba during the Cuban
Missile Crisis and during the Bay of
Pigs and he schemed for weeks that us
intelligence he was worried would notice
the movement nowadays to move even
10,000 soldiers is very visible we know
that there's North Korean soldiers along
the uh Ukraine uh front deployed by
Russia back then you could secretly do
this and the United States couldn't see
from space but now it's impossible uh
they can see a license plate from
space so that does mean that it's
possible um that the International
Community can act quickly and instead of
engaging in weeks of speculation the
International Community can quarantine
using for example travel bands within
hours over all sorts of things including
before we quarantined important
countries because of the Ebola virus uh
we have quarantined because of China and
Russia over fears of the Corona virus
and so on we're going to talk about
sanctions uh with uh ad deian plov who
is a diplomat who helped put those
sanctions in place and we're going to
talk about that but let's just focus for
a moment on this date 2007 the Russians
Landmark Cyber attack on Estonia another
NATO Ally so they attacked the
government and the banking structure so
far they have not attacked the NATO
allies uh infrastructure they've just
focused on
Ukraine which brings me to North Korea
and Guy Roberts went there but then he
went into South Korea being a threat uh
which was a new threat and surprised me
uh normally he would refer to North
Korea's attempts to count uh conduct
hacking cyber warfare against big
companies like Google and Sony and then
he would be worried about Afghanistan
but you heard not a word about
Afghanistan from him during the entire
taping and uh basically the concern is
that emerging cyber warfare capabilities
will rapidly complicate the Ukraine
military crisis so let's leave that and
and I've got right to 20 minutes here
and there's some pictures of the North
Korean cyber Warrior soldiers beinging
trained in
China in a secret location in China and
some pictures of the Taliban which took
over Afghanistan and are in charge and
are the unrecognized government
LESSON 3.3
Welcome to 3C or 3.3 on international
student institutions in Canada. So we're
beginning to speak more about the United
Nations, NATO and multilateral
institutions.
Let me uh begin the lecture by a live
update from President uh Trump. And I
wanted to insert this because in a way
Mr. Trump is beginning to undermine and
threaten international institutions.
Diplomats around the world are starting
to talk about that. And indeed, I'm
meeting with uh Tariq Ralph this
afternoon and uh 19 other diplomats on
Zoom hosted by me to talk about these
sorts of issues.
The first uh point to make today is that
the concern is that because Mr. Trump is
now claiming that he because he didn't
get the Nobel Peace Prize last year for
stopping eight wars. He sent a text
message not to the Nobel committee that
selects the Nobel Prize but to Norway's
prime minister and he is stating that he
can now because of I mean I guess his
ego is bruised he can now prioritize
what is good and proper for the United
States of America. So that has
implications for international law and
people are talking about whether this
means uh NATO is threatened, how is the
UN threatened. We're going to be talking
about these issues.
There's also uh questions about
sovereignty and the challenge by uh
possibly in some sort of technical way
or perhaps with an annexation
um that there could be a challenge to
Denmark's sovereignty and that would
cause the dissemination of of European
institutes. Mr. Trump is questioning
Denmark's legal claim to Den uh
Greenland and saying that there are no
written documents. There are written
documents, but he seems to be just
ignoring all of the documents in the
past. Um perhaps not reading them and
asserting now suddenly, this has never
been heard before that the United States
requires complete and total control of
the island of Greenland, which is
enormous. This message was recently just
circulated to European ambassadors in
Washington and it was published in many
uh newspapers including the New York
Times and Reuters.
Let's just uh I'm not expecting us to go
through the historical treaties and
legal recognition but here are just some
of them. So for example, there is that
2004 US Denmark Defense Pact that
explicitly recognizes Greenland as an
equal part of the Kingdom of Denmark.
It's still a kingdom. There is also um a
treaty that goes back to 1916 where the
US and Denmark purchased u they sold to
each other the Virgin Islands. So people
are asking does that mean that that
treaty doesn't hold anymore? This
contradicts this claim contradicts US
treaty commitments in the past.
Uh Denmark is maintaining that it it
cannot sell uh Greenland. There's so
many resources, so many natural
resources including all sorts of there's
60,000 people there. Uh should they
determine their own future? They're
saying in polls and in marches and in
protests, "No, no, no. Go home."
um the Mr. Vance and so on that are
visiting the vice president is visiting
and Steven Miller and the president is
now starting to um talk about increasing
the military presence very carefully.
So, the United States and the NATO
allies, I'll talk more about NATO uh in
future weeks. Again, we'll return to
this, but they're uh debating about how
to increase NATO's presence in
Greenland. Right now, Danish forces
patrol the uh area of Nuke. There's a
Danish ice breaker which breaks through
the ice and conducts um coastal patrols.
There were technical talks that were
just announced a couple of days ago but
no substantive progress. So this is what
diplomats are talking about and we're
holding a meeting as I mentioned this
afternoon including with our guest
speaker Dr. Tariq Ralph. So this is
another meeting I'm holding just with
high level uh diplomats.
We're actually going to be meeting uh to
make a long story short um on January
30th uh in the government of Canada and
the foreign affairs uh as part of some
nuclear arms control disarmment talks.
Okay. So I I put some uh slides here
about other occupations where technical
talks can serve as a precursor to
coercive uh forced escalation. And so we
learned about instruments, non-military
and military instruments of power. And I
asked you to do your own toolbox. Uh
some of the parallels here might be part
of your toolbox. Now this is not on the
scale of Hitler's in 1938. Not at all.
He has not used military force. Nor is
it on the scale of Russia's annexation
in 2014 of the Crimean Peninsula, which
I've talked to you about. And it's not
on the scale of the US annexation of
Hawaii, which was done against the
population's will, and the British
occupation of Egypt back in 1882. So
although there's a bit of a pattern here
of great powers acquiring uh territory,
there are still constraints in place and
those are diplomatic, international law
and all the things that Mr. uh Dr. Tariq
Ralph will be talking to you about.
Uh just to uh conclude here for a few
more slides, Canada is as we speak
considering a small deployment to
Greenland as part of a NATO exercise and
that would be part of Prime Minister
Carney's way of signaling solidarity and
the fact that they do not want to
escalate this into a war. So prime the
Prime Minister Carney is emphasizing
support for sovereignty and the
territorial integrity of Denmark and
Greenland which is part of it. Multiple
European states are already deploying
personnel in Greenland. So using Arctic
capable uh drills and Greenland is being
framed as a collective security issue.
It has not reached the UN yet. But I do
want to point out to you that um Dr.
Graph uh lives in um and and works in
Geneva in Geneva in Switzerland as part
of the United Nations. So this is the
gate going into the United Nations in
Geneva. There's another uh um part of
the United Nations that's also in um
Vienna.
So I need you to know some terms from
his biography. And I've put the
highlighter on now. um simply because I
want to make sure that you recognize
some of these words. So he was the
director of Cypriy. He'll I refer to
that and that is short for the Stockholm
Institute uh for peace and uh research
and Stockholm International Peace
Research Institute. Uh and he's been
long involved with that. We always just
say CRI. He is a recognized authority on
nuclear disarmament and
non-prololiferation issues. and I was
very pleased to get them for this class.
And this was a recording that I did
exactly one year ago. So, I'm not going
to eliminate this recording. I want I
think it's still relevant. Um, he was
senior adviser on the 2015 uh
non-prololiferation treaty review
conference. So, I've already said that
the NPT review conference quite a few
times for you and it needs to just roll
off your lips. The NPT review
conference. Some people will even say
the NPT RevCon, and you're supposed to
know what that was.
He was also the head of the verification
and security policy coordination office
at the IAEA,
the International Atomic Energy Agency,
but we always just say IAEA. Um, and he
reported to the director general who
later um got the Nobel Peace Prize. Uh
he also was involved with these
verification cases. So you can see these
are all very complicated verification
cases and he was coordinator. He knows a
lot about the nuclear uh fuel cycle. He
was the alternate head of the IAEA
delegations to the MPT review
conferences from 23 2003. So he's a he's
a very good writer and I've seen him
over three decades, 30 35 years now. um
we've been working together and so I I
was really pleased that he agreed to
come to the class to a secondyear cl
it's a second year class although many
of you are third or fourth year and to
to to help us out a little bit.
So I I mentioned to you now I will be
going to what's called the Nuclear Arms
Control and Disarmament uh consultation
hosted by Global Affairs Canada GA um on
January 30th. I'm saying a lot of ums,
but I want you to just hear how the
words go together. It's kind of like
another language when you're in foreign
affairs. Uh, CRI, uh, Knack and so on.
NACD, NORAD, OCE, Unadir, UNOPS, UNGA,
like we use all those sorts of acronyms.
The NPT RevCon is going to take place in
2026, which is also why we're having the
discussion this afternoon. and um on
January 30th. So, I'm hosting a
discussion by Zoom among diplomats cuz I
want us to be ready for the Global
Affairs Canada discussions. It's hard
work to learn all these um acronyms.
It's hard work at the beginning, but it
makes life a lot easier if you can just
memorize them. Every organization has a
different name for the head of the
organization. A person might say the SEC
gen or the deputy SEC gen, the head, the
P, the PM, the president. that's their
boss. Uh, if you're an expert advisor, I
think it's better for your long-term job
security to be a generalist rather than
an expert. The government of Canada,
especially global affairs Canada,
pronounced GAK, formerly the Department
of Foreign Affairs and before that the
Department of External Affairs, DEA, um,
prefers generalists rather than
specialists. They want people who know a
lot rather than one simp small area.
It's hard work and I think that AI can
help you quickly learn a lot really
fast. You can make your own multiple
choice questions. You can quiz yourself.
You can ask uh AI you know what is the
NPT RevCon and here it tells you it
tells you tells you all this stuff which
is you know we used to have to have go
to fact sheets and things. Now of course
it can be wrong but it's often right and
I was very impressed. Now Dr. Right.
Ralph spoke to us from Italy. Although
he works in Geneva at the UN office, he
always expects you to listen. No
interrupting and he speaks very very
quickly.
There he is. He's often on uh he's what
we call a talking head around the world.
A person who speaks on behalf of himself
or in this case CRI and um that's his
his what we call the headsh shot. So,
um,
head shot are under pressure these days.
I'm also what's called a talking head.
So, the media will often contact me
written. Um, I prefer written uh
compared to doing Skype or doing
anything on TV. I can't control the
outcome that way. And over the years, my
my tendency has been to write back. So
here just a few minutes ago is a typical
question for a topping head, but it's
not typical because of Mr. Trump. So
what they're interested is a piece on a
hypothetical American military invasion
of Canada, what it might look like and
how it might resolve given your
background. That's because I wrote an
article in the Glob Mail on this last
June. I was wondering if you'd be open
to it. So I don't like to do the phone
interview students because they can take
out of context what you said. So
generally I will write something back to
them. Don't use chat. Um so the here's
their questions that they want to ask
me. Do you believe it how likely do you
believe it is for the US to take
military action at this juncture against
Canada?
I don't know what might prompt the US to
take such measures. Well, they want the
Great Lakes. They want the Arctic. I
don't know. I am probably not going to
respond to this. How might a military
invasion of Canada go? Wow. That's the
Toronto Star. Talking heads are under
pressure these days.
Okay. So, let's say you want to use um
AI to learn the language of
international institutions, which I'd
like you to learn. You know, I often say
the UN, NATO, the WTO. uh but as you
become more specialized you learn more
things like the OECD the OAS IMF and so
on so it depends there's there's
thousands of international institutions
I can't quiz you on all those names you
have to figure out but I do expect you
to know the ones here these ones in
yellow so you must know these for the
multiplechoice exam
for the multiple choice exam I also
expect you to know the World Bank group.
I want you to know the organization for
security and cooperation in Europe. See
the hyphen OCE
Canada participates in this forum. We
are a member of this forum and this is
one way we can become involved in
European defense. NATO and the OCE
the five eyes intelligence alliance. So
these are the United States, the United
Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand. So
those are all the English-speaking five
eyes. And then the arms trade treaty
which I will talk up to you again about
um in the future. Canada's a signatory
to that treaty and Canada's a signatory
to the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change which the
United States has withdrawn from
global governance. Canada is part of the
International Criminal Court, the IC.
Uh Canada is also a part of the
International Court of Justice. And then
Canada, as I mentioned, is part of the
IAEA.
The IAEA, we're a major supporter
because we're a nuclear power and we
have the second most uranium in the
world. We're a major supporter of
nuclear safety, security, and
non-prololiferation initiatives.
Which is also why I'm going to Ottawa at
the end of January to talk about uh
non-prololiferation initiatives.
I'll be there for quite a while um
talking not talking about this. So I'm
not an expert on um this would be
intellectual property. This is more for
people who go into law if you're
interested in intellectual property.
Kerna, some people say CERN, the
European Organization for Nuclear
Research. So I I have found over the
years that scientists from Geneva say
CERN, they don't say Kerna. And then the
United Nations Development Program,
UNDEP. So here AI is telling me do you
need need any details on specific
membership?
Interesting.
Dr. Ralph in his talk speaks about this
school. That's where he was at at in
Italy at the school in February which is
a nice time to be um in Italy. And this
is the school and he mentions it and I
put the website there. I have not
attended this school. It is I'm sure
quite expensive.
Finally, if you do want to become
involved, it is best to become involved
with the Canadian Volunteer Initiative
at the beginning and then go
international. So, I'm the president of
the Canadian Peace Research Association,
which is another institution,
international institution based in
Canada. And there's our website. Uh, and
if you're interested in joining, that
would be um something that you could
consider. I hope that u but I'm not
pressuring you to do so and it would not
change your mark in this class. If you
are going to ask me to present because
you are trying to apply to med school,
my new policy is that um I will not uh
allow you to present so that you can
fill that part out of the med school
application where you can say you um did
something for a volunteer thing. I'm I'm
starting to doubt the the motives of
students that are asking me to to give a
presentation and realizing that it's I
mean I got a few calls this week and
people visiting my office hours and I
think it's best to join something like
the cross-cultural learner center if
you're interested in law uh downtown
work with cross-cultural new immigrants.
I don't think working with this
association and then trying to get into
med school or law is is a good idea. But
maybe if you're interested in
international law,
LESSON 3.4
Dr. Tariq Rauf’s Biography is ON THE EXAM because you need to
know some Terms:
Dr. Tariq Rauf became the Director of SIPRI’s Disarmament, Arms
Control and Non-proliferation Programme in February 2014. Rauf is
an internationally respected authority on nuclear disarmament and
non-proliferation issues.
He was Senior Advisor to the Chair of the Disarmament Committee at
the 2015 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference. From
2002 to 2011 he was Head of the Verification and Security Policy
Coordination Office at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA),
reporting to the Director General, in which capacity he dealt with
high-priority verification cases involving Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea,
South Korea and Syria; and was Coordinator of Multilateral
Approaches to the Nuclear Fuel Cycle from 2003-2012.
He was also the Alternate Head of the IAEA delegation to
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Conferences from 2003 to 2010, and
the IAEA Liaison and Point-of-Contact for a number of multilateral
control regimes and United Nations Security Council committees.
From 1987 to 2000 he was Expert Advisor to Canada’s NPT
delegations.
so you want to record the hi thank you
very much I want to introduce you to Dr
Tariq Ralph who is a very longtime
Diplomat very famous in terms of the
international atomic energy agency and
has spent a lifetime negotiating with
other diplomats all around the world
regarding the nuclear nonproliferation
treaty and I've asked him to come on
tonight he's actually speaking to us
from Europe from Italy where he's
teaching an arms control thank you very
much Tariq for coming on um and maybe
just wave for can I hear you hi oh okay
I wanted to ask you a few questions I
know that we don't have a lot of time um
I'm wondering whether you think that the
uh United States and Russia have
violated many of the bilateral and
multilateral arms control treaties that
have been negotiated during the Cold War
and beforehand for example the
biological toxic weapons convention the
chemical weapons convention and so on do
you think that they've violated those
and that's why they've withdrawn from
them so that's a good question Erica and
hello to all the students so as as Erica
mentioned there are two categories of
Arms Control treaties between the United
States and the Soviet Union Russia in
the bilateral treaties each country
makes the
determination whether or not the other
party is in non-compliance with the the
treaty obligations so for the most part
it is the United States that has first
raised non-compliance concerns regarding
the behavior of uh the Soviet Union and
then of Russia and then usually the
Soviet Union or the Russian side would
reply uh accusing the United States of
non-compliance as well so they tried to
match each other now uh the United
States withdrew from the 1972 anti-b IC
missile treaty in 2002 but they did it
legally they used the withdrawal Clause
they gave the required notice and at the
end of the notice they stepped out of
the uh anti-ballistic missile treaty now
the international sorry intermediate and
shorter range nuclear forces treaty the
INF treaty which was signed in
1987 uh the Obama Administration
starting in about
2016 started uh accusing Russia of
developing a cruise missile that in the
US's opinion exceeded the 500 kilometer
uh range uh that was not allowed under
the INF
treaty so the Russians said well this uh
missile is a derivative of a
conventionally armed cruise missile so
the conventionally armed cruise missile
the Russians said had a range of 49
kilometers and the nuclear armed version
the Russians said had a range of
480 kilometers and therefore the
Russians said that it was within the
allowed limits the United States
responded that this was not their
interpretation and that if the missile
was F fully
fueled uh it would travel a distance in
excess of 500
kilometers but the United States never
made public to us
these this detail that I just talked
about they just said Russia is in
violation so it took the Trump
Administration which identified this
missile as the 9
m729 and citing that as a violation the
United States withdrew from the INF
treaty and then the Russians said well
if you're withdrawing we are withdrawing
as well now in your previous getting
into a lot of detail I was on radio
about the INF treaty and I was allowed 5
minutes and that was it nobody knew the
INF treaty was um you know was all
across Canada that the United States had
withdrawn um and so people were alarmed
and I think we're alarmed at all the
arms control treaties that are falling
by the wayside and we're entering a
nuclear jungle are you worried about
accidental nuclear war to deliver it
strategic War do you think there's going
to be AAL nuclear war in Europe at the
moment the yes at the moment there is
only one treaty standing between Moscow
and Washington and that is the new start
treaty
which will expire on the I think 8th of
February 2026 yeah there are no
negotiations and no talks so as of 9 or
10 February 2026 for the first time in
more than half a century neither Russia
nor the United States will be
constrained by any treaty
although both sides have suspended new
start but both sides have committed that
they will remain within the numerical
limits and thus far neither the us nor
Russia has accused the other of stepping
over and they're not testing above
ground either and they're not testing
underground so that's kind of optimistic
well that is because of the
comprehensive nuclear testband treaty
yeah although uh United States rejected
ratification in
1999 Russia withdrew its ratification in
2023 but is still committed to uh the
treaty now uh Eric for the first time we
have six nuclear armed States engaged in
an armed conflict United States France
and United Kingdom on the one side in
the Ukraine war Russia supported by
China and North Korea on the other side
in the Ukraine war and for the first
time a major nuclear power is being
attacked on its own territory these are
the long range fires from Ukraine into
Russia beyond the occupied territories
this has never happened before yeah I Al
have been sounding the alarm for many
months and you would have seen my posts
on Canadian pagash yeah that we seem to
be sliding towards an accidental nuclear
war much like we slid into a war the
first world
war so people are dismissing Russia's
threats to use nuclear weapons saying
they are not credible we don't believe
them but we never know when we will have
the proverbial straw that broke the
camels
back yeah I'm very very concerned about
a limited nuclear war uh what about are
you concerned about the Saudis obtaining
nuclear weapons in reply to Iran and
then Israel uh having it its bomb in the
basement revealing it are you concerned
about proliferation and do you think
that's another reason do you think
that's another reason that we should be
worried I mean we're worried about the
the six nuclear Powers engaged in
Ukraine but we are also worried about a
small tactical nuclear war between let's
say India Pakistan leading to nuclear
winter I I this here in andelo I've been
criticizing all my colleagues who for
years have been lecturing India and
Pakistan on avoiding a nuclear war and
guess what they themselves are doing so
I am not worried about the nuclear war
starting in South Asia in the current
circumstances okay so um coming back to
what about between North and South Korea
then you're not worried about that
either in Japan this is an issue that
has what is being discussed here
actively uhuh the the president of South
Korea this president who has now been
arrested yeah if you remember in January
came out openly and said South Korea
would acquire nuclear weapons and then
he was beaten down by the United States
and two weeks later he
recanted so there is concern about South
Korea then this would not be the first
time that South Korea has made noises
about getting nuclear weapons so I don't
think that South Korea is going to go
down that path at the moment now coming
to Saudi Arabia y so it's interesting
that I was told by my Israeli colleague
here that recently Israel Declassified
some commentary by some scientists who
had built the Demona facility where uh
Israel's nuclear weapons were built so
they were signaling something now your
previous guest Guy Roberts in my view
was wrong when he said the nuclear power
reactors under construction in turkey or
Arabia could be used to make nuclear
weapons this is just not factually
correct both will be under I safeguards
the technology and the nuclear material
is not the same but Saudi Arabia has
said on the record that if Iran develops
nuclear weapons it will also develop
nuclear weapons but Saudi Arabia would
have a long way to go it has no nuclear
material it has no nuclear expertise
couldn't it just buy couldn't it buy
some nuclear weapons on the black market
no there are no nuclear weapons on the
black market sorry to say this is just
wrong information yes someone guy Robert
said that it is possible I seem to
recall and um that was maybe after I
finished taking so I would recommend to
your students to read this article by
benoa pelop Pedas p l o p i d a s okay
called the Oracles of proliferation okay
and this is a very good yeah he's a
professor nuclear history professor at
sanpo okay in Paris he has written a
very good article on how The Narrative
of proliferation has been developed yes
of castigating some states and
whitewashing the actions of other states
so today we have nine countries with
nuclear
weapons none of these nine countries
nuclear weapons program was truly
indigenous all nine countries have
received and are given help to another
country build nuclear weapons including
the Manhattan Project yeah Canada helped
out there SCH gave a but you know all
the major discoveries in nuclear were
done in Europe yeah yep but I think
that's what people are worried about is
an aqan figure teaching because the
nuclear Genie is out of the bottle
teaching more and more countries
including terrorist organizations to
somehow build a dirty bomb I'm not so
worried about that because it's a
smaller dirty bomb and I think they
would be caught I'm not I am not worried
about yeah I think ER that is also false
narrative that was developed some years
ago
uh actually it's not that difficult for
a country to make a nuclear weapon if
they have the nuclear material and at
the moment except for Iran where its
program thus far is under safeg guards
Iran has not threatened officially to
leave the non-proliferation treaty
though individuals have threatened to do
so so on Monday and Tuesday uh the
British the French and the Germans met
with Iran in
to restart a discussion so that they
could invite the Trump Administration to
join it because they're very worried
that the Trump Administration after
January 20 might fall into the Trap of
prime minister Netanyahu to launch an
attack on Iran's nuclear facilities even
the head of the CIA has said there is no
indication that Iran has taken the
decision to build a nuclear weapon and
also and a military attack will not
eliminate Iran's new nuclear expertise
or nuclear potential they will be able
to reconstitute in two years and go
ahead and build a nuclear weapon so we
don't we need not to be emotional about
this unfortunately in today's hyper
media world we have to be careful this
is the public recording in that there
are like thousands of students in the
class and so I cannot control where the
video goes so if you don't mind I would
like to move away from speaking about a
possible attack by Israel on Iran's
nuclear facilities um
although the osara reactor is part of
history and also Israel has attacked
with pagers and radios and and so on
there's been different attacks but I
have to be very evenhanded here um and
and rather than dwell on
um The Narrative regarding Israel and
Iran I I want to um talk a little bit
more about the finger the president
Trump's finger on the nuclear trigger
are you concerned that President Trump
because of some of his irrational
statements let's say regarding North
Korea um would be irrational and that
that would undermine deterence
deterrence would be undermined because
it is not evident that he's making clear
cost benefit rational considerations or
do you think his irrationality and his
apparent um kind of anger and vitriol
and so on that actually but's deterrence
it makes it
stronger so in the United States
starting uh
with the President Truman I think the
concept of sole authority to use nuclear
weapons residing in the president uh was
established and it continues to this day
today although the military also has
said that they have the responsibility
not to follow an illegal order or an
order that they feel is coming from a
president who might be mentally
Disturbed so there are concerns but I
don't think we need to Hype that either
yeah I think so you're feeling confident
that certainly in the United States but
what about in Russia or let's wait you
know I don't think it would be possible
in China but are you concerned about an
accidental a launch between the
Strategic nuclear Powers not so much
between the wouldbe uh nuclear Powers
well this is a concern with regard to
the ongoing war in
Ukraine it's more likely that it would
not be a use of central strategic forces
but more likely a missile with the
regional range of the type that was
eliminated under uh the INF treaty now
Germany is
clamoring for the United States to bring
nuclear weapons back to Germany and
there is also talk of uh US nuclear
weapons returning to South Korea they
were withdrawn by the senior President
Bush in 1991 as a result of presidential
nuclear initiatives now the Russian
nuclear doctrine that your previous
guest was discussing has also been
misrepresented so I'm not defending
Russia here what the Russians have said
is they basically harmonized at one
level their nuclear weapons employment
policy with what the United States
Britain and France have donees so what
the Russians are saying now which is
what uh the other nuclear Powers except
for China which has a no first use
policy have said in Security Council
resolutions 255 on positive security
assurances of
1968 and resolution 984 of
1995 that they will not attack a
nonclear weapon state party to the npt
except if that non-nuclear weapon state
in association with another nuclear
weapon fate attacks me aren't those
called negative security insurance is
not positive yeah positive the positive
would be like Japan or something yeah no
no no the positive in two in 1968 was
that if you're attacked with nuclear
weapons I promise to come to your help
okay we will call a meeting of the
security Council and then decide how to
help yeah and then the negatives are
negative is but you know the nuclear
posture review of the Biden
Administration like that of the Trump
Administration with with which I think
your previous guest was involved
says that they will not attack a
non-nuclear weapon state in compliance
with the non-proliferation treaty now
who decides that the United States have
has left that decision to itself they
normally it's the international atomic
energy agency that reports whether a
country or not is complying with its
verification um obligations to use
nuclear material only for peaceful
purposes and not make a bomb here the US
will decide with the country X is in
compliance with the non-proliferation
treaty if Washington decides that it is
not it potentially could be open to a US
attack and um there was also the
discussion with Mr Roberts about the
Russian uh Doctrine about escalating to
deescalate now the US incorrect but
that's okay because it was an informal
discussion and we're not you know this
that is not that is this wrong this
translation but it's not totally wrong
but the US also in its nuclear posture
review has said that it could use
nuclear weapons to restore strategic
stability so the two of them are not
that far apart so this is the problem
with nuclear weapon states that you know
they decide and they keep on changing
and so we cannot be confident under what
circumstances they may or may not use
nuclear weapons and therefore for people
like you and I who've been fighting the
struggle for a long time to reduce
nuclear weapons and eventually to try to
seek a world without nuclear weapons and
we should remember that Canada was the
first country to renounce nuclear
weapons in the three Nation Declaration
of December
1945 where the prime ministers of Canada
and the UK and the US president met and
Canada said we contributed to the
Manhattan Project we do have the
expertise yeah we had the technology
everything we had the urani we were the
only country you know people always say
oh Kazakhstan and Ukraine made decisions
to get rid of of the arsenals that were
on their territory but Canada actually
had the capability to build its own
nuclear weapons and decided not to and
you're a Canadian and you've been a
longtime stalwart defender of nuclear
disarmament and nuclear and and nuclear
abolition and so I brought you on
because I wanted a counter to guy
Roberts who was at the you know he's the
one who who who steered the nuclear
modernization review and a program he
was in charge of seven more than 70
billion dollars of spending and yet when
I asked him well what about the Russians
and and modernizing that so that we're
safer he didn't think about that he was
thinking more about modernizing I think
because they want to get into space and
they want to get involved in a ballistic
missile defense project and so I think
underlying all that although it was not
brought up is the whole race to get into
space well the Russians have modernized
as well so the United States is a little
bit behind so we may not agree with
their rationale but the US wants to
replace the landbased intercontinental
ballistic missiles with the new one they
want to they need to they say they need
to make new ballistic missile submarines
and new
bombers and uh for that they have
Congress has authorized production of
990 plutonium pits per year for new
nuclear warheads but but in the past 2
years the national nuclear Security
Administration has only been able to
deliver one pit per
year so
the US modernization which actually
started under Obama even though he gave
the Prague speech is a trillion dollar
modernization trillion dollars yep great
article in the New York Times did you
see that one on the New York Times on
the modernization which is permeating
all of us Society every Congressional
district is involved in the
modernization but I'm I'm I'm curious
why you said that Russia has modernized
because I understood the global
partnership program was Desperately
Seeking money to give to Russia so that
it will modernize no no no this that
program was directed at to its at
emergence of Russia in
1991 to secure Russian nuclear weapons
so they were provided safe secure
transport so that the nuclear weapons
that were withdrawn from bellarus
Kazakhstan and Ukraine could be
transported safely back to Russia and
then there were more than 100 disused
cores of nulear reactors of nuclear
powered submarines which were up in the
Arctic and had had the Arctic being
poisoned we would be affected as well in
Canada so the G7 money was used to take
those reactor cores and the plutonium to
be taken out at the mayak facility in
the middle of Russia and that plutonium
to be
denatured so several years ago the G7
Global Partnerships stopped giving money
to Russia and also Russia said I don't
need your money anymore so now the money
is going for other projects in other
countries although Canada is still
contributing I think a billion dollars
it's one of the global Affairs biggest
projects and um I think uh the spending
on that is enormous and Canada's quite
proud of it and because I'm teaching a
course on can in the world abroad then
not to Russia that yeah yeah not to
Russia yeah not they're not giving it
directly to Russia no I no but it's now
more towards uh building up capacity on
chemical and biological weapons defense
and nonproliferation yes yeah um well I'm
hoping that students in the future will
be interested in participating and if
there's any hints that you can give them
in the last few minutes on how to forge
a diplomatic career I met you back in
1987 when I brought a group of 10
students from the University of Toronto
up to Ottawa and you kindly granted us
um 20 minutes and we were extreme that
was that was 30 God knows how long ago
that was when I first met you Tariq and
since then um I've admired greatly all
the work that you've done you have a
gift of uh getting a different diplomats
together understanding what they're
agreeing to deleting the words and
getting them to agree behind the scenes
did you want to give the students any
kind of hints about how to forge a
career in diplomacy
um yes a is to work hard yeah to develop
some specific
expertise um one one career path is to
join either the department of Foreign
Affairs uh Department of National
Defense also is supposed to have an arms
control yeah component you would know
more about that but there are also
International organizations like the UN
office for dis government affairs with
head office in New York and branch
office in Geneva there's International
atomic energy agency the comprehensive
nuclear testb Treaty Organization and
Erica at the Ia there are two specific
projects basically aimed of bringing
women in
nuclear one is the least smer um no Mar
Mari curri slatka scholarship which is
for women students engaged in Master's
programs and those who are selected can
will also get one year of internship at
the Ia and then there is the lease smer
program for women who have already
graduated and it gives them an
opportunity for one year's work I've
never been selected for anything because
I'm a woman um I've never never not even
my job it was it was but this is because
of the I'm always reluctant to advertise
things that say well because you're a
woman you get to to to you get yeah but
you know these are gender uh equality
programs and um so the Ia has committed
to have 50 50% staff professionals is
women and 50% men really so we we've
progressed from gender balance to gender
parity to gender equality wow but not
all countries accept the concept of
gender equality not at all well gender
balance can be
6040 gender parity could also be less
than
50/50 so this is not being um
condescending to women but it's
basically providing opportunities where
previously these opportunities were not
available to women yeah that's but there
is a backlash where they will say that
you got there because you're a woman um
and that's called well you know you can
can't stop people from talking but also
you know globally people would like more
diversity in stem subjects generally men
go women have stayed away so we need to
break down those barriers and and not
get ourselves involved in the politics
of gender politics because it doesn't
get us anywhere and so I would rather
not get into that discussion so it's
fascinating and it affects so many
people that are in my class and so um
you know they're all in in all sorts of
fields and I think this is a good note
to end on because when you said work
hard you have worked extremely hard you
got a PhD in arms control and you you
didn't mention that that's an important
thing is to get further education
publish a lot and then just stay on top
of everything all the time you have
always stayed on top of all every I mean
it's just unbelievable to to me how much
you stay on top of everything and I want
to congratulate you that on next week
the last time we actually saw each other
was in ASA um on the bus there uh going
in Kazakhstan when we were there um
quite a few years ago but I hope that we
can see each other again in person
someday and if you don't mind if a few
students reach out to you um we'll let
them reach out to you in person and
maybe you can give them more advice
thank you can I can I plug can I plug
the course that I'm teaching here along
with my colleagues because it's done
every year in January it's called isod
Darko i s o d a r Co International
School on disarmament and conflict okay
so they have money to pay for airfare
and one week of board and instruction
here in andala which is a ski resort
plus you get that's I put up this
picture actually yeah plus the students
get time to SK ski in the morning and
afternoon and they still get six hour
six hours of instruction because we even
have an after dinner lecture from 8:30
from 9:30 to 11: oh that's you're
absolutely yeah and in in previous years
there have been some Canadian students
who have come okay so this this year
nobody identified themselves as coming
from Canada unfortunately well I'll I'll
get the information from you and I'll be
sure to hopefully track and we are doing
a course in August in in tusy more on I
think autonomous weapons and Ai and
nuclear weapons so if those who might be
interested I will send you the details
and they can yeah and I can post that
well that's excellent yeah thank you
thank you um it's very interesting that
that's available well thank you very
much Tariq this wonderful to speak to
you only for a few minutes and I
appreciate this and um I hope that we
can meet again and talk for uh on
another topic another time but this has
been great thank you thank you goodbye
okay bye