Following on the follow-on

Brookings hosted an event today featuring a panel of Strobe Talbott, Steve Pifer, and Clifford Gaddy that was moderated by Fiona Hill.  The event was in large part a rollout of the new publication by Pifer, Gaddy, and Joe Cirincione about the U.S. Russia relationship on WMD-related issues.  Moving beyond discussion of the current treaty being negotiated, the report makes recommendations for the U.S. and Russia in 3 areas: the next round of arms reductions, shoring up the nonproliferation regime, and tackling the peaceful use of nuclear energy issue.   The report contains a bunch of recommendations in each area that I won't get into.  Two interesting arguments made at the event that were not necessarily at the heart of the discussion:

1. Strobe Talbott spent awhile talking about the domestic political environment in the United States and how that will impact the administration's 2010 nuclear agenda.  While Scott Brown's election doesn't directly impact the fact that Republicans will have to be courted to get a START follow-on ratified, Talbott argued that Brown's election does have an impact on the administration's arms control aspirations.  Washington is currently quite polarized and the degree to which the Republicans dig in their heels and try to put the administration on the defensive on issues like Health Care may be a harbinger of what kinds of fights will be expected on issues like START follow-on. 

2.  As the U.S. and Russia seek to finalize a signed START follow-on "soonish"  they will begin thinking about tackling another treaty that will have to deal with some of the very thorny issues like TNW's, non-deployed weapons, and missile defense.  This will be a long and arduous process but Pifer argued that the U.S. and Russia should seek to make a statement in the lead up to the 2010 Review Conference stating their intent to begin the work on such a treaty.  Should this happen, it could provide the administration another piece to include in its shield against criticism about Article VI, although the longstanding effort to get CTBT ratified may cast doubt in some minds about how much stock to put in words about intentions.