George P. Shultz: Okay we will at the end of Jack Matlock we are going to have a shift of gears here. I mean what we have been talking about, but I think there has been constant reference to political issues as we go along, and we will start in on that subject and Jack -.
Jack Matlock: Thank you you know I am very envious of the scientists and who are discussing things where they can use figures, hard facts, even when they are certain on certainty they can calculate probabilities; when we get into the area of regional animosities, regional conflicts and the relationship of that - possible relationship of that to the proliferation of nuclear weapons, we get into something much less definite, much more complex, because we are dealing with basically with human psychology and people coming from entirely different cultures, who may have ways of thinking or priorities that are quite different from the ones that we would recognize. And that makes it extremely difficult and I will say at the outset, two things. First of all I am not an expert on these areas that we are talking about. I look at them as a generalist. Second, I don't think that there is a general silver bullet approach to dealing with these, because if ever the truism that the devil is in the details is true, it is with these regional conflicts. Every one of them has unique aspects unless you address those unique aspects, you are not going to deal with them. So the thought that you could have a general rule that's always going to be always going to apply, I think is you are looking for a will of the wisp, it just isn't there. And one of the biggest problems
George P. Shultz: we have sometimes is taking an overly theoretical approach and writing that without taking full account of what the particulars in that situation is and where those people are coming from. Now and looking at situations where countries have developed nuclear weapons, and also situations where they have been persuaded to give up a program, but I have come my conclusion is that countries give them up only when the leadership is convinced that they are more secure when they have given them up than they would be if they didn't give them up. And the second thing I have noticed very often is that if regimes feel threatened predicted by a nuclear power, and no matter how I would say legitimate these threats may be in terms of of protecting human rights or other things. These threats tend to strengthen the desire to have a nuclear weapon. After all they look out at the world and they see that countries with nuclear weapons don't attack directly, countries other countries that have nuclear weapons. If Serbia had had nuclear weapons, I am sure we would not have bombed them over Kosovo. And you know, that this is a conclusion many others are up to draw, particularly those that are doing practices that we find unacceptable and highly threatening. So that I think we have to be very careful in looking at what the impact of what our own policy is on a given situation. Second, I would say that I think in the cases I have looked, it's very rare in fact I don't think I can find any of a country that trying to get nuclear weapons in order to use them. They seem to get them because they feel this in their minds, rightly or wrongly, that this is going to increase the security at least the security over the regime that tries to get them. Another thing I would conclude in looking at things is that whether they are democracies have not is not a crucial factor. After all India was a democracy, it developed them. There were periods when Pakistan had an elected government and fairly effective democratic institutions, and their program went on unimpeded. In fact actually encouraged, I think Benazir Bhutto has told me personally that well of course, she let it go forward, that she would have been removed immediately if she hadn't, when she was Prime Minister in Pakistan. So that's why I think we do need to look very carefully and try to understand, no matter how unacceptable it may seem, why a country would want from and what it might take to dissuade them. We do have examples of dissuasion, somewhere like in South Africa when they decided to go to majority rule; obviously they didn't want the black majority to have access to nuclear weapons. So in their own interest they gave them up. In the case of Libya you have a quite different case where we simply made the cost so high over a period of time, so he realized that he was bearing the cost and it was not up to get them any way. Each case is though is a little bit different and you know, it's just very difficult to generalize. But if I ask myself is there any lesson we can draw from Reykjavik, from the way we go with the Soviet Union in dealing with these different in many respects, instances and yet are there similarities. I do think that there are lessons there. Lessons not for some silver bullet that's always going to work, but for procedures and postures that give us the best chance of making them work. And I would really summarize what I would distill from that; the importance of direct communication, and communication on several levels. And looking back you know it was the Soviet Union that usually if something happened that they didn't like, pulled out of of negotiations. You know said, we won't talk to you about that. We deployed the INF weapons in Europe and they walked away from all of the arms control negotiations. Every time they walked away from negotiations, it was really a victory for us. And the fact that President Reagan and Secretary Schultz insisted, regardless of what happened in keeping the channels of communication open and talking to them, and not saying well, we can't talk to them because that was outrageous. That was very important because for a number of reasons. First of all I think we didn't realize to what degree our own policies were misunderstood in the Kremlin. And it's not that sitting down and once or twice laying them out was going to convince them. But I was struck by the fact when I was researching my book on Reagan and Gorbechov and was given access to notes taken in Polit Beauro sessions. That in February 1987, just a few months after Reykjavik when they were beginning to realize they really needed an INF Treaty, that "zero-zero" was in their interest. At one point Gorbechov turns to Dobrynin who had just come back from Moscow and said, "Could we trade a withdrawal from Afghanistan for zero-zero?" Now they had been told that though that was our proposal we would live with it, because once we deployed, it was in our interest to keep you know those brushing tools in Germany and Dobrynin's answer was no. They don't want either one of them. This was the advice that Dobrynin was giving them. Well, of course nothing would have improved our relations more than to do both of them. And of course they eventually did both of them. And they were persuaded to do so I think because of the consistent pattern and you know, it it started with Secretary Schultz, continued of course with Reagan and then we spread it through the bureaucracies in every way we could. We had a real fight with some of your secretaries and then we suggested that the regional assistant secretaries talked to the Soviets about things like Latin America. And yet, within a few years and of course it wasn't magic, within a few years we found we were actually cooperating in the interest of both countries. And this was the point. Much of Soviet policy at that time simply was not in the Soviet interests. And if you look at everything as a zero sum game, you know there was going to be no trust at all. And so I would say that I am not saying that, simply talking to people is going to solve all your problems, absolutely not. Nor was it simply talks, because we made sure that we wanted to make it clear, they want to arms race, they are going to lose it. So let's find a different way. We also put our proposals in at least cosmetically, mutual way. Let's improve human rights, let's lower weapons. It's not you must improve human rights, you must lower weapons, of course that's what we meant, but at least you put it in a context that you are talking about a reciprocal thing. And when I remember when Shevardnadze and your first meeting, and you talked to him about human rights questions, and he said, "Can I talk to you about race relations in the United States?" You said, "Be my guest." This is going to be you know a dialogue. And the point was that it did show respect and one could have questioned whether some of these leaders really deserved respect, and yet if you are going to deal with them you do have to show that. Now alright, how much does this apply to regional things? I think there are lessons here. First of all I would point out, with North Korea; the time when we tried to cut them off and simply use threats was when the program became most dangerous. Now things should be going better, because I think we get two things. One thing, we organize a multilateral effort, a group of six. And second we resumed very intensive bilateral negotiations, and I think we are making progress now, and it looks as if we will keep our fingers crossed; this may produce result. Now this is going to require I think assuring a very despicable regime, we got in a sense we respect them and we are not trying to remove them by force. We will have to do that. But you know I think back also to Cold War experience. I recall when Ostpolitik, Willy Brandt's Policy, it worried many of us, where you said, look you recognize East Germany you recognize them officially, you send embassies there; you are dividing Germany for ever. It didn't happen that way. They are well and we didn't require them to take down the Berlin Wall. We just required them to open up their borders. Okay, let's get what we can get and see what happens. Well, what happened was that was simply a regime that once Soviet policy changed could not sustain. And it began to come apart just like the Soviet Union not under US pressure, but when the pressures were released at the end of the Cold War. Now so I do think there are lessons there. And I recognize that when we turn to a place like Iran, I could not it's hard to think of a worse time to try to establish a dialogue, in terms of of things. And I suppose that it says we should have started that dialogue, a broad one, much earlier. But on the other hand I don't really see how we are going to deal with these problems unless we use sort of all of the methods that we used during the Cold War to try to diminish this problem. And I to go back to one of the things I should have said originally, is that as important as many of these regional animosities are in encouraging nuclear weapons, because it's very clear that India's relation that with China, with Pakistan, had something to do with their development of nuclear weapons; just as Pakistan's had something to do with India's and so on. Nevertheless even if we could solve these regional, potential conflicts and actual conflicts, that's not going to remove totally the incentive for nuclear weapons, because as long as nuclear weapons are seen as a source of power, a source of prestige, countries are going to want them. And particularly countries that feel they are being ignored. India was good example. I think it wasn't just China and Pakistan. It was the fact that they wanted to be a big boy in the club, and we were treating them as colonialists as colonial sort of looking down on them, thinking they didn't have the capability. And talking to Indians I happened to be there just after they did the explosion and we were trying to convince them, this was going to be a burden for them, create more problems for them. And the answer we got from many from Indians were you were treating us like the British you know as if we are colony, as if we are not you know equal to you. So I think we better understand that as long as we act as if nuclear weapons are a source of power and prestige, we are going to convey that. And working on the regional confrontations it's it's going to be necessary to do that, you know on your own right, but we are going to get no where as far as proliferation unless we get some of the central issues right. And finally I would conclude I had quite a bit in the paper and we can discuss this further if you want, we are also not going to get anywhere on nonproliferation if we don't get the nuclear cooperation right with Russia. The two of us of course have most of the nuclear weapons in the world. Unless we cooperate unless we do many of the things that we have been talking about up to now, and do them cooperatively, we are not going to be able to control this proliferation issue. And that means that we have to look carefully on our priorities and how we deal with Russia. I think this is right at the top of the list. I also think that such things as missile defense is going to be much better and much more stabilizing if it can be done cooperatively. And I would include the Chinese there too. And and we need to find a way to do it. And it is a way that the bureaucracies in all of our countries are going to resist for a lot of ingrown reasons, they want their own programs, it's going to take real political leadership. Most of all you know we really have to avoid what seems to the Russians to be sort of playing geopolitical games to put them at a disadvantage. The idea of bringing Ukraine into NATO, particularly when majority of Ukrainians don't want it, is simply absurd. It is not in the US interest. And that sort of policy is going to be as damaging to overall relation towards Russia, including in the nuclear area, as say suppose Gorbachev have tried to bring Mexico into the Warsaw Pact. We wouldn't have liked that. And you know so I think we have to look at the overall relationship and we have to understand that these issues do are in a political context, highly complex, and that they they are going to require multilateral action along with I think bilateral, just as we are now approaching North Korea, which I think is a pattern that can be used elsewhere.
Major-General Vladimir Dvorkin: I think that Jack Matlock made an absolutely right point in that without create resolution of original crisis, it's impossible to move towards a global a new global security system and towards the zero, we were talking about. How stable is nuclear deterrence between India and Pakistan? Recently I recently I had conducted a modeling of exchange of nuclear strikes by these two powers. We use very powerful computer modeling tools which had been previously used for studying the exchanges of central arsenals between the US and the USSR. But the guys who do the modeling got sick and tired off exchanging strikes with the United States and decided to model something else. It turned out that there is nuclear deterrence you know nuclear deterrence is working there, although for Pakistan has to strain to get there. And we took in to consideration of the you know outcomes or conflict using only conventional forces. And already even without nuclear weapons Pakistani losses were far higher than those by India or the Indian sides. We also put in - you know we conducted we had given consideration of the capabilities of space and air and other types of requirements. I don't have time to discuss the detail but let me just deal with greatest problem of today, the problem of Iran. Recently the Moscow Carnegie Center and Rose held a seminar on the possible solutions to the Iranian problem. A number of interesting presentations considered the internal situation in Iran after the introduction of the sanctions and the possibilities for a regime change there. It is difficult to predict when it would happen. The most important thing of course now is Iranian capabilities for building nuclear weapons. We've talked in the previous session we discussed the importance of the intelligence and of course when you know how firm intelligence data is, our imagination starts painting scary pictures. Yesterday during the dinner reception I had a chance to sit between two professors of psychiatry from medical schools. They reduced my my level of aggressiveness. The estimate is that Iran has from 3000 to 5000 centrifuges; P-1, P-2. So it will take about 12 months to get enough HEU for one warhead. The the great spread of estimates from one year to three, four years has to do with the mix of old and new centrifuges, the need to maintain them and so on. But can we exclude the possibility that Iran already has HEU that they received from the A. Q. Khan network. They say that the network as a whole has been destroyed but its remnants as they say are still active. So this network existed for decades and we cannot exclude that it already that Iran has already acquired HEU. They say, well first they need to get HEU, then they need to build a warhead, it will take a long time. Now okay, if you know if a professional decided to build a warhead, would he have to wait for HEU to come on line and you know and wouldn't he have started building not the explosive device itself, but the warhead in advance. I think that there was a case in the US where two non nuclear physicists not nuclear physicists built a device, I mean the only thing was simple gun type device and you know the only thing it needed was HEU. I am pretty sure they have already designed the simple device. Recently a member of the Israeli intelligence community told me that they have noticed that the Iranians have changed the design of the sort of the last stage of the Shahab-3 Missile, the design change which in their view was to accommodate a nuclear charge. So it's very difficult to forecast you know the time of their acquisition of nuclear weapon. May be they already are practically ready. Simple gun type device with the capability for with the yield of 10 to 20 kilotons can you know weigh about 560 kilograms and it could fit on to Shahab-3. So you know that makes me think that even you know air strikes on Iran are not a complete absurdity. There is hope there is still hope for nonmilitary solution, perhaps Russia's position is going to change after the next report by International Atomic Energy Agency. Thank you
Henry Kissinger: And and let me comment on the North Korean and the Iranian problem. And what fundamentally it just seems to me that these we have been talking in this group about nonproliferation as if it were something we all we all you know, put together. But here we have a case of two nations that are confronted by the Security Council of the United Nations, plus other nations. So if they wind up with nuclear weapons, for any reason, it will be a breakdown of the international system, because it will prove that a nation can act in total defiance, every nation that is negotiating with Iran has formally stated that the development of the nuclear weapons by Iran is unacceptable. There has been no disagreement of that issue. So therefore if they develop nuclear weapons anyway, it is a breakdown of the international system, compounded which then all other discussion on zero option and is ended if we can't even do it in these relatively simple things. Secondly we have not even been able to agree on what the line is, at which the program becomes irreversible or when they it's already beyond that point, as General Dvorkin had pointed out. One would assume that we can agree on the on what is the what is the line in which the program is irreversible and therefore some action is mandatory, whatever the action is. And secondly we haven't agreed on the action. So I believe that not the European countries will not support any determent act on Iran. I believe that Reykjavik I believe it's against the fundamental interest of Russia to have nuclear weapons in Iran. But on abstract reasons of nonproliferation, because Nuclear weapons in Iran consist of three privileges; multiple retaliation, cover for regressive policy and some support for terrorists. So we can't avoid this that this will be a key issue, either by default or by the action or whenever the action is even if it is primarily the US. I am in favor of negotiating with Iran in Iran, because of the supply line. But it will not work until we assemble both pressures and the framework for the negotiation. Now with respect to Korea, in Korea you have a confluence of everybody's interest, Russia and China, Japan, America they all agree that there should not be nuclear weapons in Korea for their own reasons. China doesn't want nuclear weapons in Korea because they doesn't want a nuclear neighbor and because they fears that it will spread to all of Korea and from Korea to international. And Russia has a moderate interest, Japan has a big interest, and we have a general interest. So we had a choice, we have a choice. Do we negotiate do we negotiate through the six, all of whom have a common interest or do we peel off and negotiate separately with North Korea? I actually think we are making a mistake, permitting ourselves to get peeled off into a negotiation with the North Koreans. I think we should stick to the Six Party Framework and keep pushing for keep pushing for denuclearization, and not confuse it with too many other issues like peace treaties, power conference. On the principle that Napoleon put forward, "If you want to take Vienna, take Vienna." If you want to take denuclearization of North Korea let's get that. Now this is a key issue. I put that but there have been many issues about the survivability of that regime. But it seems to me it is absolutely central that we succeed in denuclearization of Korea send Vienna and and Iran, I don't see how any other country is going to be this way that from from going to nuclear weapons, if when we have all the countries together on an agreed objective, we can't reach it. And this is something we ought to keep in mind as we conduct our nonproliferation discussion. This is see if we want to reach what we are talking about here, we have to prevent the spread to Korea and Iran. Well, I think if we can achieve a relatively rapid implementation of the February 17th Agreement. Right, what they have already agreed to theoretically, and which it's trying separate itself now. But if we keep China engaged we should be able to do that. That we can get into because we don't need to argue the tactics I believe it's achievable if we don't raise too many extraneous subjects simultaneously so that we will never be able to do that.
George Shultz: But you are raising an issue around Iran and North Korea. You are saying we have a presumed international system and at the top of it is the United Nations Security Council and at the top of that is the five permanent members. And here we have two instances where the five permanent members have agreed on something, even though they've disagreed on further aspects of it, but they have agreed that nuclear weapons in these two countries is not acceptable to them, and it seems to be very difficult to do anything to implement that agreement. And what you are saying is well, if that's the case then what international system do we have. That's that's the challenge that you are pointing up, I believe. Okay.
Speaker: Yes, I think the problem here is that it's very difficult, particularly in the case of Iran to find a way which practically speaking, without creating greater dangers elsewhere what's certainty prevent this development. And then you know I think there are both technical and political problems here. I think we need in my mind the greater immediate threat is that arsenal in Pakistan. And for example if we use military force to take out whatever facilities the Iran's the Iranians have, which may or may not work. I mean I don't know how precise our intelligence is, the square that is, will that not be considered in Pakistan and much of the Islamic world as an attack on Islam, which for which giving Pakistan weapons to some terrorist group to use against United States, the perpetrator in their eyes, would this not heighten the risk that a Pakistan weapon would get out? This is what worries me. Second, you know even though a strike might temporarily certainly, if we know where the things are, it's going to stop it for a while. Is it going to stop it everywhere? And say we do have the arsenal in Pakistan particularly we are worried about, we don't seem to worry about the one in India, but I don't know whether we know enough to be certain on that. So that I think there is dilemma here and as far as depending entirely on the Group of Six in the case of North Korea, it seems to me that when we were doing so, my impression is we found that though yes, the Chinese do not want the North Koreans to have nuclear weapons. On the other hand they fear a collapse of the North Korean regime more than they fear that. So I think they were unwilling to bring sufficient pressure to bear that would bring about that collapse. Meanwhile the North Koreans were insisting our problem is not you, it's the United States; we will only deal with them directly. I guess I my feeling is that we made the right decision to do so and again I look back to the fact that eventually we did the GDR in by recognizing them and by normalizing relations and the situation is obviously different in North Korea. But if it takes that I think we should look at the ways to do it in the case of North Korea. I think there is a real dilemma with Iran because I don't see a certain way that we can keep them from doing it without running very serious at least as serious as Iran having nuclear weapon.
George P. Shultz: I personally I think that if Iran, for that matter North Korea was convinced that the five permanent members of the Security Council were really serious about it, unified, and would take a series of steps that are clear and tough, including such things as the little incident that I mentioned, that had quite an impact, that there would be a response. And that's the problem. So we have a system and it isn't working. It isn't working because there is something wrong with the system. It's not working because the people who are supposed to implement it aren't able to follow through on their own convictions. You see this is in other areas as well. The five permanent members and others have said that it's not acceptable for Hezbollah to be armed. And nothing much has been done about that. So that's I think that they are pointing up an issue that there is a tremendous stake in it. If somehow the UN Security Council worked in the sense that it had the courage of its convictions, and everybody could see that, then we would have a different story. Of course it might very well be that people wouldn't agree so readily if they knew they are going to have to follow through on what they agree. Lets hope that this thing with chasing Iran but I think that a fundamental problem we have.
Robert Einhorn: I just wanted to ask Secretary Shultz, what's the deficiency? Should the US be doing more to get Russia and China on our side? Should we be we talked about this yesterday morning, should we be showing greater concern for Russian interests in other areas to get them on our side so that the five can operate coherently? What's the reason for this lack of consensus?
George P. Shultz: Well I think that it's a mistake to think that whatever problems there are, the four with the United States, and it's somehow you explain everything that way. At the same time I think that very energetic diplomacy is really important. And in the paper that Henry and I have put in to this book, basically what we are saying is that the our diplomatic ability is vastly undermanned and in all sorts of way, and that we should be doing a much more aggressive job of what I call gardening, that is working with countries energetically, with people who are there at a high level. So you got to have a lot more people lot more capable people, and then on that basis you are not suddenly going to China or going to Russia or somebody and saying, we have a problem, let's work under problem. You have built it into a sustained relationship, and I think that many of these issues, as Jack you take the Israeli Palestinian issue. We could sit down in five minutes and write out what people think they more or less would agree to. But there is no process that can get there. And the reason is there isn't any negotiating partner on Palestinians side. It doesn't exist. So we have the process problem and you know I have ideas about how you might do with that process problem. But I think you will always have this promise, not so much finding what the answer is as how to identify a process that will get you there. And that's hard, but I think we need to have a firm or capable an energetic, diplomatic capability than we now have to work with these things. I mean or is it magnitude better. I am not a I don't mean by that to be criticizing anybody currently there, but I just think that its just not not manned enough at all. It's just my opinion.
