2016 Consensus Statement
The European Trilateral Track 2 Nuclear Dialogues, sponsored by CSIS in partnership with the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and the Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique (FRS), has convened senior nuclear policy experts from the United Kingdom, France, and the United States (P3) for the past eight years to discuss nuclear deterrence policy issues and to identify areas of consensus among the three countries. The majority of the experts are former U.S., UK, and French senior officials; the others are well-known academics in the field. Since the Dialogues’ inception, high-level officials from all three governments have also routinely joined the forum and
participated in the discussions.
The Dialogues have been unique in bringing U.S., UK, and French representatives into a trilateral forum for discussing nuclear policy and disarmament. The United States, United Kingdom, and France hold common values and principles directed toward a shared purpose of global peace and security, as well as an understanding of their respective roles as responsible stewards of nuclear weapons. Their sustained engagement will thus, irrespective of political shifts in any of the three countries, remain unique in the context of international alliances and partnerships and essential into the foreseeable future.
In 2016, the group’s discussion addressed a range of issues in the Euro-Atlantic security
environment and beyond, prompting agreement among the group’s nongovernmental participants to issue the following statements reflecting the consensus views of the undersigned.
Russia and the Security of the NATO Area
As members of the Euro-Atlantic community, we remain deeply concerned by the aggressive posturing, information operations, and nuclear saber-rattling demonstrated in recent years by the Russian government. The unabated stream of nuclear threats from senior Russian officials; “snap”
military exercises, including those apparently involving mock attacks on European cities by nuclear-capable forces; potentially dangerous violations of the airspace of Russia’s Baltic and Nordic neighbors; continued enhancement of elements of their nuclear forces (to include shorter- range missile systems and dual-use cruise missiles); and official pronouncements seeming to prepare Russian public opinion for the acceptability of nuclear war are dangerous throwbacks to an era we believed gone forever. These are not the actions of a responsible nuclear power. It is
incumbent upon the NATO Alliance—and particularly upon its three nuclear weapons states—to make clear that, as in the past, NATO will fulfill its security commitments to its members and will not be divided or intimidated.
We applaud the decision by NATO’s leaders at the Warsaw Summit to restate their commitment to Article 5, as well as to affirm the role of nuclear deterrence and the importance of nuclear burden- sharing and risk-sharing within NATO. The member nations of NATO have long known that there can be no winners in a nuclear war; it is of the utmost importance that Russian leadership shares that approach. In this regard, we appreciate the NATO Warsaw Summit Communiqué’s clear statements that “the fundamental purpose of NATO’s nuclear capability is to preserve peace, prevent coercion, and deter aggression” and that “the circumstances in which NATO might have to use nuclear weapons are extremely remote.” We similarly support its assertion that “any
employment of nuclear weapons against NATO would fundamentally alter the nature of a conflict”
and “if the fundamental security of any of its members were to be threatened . . . NATO has the capabilities and resolve to impose costs on an adversary that would be unacceptable and far outweigh the benefits that an adversary could hope to achieve.”
In our view, NATO’s nuclear declaratory policy at Warsaw—combined with both the Alliance’s efforts to build up its conventional force deterrent posture along NATO’s periphery and elsewhere, and the manifest determination of the United States, United Kingdom, and France to proceed with measured, nonthreatening, but necessary investment in and modernization of their respective nuclear deterrent forces—provides a firm basis to deal with Moscow’s behavior. NATO’s resolve should help Russia reconsider its posture and restabilize its relationship with the Alliance.
P3 Cooperation on Nuclear Policy
We believe in the importance of close consultations and cooperation among the American, British, and French governments on nuclear policies. As NATO’s three nuclear weapons states, the United States, the United Kingdom, and France bear a particular responsibility to work together to shape Alliance deterrence policy and to support that policy with their forces. Furthermore, changes, or contemplated changes, in one government’s nuclear policy could have implications for and bearing on the respective policies of the other two. On this basis alone, there is an increased need for mutual transparency and collaboration amongst the P3. We remain mindful that elements of national deterrent policy are uniquely tailored to the individual national security needs of each country. Yet all three nations have reason to work together on those elements of nuclear policy that engage their interests and the interests of the broader Alliance. Among those shared interests is the sustainment and enforcement of existing arms control and nonproliferation treaties and commitments, including the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
All three states bear a responsibility to reduce nuclear threats, seek nuclear arms reductions, and support nonproliferation, but our three states cannot and should not bear that burden alone. China and Russia bear that burden as well. In that context, Russia’s continued violation of the INF Treaty
without consequence remains of grave concern. We welcome the news that a Special Verification Commission meeting has been convened, but we urge the U.S., UK, and French governments to continue to press Moscow over Russia’s actions. Its noncompliance not only challenges the stability of the Euro-Atlantic security environment, but also undermines a historic agreement central to the broader arms control and nonproliferation regime. We look forward to a time when meaningful arms control negotiations can again resume and the benefits of compliance,
verification, and transparency can further contribute to stability and security for all.
All three countries bear an obligation to uphold the terms of the JCPOA. We reiterate the view we set forth in last year’s consensus statement: it is “the only deal in town” and must be made to work.
At the same time, the P3 must remain vigilant in enforcing the agreement over the full duration of its implementation—supporting the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in its oversight, and remaining ready to impose flexible costs in response to low-level violations or obfuscation tactics or the full snapback of sanctions in the event of significant noncompliance.
Asia
North Korea’s increasingly sophisticated nuclear and missile capabilities have serious implications not only for its neighbors, but for the entire international community. Pyongyang must be deterred from aggression against South Korea, Japan, or American forces and territory in the Pacific.
Similarly, it must be disabused from believing that its nuclear arsenal provides cover for massive conventional force or biological or chemical attacks. While the principal burden of preventing North Korean miscalculation or attack falls on the United States and on the conventional forces of Japan and the Republic of Korea, it is clearly in London and Paris’s security interests that
Pyongyang’s bluster does not spill or blunder over into aggression, let alone use of nuclear weapons. We are also concerned that the cash-starved North Korean regime must be prevented from illicitly exporting technologies relevant to weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and ballistic missiles. While we recognize that China has very different foreign policy and security objectives than the West, we also note that China has particular interests in stability on the Korean Peninsula.
We remain convinced that Beijing should do more to help contain and reverse the threat that the DPRK’s nuclear programs and policies pose to peace and security in the region. We continue to believe that Beijing should cooperate with the P3 and others to mitigate and contain the real and serious risks to peace posed by the DPRK nuclear capabilities, including by comprehensively enforcing UN Security Council resolutions.
China’s aggressive land-reclamation activities and use of intimidation in the South and East China Seas, which occur while it continues to modernize its medium- and long-range missile capabilities, pose a significant danger to the region. Here, again, the acute risk to stability increases should the Chinese leadership come to mistakenly believe its nuclear forces provide it sufficient diplomatic and military freedom to seize disputed territories. The Chinese government’s refusal to engage in meaningful dialogue on its nuclear policies or programs impairs both Track 1 and Track 2
dialogues; this, in turn, creates the specter of misunderstanding and, in a possible future crisis,
miscalculation. We call on the P3 governments to continue to press Beijing for more substantive engagement on nuclear issues.
Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapons
Whatever the intention of its proponents, United Nations General Assembly First Committee Resolution L.41, which calls on the General Assembly to begin negotiations in 2017 on a “legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination,” diverts efforts from proven and concrete measures that balance the objective of disarmament with the realities of the global security environment. We are aware that the speed and rapidity with which this movement has grown is in large part due to the frustration of many nonnuclear weapons states with the pace of progress toward nuclear disarmament, as well as to increased attention to the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons Movement. The United States, United Kingdom, and France will be well-served to take this movement seriously and redouble efforts to engage the underlying concerns in ways consistent with their national security interests, including by taking further steps to strengthen the global nonproliferation regime and advance the nuclear
disarmament goals of the NPT, while calling on Russia and China to join our three nations in restoring confidence that negative trends can be reversed.
We acknowledge the motivations underlying the resolution and the frustrations regarding nuclear disarmament. Still, we must caution against an unverifiable treaty ban that would challenge the legitimacy of nuclear deterrence and nuclear burden-sharing, which remains a critical element in international security during a time of increased risks of bellicosity by major conventional military powers that also possess nuclear weapons. We urge advocates of a treaty ban to instead invest their time and resources into energizing those inclusive and practical forums for disarmament, such as the NPT and the Conference on Disarmament (CD), that already exist and that seek to bring both nuclear weapons states and nonnuclear weapons states into dialogue on effective measures to advance the disarmament goals of the NPT. We advise them to exert pressure on those states that contribute to the gridlock by holding arms control and nonproliferation initiatives hostage. We continue to believe that the best pathways toward nuclear disarmament depend on progressive measures underpinned by rigorous and reliable verification and compliance
enforcement, and that take the current global security situation into account.
United States
Barry M. Blechman Cofounder
Stimson Center Linton Brooks
Former Administrator
National Nuclear Security Administration Susan Burk
Independent Consultant Robert Einhorn
Senior Fellow
Brookings Institution Michael S. Elliott
Independent Consultant Evelyn N. Farkas
Nonresident Senior Fellow Atlantic Council
John Harvey
Independent Consultant Rebecca K.C. Hersman Senior Adviser
Center for Strategic and International Studies Leo Michel
Nonresident Senior Fellow Atlantic Council
Franklin Miller
Nonresident Senior Adviser
Center for Strategic and International Studies Clark Murdock
Nonresident Senior Adviser
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Robert Nurick Senior Fellow Atlantic Council George Perkovich
Vice President for Studies, Nuclear Policy Program
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Kori Schake
Research Fellow Hoover Institution Walter B. Slocombe Senior Counsel Caplin & Drysdale William H. Tobey Senior Fellow
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Great Britain
Gordon Barrass Professor LSE IDEAS Andrea Berger
Deputy Director, Proliferation and Nuclear Policy
Royal United Services Institute Desmond Bowen CB CMG
Former Director General of Policy
Ministry of Defence; and Visiting Professor University of Reading
Sir Tony Brenton
Former British Ambassador to Russia; and Fellow
Wolfson College Cambridge
Malcolm Chalmers Deputy Director-General Royal United Services Institute Michael Clarke
Director General, 2007–2015 Royal United Services Institute Caroline, Lady Dalmeny Associate Fellow
Royal United Services Institute Matthew Harries
Managing Editor Survival; and
Research Fellow for Transatlantic Affairs International Institute for Strategic Studies Beatrice Heuser
Professor
University of Reading Tom McKane
Senior Associate Fellow Royal United Services Institute Julian Miller
Former Deputy National Security Adviser Cabinet Office
Professor Sir David Omand GCB Visiting Professor
King’s College London Paul Schulte
Honorary Professor
Institute for Conflict, Cooperation, and Security University of Birmingham
Sir Kevin Tebbit
Former Permanent Secretary Ministry of Defence; and Senior Associate Fellow Royal United Services Institute
France
Corentin Brustlein
Head of the Security Studies Center French Institute of International Relations Benoît d’Aboville
Vice President
Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique Emmanuelle Maître
Research Fellow
Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique Bruno Racine
Chairman
Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique Iskander Rehman
Senior Fellow
Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy
Bruno Tertrais Deputy Director
Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique
