The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) hosted a live debate May 25 between Scott Sagan and Keith Payne, CEO and president of the National Institute for Public Policy. CSIS is a bipartisan, nonprofit organization in Washington, D.C.

Scott Sagan's Introductory Statement

I have been asked to address the question: "What should be U.S. declaratory strategic deterrence policy?"

I continue to believe, as I wrote in my 2009 Survival article, that,

"The United States should, after appropriate consultation with allies, move toward a No-First Use declaratory policy by stating that the role of U.S. nuclear weapons is to deter nuclear weapons use by other nuclear weapons states against the United States, our allies, and our armed forces and to be able to respond, with an appropriate range of nuclear retaliation options if necessary in the event that deterrence fails."

I believe that slow but steady movement toward a No-First Use (NFU) doctrine is in the U.S. interest because I think U.S. declaratory policy should have three characteristics.

U.S. declaratory policy should:

a) address the full range of nuclear threats to U.S. national security objectives (not just basic deterrence);

b) be accurate and consistent, reflecting actual military doctrine rather than being mere rhetoric; and

c) U.S. declaratory policy should reflect what U.S. leaders really might want do in the event of a deterrence failure.

In my brief opening remarks, I will explain these three points and outline the logic and evidence that leads me to the conclusion that the benefits of an NFU declaratory policy outweigh its costs.

Point #1: Deterrence is one, but only one critical U.S. national security objective and prudent decisions about declaratory policy regarding the use of nuclear weapons should take into account its likely effects on deterrence of adversaries, bit also the reassurance of allies, the further proliferation of nuclear weapons to additional states, the risks of nuclear terrorism, the impact of our declaratory policy on nuclear doctrines of other states; and the prospects for long-term nuclear disarmament. In this sense, the CSIS question (like previous Nuclear Posture Reviews (NPR) before this latest one) is too narrow in scope and could therefore lead to an excessively narrow, indeed a wrong-headed, answer. Historically, many actions and statements made in the name of deterrence - think of Richard Nixon's Madman Nuclear Alert over Vietnam or George W. Bush's suggestion that "All Options are on the Table" included nuclear preventive strikes on Iran -- might add just a smidgen of deterrence, but can be highly counterproductive with respect to other U.S. nuclear security goals. This is true of the NPR in general: just as war is too important to be left to the generals, nuclear declaratory policy is too important to be left solely to the Pentagon.

Opponents of this broader conception of nuclear posture claim that there is no evidence that U.S. nuclear posture influences others or perceptions that we are honoring our NPT Article VI commitments help with non-proliferation goals. That view is wrong. Let me give just two examples:

1. Evidence to support the point about U.S. disarmament steps helping encourage others to act is seen with Indonesia's decision to ratify CTBT earlier this month:

When Indonesia announced its decision it said it had taken note of the "serious effort" on the part of the current United States Administration in promote disarmament. "We do feel that at this time, what is needed is positive encouragement rather than pressure of a different type that we've been trying to impart in the past," he said, voicing hope that the U.S. will follow suit from his country's actions. "We are also cognizant of some positive aspects of the United States' Nuclear Posture Review."

2. For evidence on the doctrinal influence or mimicry point let me cite India. In January 2003, the BJP government in New Delhi, influenced by the U.S. NPR, adopted a revised, more offensive nuclear doctrine including the explicit threat of Indian nuclear first-use in response to biological or chemical weapons use. "India must consider withdrawing from this [NFU] commitment as the other nuclear weapons-states have not accepted this policy." Although it is too early to know the final result, the Indian government today appears to be reversing course: A group of very senior former officials has stated that, "It is time to review the objectionable parts" of India's nuclear posture and the Foreign Minister has called for universal declarations of NFU.

Point #2: U.S. Strategic Nuclear Declaratory Policy should be consistent with actual U.S. Nuclear Doctrine. That is, U.S. government officials should not misrepresent what its "real" nuclear policy is when it makes public statements about intent and plans. This may seem like an obvious point to some... but history suggests that this principle is not always followed--from Robert McNamara's mid-1960s declaratory statements about Assured Destruction (which often downplayed the heavy Counter-Force emphasis of U.S. doctrine at the time) to the Bush Administration's February 2002 statement in which in the same speech it "reaffirmed" the 1995 Negative Security Assurances not to use nuclear weapons against NNWS parties to the NPT unless they attack the U.S. or our allies with a NWS and, in the same speech, also stated that, "If a weapon of mass destruction is used against the United States or its allies, we will not rule out any specific type of military response. This followed the leaking of the classified portion of the 2001 NPR which reportedly placed Iran, Libya, and Syria on target lists, creating a flurry of negative international press reports.

In an era in which leaks should be considered highly likely, if not inevitable and, at a time in which we want more transparency around the world, the U.S. Government should err on the side of transparency. With multiple audiences present, calculated ambiguity may sometimes be necessary and even helpful; clear contradictions and calculated hypocrisy are not.

Here, I must give the current Administration some credit, for it judged that there was a small set of specific threats that could not currently be met by U.S. and allied conventional forces. It said so clearly in the Nuclear Posture Review and also clearly committed itself to deal with the challenge:

"The United States will continue to strengthen conventional capabilities and reduce the role of nuclear weapons in deterring non-nuclear attacks, with the objective of making deterrence of nuclear attack on the United States or our allies and partners the sole purpose of U.S. nuclear weapons." (p. ix)

Critics say that this will weaken extended deterrence as key allies will feel abandoned. Evidence so far is to the contrary:

  Japan: Foreign Minister Okada said, in October 2009, "We cannot deny the fact that we are moving in the direction of No-First Use of nuclear weapons. We would like to discuss the issue with Washington." The Japanese 2010 Rev Con statement said, "Japan appreciates and welcomes the Nuclear Posture Review by the United States." "We call on all states possessing nuclear weapons to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in their national security strategies. In this connection, we call on the Nuclear Weapon States to take, as soon as possible, such measures as providing stronger negative security assurances that they will not use nuclear weapons against Non-Nuclear-Weapon States that comply with the NPT." Japanese 2010 NPT Review Conference statement

  This is also the case in NATO: The German, Dutch, Belgian and Norwegian governments have all called for removal of the tactical nuclear weapons on their soil. NATO meetings will address this soon. We should not just assume that the credibility of extended deterrence and reassurance to allies is threatened by NFU declarations or removal of tactical weapons. Instead, we should listen to what our allies are saying and work with them.

Point #3: U.S. declaratory policy should reflect what the U.S. might really want to do if deterrence fails. Doctrine and declaratory policy should be made with an acute awareness that deterrence might fail and not succumb to the common wishful thinking biases that assumes perfect prospects of success. This leads me to appreciate the wise advice that Brent Scowcroft gave to President George H.W. Bush during the first Gulf War to avoid "spoken or unspoken threats to use them (Nuclear Weapons) on the grounds that it is bad practice to threaten something that you have no intention of carrying out."

When an official threatens actions that we have no intention of carrying out it can add a thin sliver of deterrence strength but at the grave cost, if the action occurs anyway, of either cheapening the currency of deterrence or risking the creation of a commitment trap that leads the state to execute an option that it otherwise would deem ill-advised. Here, I think of General Chilton's recent remarks about using nuclear threats to deter cyber attacks, as an example.

Here, I should note that in order to enhance non-proliferation and move slowly in the direction of a nuclear-free world the current NPR adds new NSAs and threatens conventional attacks only against NNWS in compliance with the NPT: "The United States will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states that are party to the NPT and in compliance with their nuclear non-proliferation obligations" (p.viii) and promises that its conventional responses would be "devastating" and that, "any individuals responsible for the attack, whether national leaders or military commanders , would be held fully accountable."

Dr. Payne, in his 2009 article, was critical of the whole goal of nuclear disarmament, despite the U.S. Article VI commitment to work in good faith toward that objective. He has written that, "The continuing threat posed by chemical and biological weapons is a fatal flaw in the logic of the nuclear-disarmament narrative, one that is all but ignored by its proponents.

"In fact, even if all enemies and potential enemies of the United States miraculously gave up their nuclear weapons, the United States would still need to maintain a nuclear deterrent arsenal. Why? Because some enemies reportedly retain other types of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), such as chemical and biological weapons, that could inflict enormous civilian casualties...If we also take nuclear deterrence off the table, we may, as Gen. Paul Fouilland, commander of the French Strategic Air Forces, has observed, 'Give a green light' to chemical and biological threats," Dr. Payne states.

I fail to see how a promise of "devastating" conventional responses and a promise that, "Any individuals responsible for the attack, would be held fully accountable" is giving any kind of green light to an adversary contemplating a chem/bio attack.

Furthermore, the only historical evidence that Dr. Payne cites to demonstrate his belief that, "Nuclear weapons threats have unique deterrent qualities" is the alleged success in deterring Iraqi use of Chem/Bio during the 1991 Gulf War:

The preponderance of evidence suggests that this is not right: Saddam did not use his WMD in 1991 because we threatened to march on Baghdad and overthrow his regime if he did that and "promised" to do that if he refrained from using his WMD.

First, look at the Bush, 25 January, 1991, letter to Saddam:

"Should war come it will be a far greater tragedy for you and your country. Let me state too that the United States will not tolerate the use of chemical or biological weapons or the destruction of Kuwait's oil fields and installations. Further, you will be held directly responsible for terrorist actions against any member of the coalition. The American people would demand the strongest possible response. You and your country will pay a terrible price if you order unconscionable acts of this sort." Two of the three things that Bush warned about happened...hardly good evidence that vague threats or calculated ambiguity worked as a deterrent.

Second, look at James Baker's memoirs in which he claimed that he "purposely left the impression that the use of chemical or biological agents by Iraq could invite tactical nuclear retaliation," but also warned Aziz that if Iraq used weapons of mass destruction, "Our objective won't just be the liberation of Kuwait, but the elimination of the current Iraqi regime." Advocates of maintaining calculated ambiguity too often cite the first statement but fail to cite the second Baker statement.

Third, look at what Saddam said under interrogation: "How would Iraq have been described if it had used nuclear weapons? A: "We would have been called stupid." In the May 2004 interrogation: "The WMD was for the defense of Iraq's sovereignty. Iraq demonstrated this with the use of WMD during the Iraq and Iran War, as Iran had threatened the sovereignty of Iraq. Yet, Iraq did not use WMD during the 1991 Gulf War as its sovereignty was not threatened."

In conclusion: I think you will discover today that reasonable people can certainly disagree about how to value and prioritize these different nuclear-related objectives and reasonable people can (and do) disagree about how best to pursue them. But reasonable people should not ignore the full range of U.S. objectives and narrowly conflate deterrence with security, should continue to search for evidence that supports or weakens their assumptions, and should engage in rigorous dialogues like this to help propel the debate forward.

The Obama administration's decision to preview its National Security Strategy at West Point highlighted its coverage of security crises from Afghanistan to North Korea. But back-to-back events at Brookings with Hillary Clinton and Samantha Power today showed that the core of the strategy is a deeper argument about the central challenge confronting America -- the increased impact on our economy and security of a new global reality.

For two decades, the United States could take economic and security supremacy for granted. Three things have changed.

First, the global economic boom. Yes, boom -- remember? Before the crash, there were two decades of uninterrupted growth in the global economy, global trade, and global financial activity. The U.S. profited, but so too did China, India and Brazil, which grew into major economic players; so did several others, like Mexico, Indonesia and Turkey, which have emerged as the new middle powers.

Second, the Iraq war. Love or loath U.S. policy in Iraq, it launched us into sustained expenditure of financial and military resources alongside another draining war in Afghanistan. In the minds of the Vulcans, decisive U.S. victory in Iraq was to assert global order by force of -- well, force. The strategy backfired, and rising states from Ankara to Brasilia found few, if any, costs to opposing U.S. strategy in the Middle East -- and domestic political points to be won. The Obama administration is feeling the consequences in its Iran policy.

Third, the global financial crisis. The bust, when it came, reaffirmed the centrality of the U.S. in the short term. But it also showcased the growing weight of the emerging economies, which now lead the global recovery. Before Lehman Brothers collapsed, other big players may have disliked our Middle East policy, but they banked -- figuratively and literally -- on our stewardship of the global financial system. Since then, doubts have crept in, and a new assertiveness to match.

The net result is rising global influence and solidifying regional power for China, India, and Brazil -- and less room for maneuver for the US.

The administration will be criticized in predictable terms from predictable quarters for acknowledging any of this, even in tacit terms: for 'giving ground' to the emerging powers, for 'ceding' American supremacy, for forgetting to carry a big stick while talking softly. But that dog won't hunt. The Bush administration had begun to adapt to these changed realities towards the end of its tenure, and the Obama administration deserves credit for putting the new global realities front and center in its assessment of U.S. national strategy. The core concepts of revitalizing international order, pressing others to take up their responsibilities and working within, not against, multilateral arrangements are the right ones.

The tougher question is, will it work? Skeptics will point to Chinese heel-dragging and Brazilian gallivanting on Iran to say no. Optimists will point to Chinese cooperation on the financial crisis, and everybody's cooperation on Somali piracy and counter-terrorism, to say yes.

The reality is, we don't know. There's a struggle in Beijing between betting on cooperation with the US, and those who seek sharper competition. A pro-U.S. strategy in India has the high ground for now, but divisions remain. The better angels in Brazil's foreign ministry can't quite hold back Lula's dalliance with global populism -- an October election there may tilt the balance.

But we know this much: if the U.S. doesn't try, no one will succeed. None of the emerging powers can underwrite stability, and none that are serious want the job. The emerging powers may not play ball, and if so, we'll be in a lose-lose global game. But only U.S. strategy can pull us into win-win, and the Administration is right to try. Making this point to the American people won't be popular; but reality is reality, and denial does not a strategy make.

In this op-ed, CISAC's Richard Rhodes argues that public health, a discipline that organizes science-based systems of surveillance and prevention, has been primarily responsible for controlling the effects of infectious disease. A similar campaign around public safety could help end the existential threat posed by nuclear weapons. Such a push would help create unity in common security and a fundamental transformation in relationships between nations, Rhodes argues.

Today, at the other end of the long trek down the glacier of the Cold War, the nuclear threat has seemingly calved off and fallen into the sea. In 2007, the Pew Research Center's Global Attitudes Project found that 12 countries rated the growing gap between rich and poor as the greatest danger to the world. HIV/AIDS led the list (or tied) in 16 countries, religious and ethnic hatred in another 12. Pollution was identified as the greatest menace in 19 countries, while substantial majorities in 25 countries thought global warming was a "very serious" problem. Only nine countries considered the spread of nuclear weapons to be the greatest danger to the world.

The response was very different among nuclear and national security experts when Indiana Republican Sen. Richard Lugar surveyed PDF them in 2005. This group of 85 experts judged that the possibility of a WMD attack against a city or other target somewhere in the world is real and increasing over time. The median estimate of the risk of a nuclear attack somewhere in the world by 2010 was 10 percent. The risk of an attack by 2015 doubled to 20 percent median. There was strong, though not universal, agreement that a nuclear attack is more likely to be carried out by a terrorist organization than by a government. The group was split 45 to 55 percent on whether terrorists were more likely to obtain an intact working nuclear weapon or manufacture one after obtaining weapon-grade nuclear material.

"The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is not just a security problem," Lugar wrote in the report's introduction. "It is the economic dilemma and the moral challenge of the current age. On September 11, 2001, the world witnessed the destructive potential of international terrorism. But the September 11 attacks do not come close to approximating the destruction that would be unleashed by a nuclear weapon. Weapons of mass destruction have made it possible for a small nation, or even a sub-national group, to kill as many innocent people in a day as national armies killed in months of fighting during World War II.

"The bottom line is this," Lugar concluded: "For the foreseeable future, the United States and other nations will face an existential threat from the intersection of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction."

It's paradoxical that a diminished threat of a superpower nuclear exchange should somehow have resulted in a world where the danger of at least a single nuclear explosion in a major city has increased (and that city is as likely, or likelier, to be Moscow as it is to be Washington or New York). We tend to think that a terrorist nuclear attack would lead us to drive for the elimination of nuclear weapons. I think the opposite case is at least equally likely: A terrorist nuclear attack would almost certainly be followed by a retaliatory nuclear strike on whatever country we believed to be sheltering the perpetrators. That response would surely initiate a new round of nuclear armament and rearmament in the name of deterrence, however illogical. Think of how much 9/11 frightened us; think of how desperate our leaders were to prevent any further such attacks; think of the fact that we invaded and occupied a country, Iraq, that had nothing to do with those attacks in the name of sending a message.

Richard Butler, the former chairman of the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons and the last chairman of UNSCOM, often makes the point that the problem with nuclear weapons is nuclear weapons. People don't always understand what he means. He means that it is the weapons themselves that are the problem, not the values of the entities that control them. U.S. nuclear weapons are just as potentially dangerous to the world as, say, North Korean nuclear weapons. More, I would say, since we have greater numbers of them and have not hesitated to brandish them--even to use them--when we thought it in our interest to do so.

That the problem with nuclear weapons is nuclear weapons may seem counterintuitive, but two centuries ago governments began to think that way about disease, with untold benefits to humanity as a result. Epidemic disease had been conceived in normative terms, as an act of God for which states bore no responsibility. The change that came when disease began to be conceived as a phenomenon of nature without a metaphysical superstructure, a public health problem, a problem for government and a measure of government's success, was revolutionary. More lives were saved, and spared, with public health measures in the twentieth century in the United States alone than were lost throughout the world in all of the twentieth century's wars.

As my Scottish friend Gil Elliot wrote in his seminal book Twentieth Century Book of the Dead, "[These lives] are not saved by accident or goodwill. Human life is daily deliberately protected from nature by accepted practices of hygiene and medical care, by the control of living conditions and the guidance of human relationships. Mortality statistics are constantly examined to see if the causes of death reveal any areas needing special attention. Because of the success of these practices, the area of public death has, in advanced societies, been taken over by man-made death--once an insignificant or 'merged' part of the spectrum, now almost the whole.

"When politicians, in tones of grave wonder, characterize our age as one of vast effort in saving human life, and enormous vigor in destroying it, they seem to feel they are indicating some mysterious paradox of the human spirit. There is no paradox and no mystery. The difference is that one area of public death has been tackled and secured by the forces of reason; the other has not. The pioneers of public health did not change nature, or men, but adjusted the active relationship of men to certain aspects of nature so that the relationship became one of watchful and healthy respect. In doing so they had to contend with and struggle against the suspicious opposition of those who believed that to interfere with nature was sinful, and even that disease and plague were the result of something sinful in the nature of man himself."

Elliot goes on to compare what he calls "public death," meaning biological death, death from disease, to man-made death: "[I do not wish] to claim mystical authority for the comparison I have made between two kinds of public death--that which results from disease and that which we call man-made. The irreducible virtue of the analogy is that the problem of man-made death, like that of disease, can be tackled only by reason. It contains the same elements as the problem of disease--the need to locate the sources of the pest, to devise preventive measures, and to maintain systematic vigilance in their execution. But it is a much wider problem, and for obvious reasons cannot be dealt with by scientific methods to the same extent as can disease."

To advance the cause of public health it was necessary to depoliticize disease, to remove it from the realm of value and install it in the realm of fact. Today we have advanced to the point where international cooperation toward the prevention, control, and even elimination of disease is possible among nations that hardly cooperate with each other in any other way. No one any longer considers disease a political issue, except to the extent that its control measures a nation's quality of life, and only modern primitives consider it a judgment of God.

In 1999, for the first time in human history, infectious diseases no longer ranked first among causes of death worldwide. Public health, a discipline which organizes science-based systems of surveillance and prevention, was primarily responsible for that millennial change in human mortality. One-half of all the increases in life expectancy in recorded history occurred within the twentieth century. Most of the worldwide increase was accomplished in the first half of the century, and it was almost entirely the result of public health measures directed to primary prevention. Better nutrition, sewage treatment, water purification, the pasteurization of milk, and the immunization of children extended human life--not surgeons cutting or doctors dispensing pills.

Public health is medicine's greatest success story and a powerful model for a parallel discipline, which I propose to call public safety.

Where nuclear weapons--the largest-scale instruments of man-made death--are concerned, the elements of that discipline of public safety have already begun to assemble themselves: materials control and accounting, cooperative threat reduction, security guarantees, agreements and treaties, surveillance and inspection, sanctions, forceful disarming if all else fails.

Reducing and finally eliminating the world's increasingly vestigial nuclear arsenals may be delayed by extremists of the right or the left, as progress was stalled during the George W. Bush administration by rigid Manichaean ideologues who imagined that there might be good nuclear powers and evil nuclear powers and sought to disarm only those they considered evil. Nuclear weapons operate beyond good and evil. They destroy without discrimination or mercy: Whether one lives or dies in their operation is entirely a question of distance from ground zero. In Elliot's eloquent words, they create nations of the dead, and collectively have the capacity to create a world of the dead. But as Niels Bohr, the great Danish physicist and philosopher, was the first to realize, the complement of that utter destructiveness must then be unity in common security, just as it was with smallpox, a fundamental transformation in relationships between nations, nondiscrimination in unity not on the dark side but by the light of day.

Violence originates in vulnerability brutalized: It is vulnerability's corruption, but also its revenge. "Perhaps everything terrible," the poet Rainer Maria Rilke once wrote, "is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us." As we extend our commitment to common security, as we work to master man-made death, we will need to recognize that terrible helplessness and relieve it--in others, but also in ourselves.

J.P. Schnapper-Casteras, a recent CISAC fellow, argues in the Washington Post that despite the potential long-term benefits, only a few dozen Iraqis are able to study in the United States each year. By comparison, during the Cold War the United States and the Soviet Union exchanged 50,000 citizens over 30 years, producing more educated students and some of the most pro-Western and pro-democracy Soviet scholars and scientists.

IRBIL, Iraq -- Speaking at Cairo University in June, President Obama pledged to "expand exchange programs and increase scholarships, like the one that brought my father to America." Nowhere is that change more urgently needed than in providing educational opportunities in Iraq.

Studying abroad has been a formative experience for the Iraqi leaders who have done it, and the experience can yield long-term benefits for economic development, public diplomacy, and the struggle for hearts and minds. Despite the enormous time and effort that have been invested in establishing long-term stability and democracy in Iraq, only a few dozen Iraqis are able to study in the United States each year. By comparison, consider that during the Cold War the United States and the Soviet Union exchanged 50,000 citizens over 30 years, producing more educated students and some of the most pro-Western and pro-democracy Soviet scholars and scientists.

Young men and women in Iraq are hungry for an opportunity to study in the United States. In August I visited Salahaddin University in northern Iraq, where numerous students approached me in 121-degree heat to talk at length about their dreams of studying in America. One father even offered to sell his home to fund his son's education in the States. Four years ago, during the height of the sectarian civil war in Iraq, a group of Iraqi undergraduates twice braved the treacherous roads from Iraq to Jordan to participate in a Stanford University exchange program that I was running.

Iraqi officials understand the importance of enabling their students to study in the United States. Parliament has pledged $1 billion to fund the education of 50,000 Iraqi students overseas, and several Kurdish officials told me this summer that they would help finance new scholarships and exchanges. But they need help from the United States to make this possible.

President Obama and Congress should take three steps to expand educational exchanges with Iraq:

• Prioritize and facilitate visas for Iraqi students. Today, Iraqis must travel to Baghdad or neighboring countries, at great personal risk and cost, to apply for a visa. And there are too many sad stories of visas inexplicably delayed or otherwise gone awry. Washington should let students complete parts of their visa application at U.S. facilities outside Baghdad, in safer parts of the country.
• Collaborate with a broader coalition of American universities to reduce tuition for Iraqi students. The State Department also should partner with Iraqi nongovernmental organizations, social entrepreneurs and private colleges to meet the soaring demand for English-language instruction and to independently screen scholarship applicants.

With those two reforms, 200 more Iraqi students would immediately be ready to study in America, says Ahmed Dezaye, director of cultural relations for the Kurdistan Regional Government Ministry of Higher Education. While it may still be easier to recruit and process students from majority-Kurdish provinces than other, more volatile, areas, this would be a good start.

• Support the American University of Iraq, which has received less than $10 million from Washington though the government has spent billions on other projects. That university, in Sulaymaniyah, has already become one of a handful of liberal arts colleges in the region and attracted widespread student interest. With more funds, it could draw more American educators and students to safe parts of northern Iraq to teach English and other subjects as well as to learn about Iraqi history and culture.

Countless Iraqi students yearn for the chance to study a broad range of subjects in the United States and apply what they have learned back home. Ultimately, investing in education here can shape America's legacy in Iraq by giving young Iraqis new opportunities, perspectives -- and perhaps even some measure of hope.

The writer, a graduate of Stanford Law School and former fellow at Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation, founded the Stanford-Iraq Student Exchange.

Now that President Obama has set a promising arms reduction agenda with President Dmitri Medvedev of Russia, he faces the greater challenge of getting his own government and the American nuclear weapons establishment to support his audacious plan to make deep weapons cuts, Philip Taubman writes in the New York Times.

As President Obama will soon discover, erasing the nuclear weapons legacy of the cold war is like running the Snake River rapids in Wyoming — the first moments in the tranquil upstream waters offer little hint of the vortex ahead. Now that Mr. Obama has set a promising arms reduction agenda with President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia, he faces the greater challenge of getting his own government and the American nuclear weapons establishment to support his audacious plan to make deep weapons cuts and ultimately eliminate nuclear weapons.

So far, Mr. Obama has effectively coupled an overarching vision of getting to a world without nuclear weapons, outlined in a speech in Prague earlier this year, with concrete first steps like the one-quarter reduction in operational strategic nuclear weapons promised in Moscow this week. Given his short time in office, and the looming December expiration of the treaty with Russia covering strategic nuclear arms reductions, the new limits are a good, realistic start. It is especially important to extend the monitoring and verification provisions of the expiring arms accord.

But the overall Obama approach involves a balancing act that requires him to move boldly while reassuring opponents that he is not endangering our security. Put simply, he has to maintain a potent nuclear arsenal while slashing it.

Mr. Obama might consider Ronald Reagan’s experience when he tried to set a similar course. The nuclear weapons crowd practically disowned Reagan when he proposed abolishing nuclear weapons during his 1986 summit meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev in Reykjavik, Iceland. After the meeting, when Reagan asked his generals to explore the ramifications of possibly sharply cutting warheads and eliminating nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles, they politely but firmly told their commander in chief it was a terrible idea.

Mr. Obama’s moment of truth with his generals is coming later this year when the Pentagon completes its periodic Nuclear Posture Review. This, in the Pentagon’s words, “will establish U.S. nuclear deterrence policy, strategy and force posture for the next 5 to 10 years.” So it will be the American nuclear weapons bible for the remainder of Mr. Obama’s presidency, one term or two.

President Obama must make sure it reflects his thinking. That will not be automatic, because the nuclear weapons complex — the array of Pentagon and Energy Department agencies involved in nuclear operations, including the armed services and the weapons labs — harbors considerable doubt about his plans. The same goes for the wider world of defense strategists. There is resistance in Congress, too.

The view in these quarters is that the weapons cuts Mr. Obama envisions — deeper than the modest goals set in Moscow this week — would dangerously undermine the power of America’s arsenal to deter attacks against the United States and its allies. Sentiment also favors building a new generation of warheads, a step Mr. Obama has rejected.

If the White House does not assert itself, the Nuclear Posture Review could easily spin off in unhelpful directions. The review that was produced when Bill Clinton was president in 1994 offered a rehash of cold war policies. The one that was done when George W. Bush took office in 2001 was more unconventional, but was quickly overshadowed by the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the war in Iraq.

To serve Mr. Obama’s interests, the new review should lay the groundwork for pronounced cuts in weapons and shape America’s nuclear stockpile to fit a world in which threats are more likely to come from states like North Korea and Iran than from a heavily armed power like Russia.

After the review, the next big test for Mr. Obama will likely be Senate consideration of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. He has pledged to resubmit this 1996 United Nations treaty, which was flatly rejected by the Senate in 1999.

To get the two-thirds majority needed for its approval, Mr. Obama will need to hold his fellow Democrats in line — far from a sure thing — and also pick up some Republican support. Two influential Republican senators — John McCain and Richard Lugar — are pivotal. Both voted against the treaty in 1999.

Opponents wrongly argue that the treaty is unverifiable. That might have been the case a decade ago, but technological advances make monitoring of even small underground nuclear tests possible today. Critics also say a permanent ban on testing — the United States has honored a moratorium since 1992 — would eventually cripple the nation’s ability to maintain reliable warheads. So far, most weapons experts would say, that has not proven to be true and should not be for many years.

Few presidential moments are more glittering than the announcement of arms reduction accords in the Kremlin’s gilded halls. For Mr. Obama, that was the easy part.