 And welcome back. It's my pleasure to welcome you to our proliferation for agnostication panel, an annual feature at the conference where we're going to look ahead at what might happen in the next two years. We're going to consider a series of forecasting questions. The panelists have given me their answers ahead of time. You're all going to have the opportunity to make your own predictions using our conference app. And two years from now, we're going to revisit those predictions. There's a couple of reasons we do this panel. We spend a lot of time in our community relitigating past debates. That's clearly important. But we also think of forward-looking discussion of events that might happen is an important way of helping to crystallize the policy choices that face decision makers. We also have an ambition here at Carnegie, or at least I personally have an ambition, to collect data, to run this event at a number of conferences, to collect data, and to be able to compare the wisdom of crowds to the wisdom of experts. And with that, let me very briefly introduce the four experts who have very bravely and gamely agreed to take part in this year's prognostication exercise. To my far left is Bruno Turtre, who is deputy director of the Foundation for Strategic Research in Paris, and previously worked at the French Ministry of Defense. Next to him is Angela Cain, who teaches at Sciences Po and is a senior fellow at the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation. She previously enjoyed a very distinguished career at the United Nations, including as higher representative for disarmament. Next to her is Ramesh Thakur, who is director of the Center for Non-Proliferation and Disarmament at the Australian National University, co-convener of the Asia Pacific Leadership Network. He previously served as a UN assistant secretary general. And then closest to me is Laura Kennedy, who served for almost 40 years in the US Department of State, including twice as an ambassador. You wrote your biography, Laura. I just added for my sins. Oh, I'm sorry. Who served twice as an ambassador as a deputy assistant secretary of state and as the deputy commandant of the National War College? As I've mentioned already, part of the exercise is to see how our predictions from four years ago fared. I'm not going to belabor this point. Everything is going to be available on the website. What I will say is, two years ago, both the audience and the panelists did extremely well. The audience got all four questions correct. The panelists got three and a half questions correct. I just want to show up the one question now on which the panelists got their half a point. This was a question about the likelihood that by the 24th of March, 2017, either Russia or the US will suspend its participation or withdraw from or announce its intention to withdraw from Newstart or the INF. Now, technically, you will have noticed that it is not yet the 24th of March, 2017. So we can't say for absolute certainty whether this prediction has come to pass or not. The panelists, but I think it's fair to say there's not going to be a change in status this week, I hope not at least. But as you can see, the audience pretty strongly and correctly said that no, neither the US or Russia was going to withdraw from either of these treaties, the panelists were split to two on this question. What was quite interesting to me was looking back over the discussion that the panelists had. And interestingly, there was almost complete unanimity amongst the panelists that the future of these treaties would depend on the broader US-Russian relationship. The disagreement, I think, was largely about what would happen to the US-Russia relationship. That's interesting to me because I think the US-Russia relationship got significantly worse, and yet these treaties both still survived, which maybe suggests that the treaty was better insulated from the broader relationship than the panelists thought at the time. We're going to revisit one more of the questions from last year from two years ago in this session. But as I say, everything's going to be online for this week. And now it's app time. So if I could ask everybody to get out your smartphones, your mobile devices, whatever else you're using. And let me show you how to use the app. This is my phone screen that you're seeing on the big screens at the moment. And many of you will have figured out this already. If you now all click on the MPC 2017 icon, which takes you to our home screen. At the top left of the screen, you're going to see three horizontal lines. If you click on that, that brings the menu. And then you're going to go down and click on Agenda. And you're going to click on this session. This is the proliferation prognostication session right at the top of the screen. Click on that. At the very bottom of this screen, you can see it says live poll, proliferation prognostication predicting the nuclear future. If you're going to click on that, then you're in the right place. It currently says poll inactive because we haven't activated the first question yet. But this is the screen that you want to be on. We're about to do the test question. So this is going to disappear in a moment. What I would say before we get going is there is a lot going on the back end. And there is going to be, at times, just a few seconds of delay while stuff happens at the back end. So this is purely a test question to start with. I'm not expecting this particular audience to be a great predictor of who's going to win the 2018 FIFA World Cup. But I'm going to ask now our team in the back row to start to open the polling on this question. So you now should see in front of you, or you hopefully will do in a couple of seconds, a series of answers. You can answer 0% to 10%, 11% to 20%, 21% to 30%, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Unlike last year, these are not yes or no questions. We're now actually asking you to make probabilistic predictions. Those of you who are queen readers of 538 will understand why I like probabilistic predictions. So you're going to click on whatever answer you want to. It will say, choose this answer. You have to click yes in order to submit your answer. If you click the wrong thing, you can click no, the cross. You click yes. Let me give you about 10 more seconds to do that. Just guess an answer for this. As I say, I'm not doing this for its predictive value. So now, I think we're probably about time. So if I could ask our team in the back row to cut off voting now. And then once we're done, and the team in the back row has had a chance, they're going to be able to show you how the audience voted. This is where I hold my breath to see whether all our hard work with the app actually paid off this year. And while we're doing that, let me just tell you that what we're going to do is we're going to now run through this same process with a series of four questions. Can we cut to the result screen? OK. Right. While we're waiting for that then, oh, here we are. So we have, I'm not even going to comment on this. This is just to give us confidence that it's working. OK, fantastic. Right, let's go on to the main exercise now. So if the tech team can queue up the first question for this year's prognostication exercise, no particular surprise is that the topic here is the ban treaty. I'm going to read out the question first. What is the likelihood that by the 21st of March 2019, the United Nations General Assembly will have adopted a treaty to ban nuclear weapons? Can I ask you to open voting now? And I'm going to give you 45 seconds without interruption from me to cast your answer. Do we have a vote on the best panelist? The best, the best? No, I don't know. You know, the previous one. You've got about 15 more seconds on this one. I can see a few shaking heads based on the technology, but hopefully most of you are getting there. OK, if I could ask our team to cut off voting and when you're ready to show the results from the audience, as many of you will wear negotiations on this treaty are going to start in the UN this month. So we have pretty actually, interestingly, heavily skewed towards a low probability of this treaty being adopted. Now, if we could, the biggest answers are in the 0 to 10% and the 11 to 20% range. Now let's have a look at the expert answers. I should say the experts have not seen one another's answers. This is the first time they're seeing one another's answers. There actually was not a great deal of spread in expert answers to this question. The answers ranged from Ramesh, who went for 60%, up to Bruno and Laura, who both independently went for 90% between them. But actually, I think 30% spread is not a huge difference in this kind of exercise. Ramesh, let me turn to you for first. So you said 60% of the UN General Assembly will adopt a ban treaty. That's better than a toss-up, but it's not that much better than a toss-up. You're still indicating a significant amount of uncertainty about whether the ban treaty will happen. Could you talk me through what are the spanners that could be thrown into the works of the ban treaty? If this doesn't happen, what are the most likely reasons it didn't happen? Well, first of all, the conference hasn't begun yet. And as far as I know, we don't have a text. These are big spanners. Start with the ban. What are we going to ban? Are we going to ban the use, or are we going to ban possession? I think there will be considerable difference of opinion on these two categories to start with. I think the momentum has been maintained for several years now, and that's why I think it's more likely than not that there will be some sort of treaty. On the other hand, there's been a slight weakening of the votes in favor. If you go from the humanitarian pledge, I think it was 127 votes, and then the first committee vote, which was 123 in favor, and then down to 115 by the time you have the General Assembly vote in December. There is some receptivity to the arguments we heard, for example, earlier from Chris Ford about unverifiable, unenforceable, might it endanger the NPT? Some of these risks and dangers, I think, will solidify as the text becomes clearer, and of course, others might still be weaned off through persuasion, through inducements, through threats. We're just going to have to wait and see. I think the main drivers for it remain in place, which is growing consciousness of the heightened risks and dangers of nuclear weapons, frustrations at the glacial pace, the fact that there are no nuclear arms control negotiations underway at the moment, and exasperation at what are seen as legal sophistries in trying to deny that there is an obligation under Article 6 of the NPT. As has been pointed out repeatedly, we are coming to 50 years of the NPT having been signed, and this still has not been implemented at the Article 6 committee. So I think those are the drivers, but there are sufficient fish hooks, if you like, along the way that I gave it at 60%. Before I bring in Laura, let me just push you further on one aspect to your answer, which is, you know, we heard from Chris Ford this morning various US arguments against the deal. We also heard that the US is going to actively discourage allies from participating in negotiations. So if those efforts are successful, the states that are most likely to oppose the deal and make argue, sorry, oppose the ban and make arguments against it, aren't going to be in the negotiations. So who are going to be the states then who are making these arguments about verifiability, about enforceability, about deterrence? You know, which states are going to be the spanners in the works, if allies aren't present in the room during negotiations? Just so the audience understands, these are not questions we've been given in advance, but I'm very glad you asked that because my country, Australia, is among those that has bought the US argument and will not be attending. I very much regret that, precisely for the reasons you have just outlined. I think if you're not going to be at the table, you are in no position to influence the argument, you are in no position to influence and shape the text that emerges, and someone has to make those arguments as to why it's not a good idea. It may not be bought in the end by the majority of the countries, but whatever the text emerges, by being at the table, being in the conference room, does not commit you to actually voting for it at the end. So I think it is important to engage with this very strong sentiment that not enough has been done. We've spent decades talking about it. It's time to move on. I think one other argument is the sense or the conviction that it's never a static equation between status quo and progress. I think the fear is if you don't get progress, there will be reverses and setbacks, and if you don't get progress and disarmament, we have to live in a world in which the pressures for proliferation will intensify and grow as well. And given those things, I think it is very important to engage. Now, my foreign minister actually said it's important to engage, not enrage, as a justification for not taking part. I think that is a mistaken decision, and I was still like that presence there to engage and come up with a treaty which they may not be able to sign, but which nonetheless reflects the very real and legitimate concerns behind the skepticism on that. I wanna stick with the will it happen or won't it happen rather than the merits of the idea. We're gonna have a whole panel this afternoon on Article 6, which I wouldn't be surprised if the Ban Treaty got mentioned once or twice in that panel. So let's just stick with will it happen or won't it happen rather than the merits of the concept, and indeed with all of these questions. Laura, let me bring you in here. Both you and Bruno see this as 90% that the Ban Treaty is gonna happen, which is a pretty high prediction in anything in international affairs. You've heard Ramesh identify potential spanners in the works. Talk us through your logic about why you think this is likely to happen, why you think those spanners are unlikely to materialize. Well, I gave it a very, very high mark because I think the support for it has been very consistent. Sure, there's been some variation in the votes. I haven't seen a text, but my assumption is it's going to be a very simple text. I think positions have been very clearly staked out. I mean, the US and allies that are under nuclear deterrence, I think we've been very clear about that. So I think positions are clear. If I was frankly very interested in surprise the audience number was so low. And I'd love to tease that out a little bit because one of the reasons I also gave it a high percentage was I thought if anything positions of other states might be more supportive of it, seeing it as an endorsement of the importance of nuclear disarmament because they're nervous about what they're seeing in, for example, the US administration when there's talk about developing new warheads when there's talk about other states developing war. So I think that actually may increase the support for the treaty. This is exactly where I wanted to move in terms of why the audience's predictions and the expert predictions were so different. Now, let me say firstly, this may be because we're having a technical problem or people accidentally hit the wrong buttons on the app. So if anyone, I actually wanna know if this is the issue. You're asking for a recount? Before we go deeper. What I'd like to see is a show of if anybody hit like the 0% options or the 10% options by accident or because you didn't know how to use the app properly, can people stick their hands up? I wanna make sure this is a real difference and not an artifact. I mean, I'm seeing about three hands, but unless we had about six votes and I'm assuming we had more than six votes, there does appear to be a real difference here. Now, obviously I can't kind of telepathically know why the audience did what they did, but let me come into either Bruno or Angela here. I have a theory that this may be a difference. We have obviously, we have an international audience here. It does clearly skew American. I'm wondering if that could be a reason because I think it's just factually true that the Ban Treaty has received a lot less play in this country than it has internationally, but I wondered if you wanted to offer, either of you want to offer any theories as to why you think expert predictions and audience predictions were so different in this case? I don't know, maybe because we had a lot of time to think about it, more than you did, certainly, but my basic assumption is exactly the same as Laura's, that is that the dynamics of the discussion of the negotiation will gradually or maybe very quickly, I don't know, move towards a simple treaty and obviously I would not have voted 90% if I didn't think that it would be a simple and short treaty. I don't know how long it would take us to go there, but certainly less than two years and then unless I'm not correct about that, I think for the UNGA to adopt the treaty, it only takes a simple majority for the UNGA to adopt it. So this is maybe something that little technicality is maybe something that not everybody in the audience was familiar with, maybe some assumed that it would be a two-third or something. So these are simply my two assumptions. I think that basically what is happening is that yes, you have a very US-oriented audience, of course, I know there are a lot of foreigners here as well, but I'm not quite sure that when you have an informed audience that that would really make a difference whether you come from Europe or you come from the United States because most of the European allies also voted against the treaty. So in that case, there's really not a difference. When you talk about the public though, I think the public is much more informed about the issues in Europe in particular and that is more debated. And when I put 75%, frankly, I had a little caveat precisely because of the majority in the General Assembly, but we must also not forget that two-thirds of the United Nations membership actually voted in favor of the ban. But I've seen since then, and I think it's been about four or six weeks since you asked us the question, I've seen also that there's been even more pressure put on by the United States and the allies to convince those who voted in favor of the ban in December to actually step back from their position. And that, I think, has not been counterbalanced by very strong voices in favor of the ban. I have not really heard them as strongly as I think that they should be heard. And there may be a variety of factors for that, but when it comes to how quickly will we have the treaty, I do think we will have the treaty and that's why I put it at 75%. And I also think that it probably will be a fairly short negotiation. I haven't seen any text, but I think there will be texts already. And don't forget, the whole debate also gets mixed in with having the first NPT PREP comm this year for the review conference. So the whole debate gets very convoluted and very glacial, but also very animated. And I think that that is something we need to keep in mind when we speak about that. So one feature about the, your answers that I noticed was that the two panelists who have had senior roles within the UN, Ramesh and Angela, both had somewhat lower probabilities than Bruno and Laura. Now, the spread wasn't huge here. I don't wanna read into something that doesn't exist, but do either, I mean, and this is either to Angela or to Ramesh, do either of you think that your experience within the UN has kind of given you more skepticism about the process? You're kind of more aware of the potential bureaucratic hurdles and complexities to this? Or am I fishing after here that something that doesn't, that may not exist in any real sense? In my case, I think, well, yes, of course, we are more aware of the institutional and political hurdles that we have to go through the process. But I suspect in my case, it is also that I'd like it to happen, and I just want to make sure that I'm not too unduly optimistic. So I'm not too disappointed if it doesn't. When it comes to, can I just add to this because I think it's important because I don't see there are really bureaucratic hurdles as such. If there's political will in the negotiated treaty, that treaty will be negotiated. Whether it's with 193 member states or whether it's gonna be with 100 member states, I don't think that that really matters, but there are no bureaucratic hurdles. The one bureaucratic hurdle, though, that did come up, which I think was a little bit of a surprise, is this negotiation obviously needs to be serviced by the UN. That means it needs translation. It needs interpretation. That means it needs a budget. And that budget, no, I mean, this is really important because the United States tried to prevent that budget by saying it should be assumed by the United Nations within existing resources. So therefore, we're not gonna vote for this. They reversed that decision or that objection, I should say, because of the tremendous, tremendous uproar that ensued. But on the other hand, that was one bureaucratic hurdle that was put in the way or was attempted to be put in the way at the time in December when it was voted on. And that only produced a one-week delay, I think. Exactly. That's all. Laura, you wanted to come in there and then before we move on to the next question. I was just gonna say that because Bruno, I mean, sorry, Ramesh had mentioned that he very much hoped it would and I was just going to just, if there's any unclarity in the audience that I gave it a 90% of course on likelihood, but that I was completely distinct from my feelings about the ban. So. Yeah, no, and just to be very, very clear about this, this is purely an exercise in forecasting. This is not a policy exercise in good idea or bad idea. Okay, speed around before we move on to the next question. I can't resist doing this based on Chris's questions this morning. If the US changed its policy while still opposing the ban in principle, but did not place pressure on allies not to participate? I permitted allies to participate in the negotiation. Would your prediction that the treaty would happen become more likely or less likely? I just want very quick speed round, Bruno. I was not aware that the US had to quote, permit, unquote, any ally. Bad choice of words. No, I don't think. Discourage allies from participants. Well, actively discouraging is what matters. And by the way, I would not be surprised if my own country was also actively discouraging its European and NATO partners to vote again. It's not about possible. It would be, again, it would be about the vote, which are two different things. I don't think my own country would discourage countries from participating, although. No, but sorry, to go back to the question. Yes. Maybe none of us want to think. Short answer is no. I don't think it really matters. What is the question? If the US stopped discouraging allies, would that increase the chances of a ban treaty? Or would it reduce the chances of ban treaty? Yes, it would. Which way? Yeah, sorry, it would increase the chances. If they would stop discouraging, yes, it would increase. Ramesh? I agree with Angela. I actually think of it a bit of a different way in the sense that, and leaving aside discouraging or whatever, but the fact that you don't have countries say like an Australia or Japan and so on, that might have made for a broader discussion and negotiation rather than say a simple text. Maybe there might have been more of an effort to see if it could have been shaped in ways that could have brought in broader participation. Need to move. I'm sorry, Ramesh, we're gonna have to move on to the next question. That's fine, yeah. I do wanna stick to time on this because we have a series to get through. Okay, next question we have up is one that we did ask two years ago in a slight variant of the format. We're moving here to the world of the suppliers group. What is the likelihood that by 21st of March, 2019, India will be a member of the nuclear suppliers group. Let me ask our tech team to open voting now on that one. Once again, you're gonna get 45 seconds to think about this and cast your answer or there's an awkward silence. You're at 15 seconds. Okay, if I could ask our tech team to cut off voting. As many of you were while we're waiting for the audience answers to be displayed. As many of you are aware, there has been a major push in this in the last few years by the US that has proved unsuccessful because a number of states led by China have blocked India's membership of the NSG. I'm looking at the results now. It's pretty broad distribution here, actually. I think the mode is 21 to 30%, but actually there's a very, very big spread here. A lot of uncertainty amongst the audience about the answers to this. This is actually, in this case, the audience responses are not at all that different from the expert responses. If we could cue the expert response slide, please. Again, pretty big spread, not huge amounts of confidence this will happen, but quite a lot of difference between Bruno and Ramesh who think this is pretty unlikely at the 10 to 15% range. Angela thinks this is slightly more likely to happen than not, but again, no huge confidence that Indian accession will happen. Laura's somewhat in the middle, but closer to Angela on this one. Angela, I wanna start with you here. As I've mentioned before, 55% is pretty much a toss up, right? You're absolutely not saying this is likely to happen. You're saying this is marginally more likely to happen than not to happen. The question that I would ask is, we've seen a major push by the US in the last two years. That has more or less hit a brick wall, as far as I can see, opposition from a number of states, but particularly by China. Why do you think that opposition is slightly more likely than not to be overcome within the next two years? Talk me through where that opposition is likely to go. I took 55% because I think that there is a chance that it will happen, but it was a toss up, you're absolutely right. And let me state, just like Laura did, this was my guesstimate in terms of the probability, but it was not my conviction. I do not believe in India should be a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group because of the criteria. But having been in the United Nations for a long time, I've also sort of seen how the major powers, and in this case, the United States, and also India in a certain Greece. We've heard yesterday the arguments that were put forward in favor of India joining the Nuclear Suppliers Group. I've seen how the power politics are being played, and the way that I read the power politics, I think there is the 5% more chance of it happening than not in the next two years. That's basically where I'm coming from. I think that China has in the last maybe three, four months, has been a lot more vocal about their opposition to it. And I've heard it just at a meeting that I attended last week, where the Chinese representative, a high-ranking ambassador, was actually very vocal, opposing the United States' position on this. So I am not quite sure how that's actually gonna play out in the next two years. And that's the big caveat that I have. We need to watch that space very carefully. But on the other hand, that's what my motivation was, the power politics, how major powers play the politics in the international community. So that's why I gave it a 5% chance higher than 50. Thank you. Bruno, let me bring you in here next. You're at the low end of the range on this one. You see only a 10% chance of this happening. Let me just ask you to engage directly with Angela. She's made the point that power politics is gonna come into play. India is clearly a key player in the global system. The US supports Indian accession with those forces aligned. Why do you see only a 10% chance of Indian accession within the next two years? Well, first of all, let me say that I approach this question as almost as a non-expert because I really don't follow this issue very closely. I totally agree that this is mostly about power politics. I don't draw the same conclusions. There are three scenarios really about what's gonna happen and about energy membership in the next two years. Nobody gets in. India gets in. India and Pakistan gets in. The third scenario I think is unlikely by 2019, although I think it could be the likelihood of it could be higher in a few years from now, but beyond 2019. And I really don't see, in terms of power politics, China dropping its objections and playing this card or not keeping the card of opposition to Indians membership bid in coming two years. I don't see it in terms of pure power politics. So we have the same rezoning, but not the same conclusions. Let's have a look at the results when we asked this question two years ago. If I could ask the team to tee up that slide. Again, I'm assuming India is not gonna become a member of the NSG by Thursday. But last year, in both cases, we kind of saw the panelists went three to one against India. The audience was about 63 to 37 against India. So we're kind of, obviously it's hard to compare this to this year's because this year's we're asking for probabilities. But again, people thought this wasn't that likely two years ago it appears. Laura, I wanna bring you in here. When I sent you the prediction questions, if you don't mind me saying what you wrote in an email to me in reference to the new administration, you said it's very difficult to make predictions right now, which I think is a fair thing to say, but let me put you on the spot a bit further. I think what's come out of the discussion between Bruno and Angela is China is critical in this and presumably the US-China relationship is critical in this. How hard the US pushes China, whether the US has leverage over China on this issue and whether the US chooses to use that leverage over China. So how do you think President Trump plays into this? Based on Chris saying this morning that the US, he believes the US is likely to continue supporting Indian membership, but may change the tactics on how to do so. How do you see the new administration trying to play this one? Why does that ultimately make you think there's gonna be a 40% chance of India succeeding to the NSJ? Well, I actually wouldn't look to the US as being, frankly, the decisive factor on this. I mean, the US has been very consistent in its support. My assumption is certainly it will continue to be consistent in its support, but I think it basically comes down to China and whatever the, so whatever chances of that 40% that India is able with in the next two years to join, I think will depend on the substance of the India-China relationship. I mean, obviously, the US relationship with China perhaps can be part of that, but I don't, frankly, see that the US-China dialogue or is going to hinge on China's position on the NSJ. So, I mean, certainly, as I say, I assume we will continue to support India's bid actively, but I can't see it being a central issue in our dialogue with China. So I think it's frankly gonna be up to India and China to work out a modus vendi. And my conventional wisdom was always that, I think you mentioned Pakistan, that India would allow India, China would allow India in if there's a deal with Pakistan, but some have suggested that this is really so much of a political symbol that perhaps China might be averse even if Pakistan could get in because they see this as somehow elevating India to almost the ranks of a security council membership. I don't know, but I'm not an expert on NSJ either. No, but I think what you just said was really interesting and let me push you slightly further on this one. So am I right in saying then that if India makes it in, you think it will be part of a package involving Pakistan? You don't think it will be India separately because of China's position? As I say, that was my sort of conventional wisdom because of just the old China-Pakistan relationship and also the fact that given that the original decision to give India that waiver was big power politics rather than a criteria-based approach, which I frankly think was a mistake. But so that was my thought that I was just stressed by something that someone else, I won't say, said that they thought that China might be unwilling because it's just too much of a imprimatur on India leaving aside the issue of their support for Pakistan. Ramesh, let me come to you and give you the last word on this question. One of the interesting differences that I think is emerging in this panel is, to what extent do we think this depends on the US-China relationship? To what extent do we think this depends on the China-India relationship? Do you agree China is the key country in this? And if you do, why do you think it's unlikely that China is gonna agree to India, even perhaps as part of a package involving Pakistan? Sure. Can I make clear that I speak as an Australian of Indian origin, not as an Indian living and working in Australia? It's an important difference, and it is important to me. I think there are two parallel power politics sets of relationships going on. One is the China-India-US triangular relationship. The other is the rest of the relevant community for this. I don't see the strength of China's opposition, veining sufficiently within two years to overcome the resistance by China. The India-specific waiver in the NSC originally generated a lot of unhappiness because the US expanded, the Bush administration expanded considerable political capital to persuade, coerce, coax others into giving that waiver. And China went along with that in the end as well. Since then, the relativities in power equations between China and the US have moved towards China, being able to be the focal point of resistance from those who still resent that original decision and are resentful of a country-specific rather than a criteria-based move now. I think if it's done as a package with Pakistan, the points of resistance will intensify rather than weaken for the sorts of reasons that we heard from Manpreet yesterday in terms of the differences between India and Pakistan. I think that will just stiffen the argument that it will be a mistake to go down this path and not stick to the criteria and the integrity of the regime that we have had. So for all these reasons, within the two-year timeframe, I just don't see this happening, but of course we can all be surprised. Thank you, Ramesh. Let's move on to the next question two or three minutes early, because I think this is a question that deserves a lot of discussion. No particular surprises we're gonna ask about the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. I'm gonna read out the question before we open voting. But what is the likelihood that by the 21st of March, 2019, one or more of the parties to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action will have renounced or suspended participation in the agreement? If I can ask our team to open voting, please. And again, let me give you 45 seconds of awkward silence in which to make your answers. Thank you, Eric. Okay, you've got about 15 more seconds. So let me ask our team to cut off voting there. Okay, I'm very intrigued by what the audience answers are gonna be on this if I could ask for them to be displayed. Okay, so it looks like people are pretty confident about the future of the JCPOA. Again, the mode of this distribution is round is the 11 to 20 percent mark and then kind of hails off from there, which it turns out is actually marginally more optimistic than the panelists, but only ever so slightly if we can show the panelists answers. Of all the questions that we surveyed, this was the one that had the greatest unanimity between the panelists. I mean, for this kind of exercise, a 20 percent spread is very modest. We went from angular at 15 percent up to Laura at 35 percent. I wanna approach this question in a slightly different way. I'm gonna play devil's advocate here and ask you to try and persuade me why I should be more optimistic. Let me say first of all, I hope you're right. You're all relatively optimistic about the future of the agreement. I very much hope you're right. I quite like the agreement. Let's talk about why you might be wrong though and let me play devil's advocate and invite some of you to explain to me why you're wrong. And the argument that I'm gonna make, essentially, is that I think it's becoming increasingly clear that the Trump administration is not just gonna renounce the agreement. I think the probability of U.S. saying end of JCPOA is very low. On the other hand, I think there are various what we might term escalation pathways by which the agreement unravels. And there are lots of those different pathways. Congress in its wisdom, once it's finished stripping people of healthcare, might decide that it wants to significantly ramp up sanctions on Iran. Those sanctions may be nominally unrelated to the nuclear program, but Iran will potentially claim bad faith in the agreement. That might lead to Iran, for example, deciding to violate some of the terms of the agreement in retaliation, which in turn may lead to an escalation. Conversely, one could imagine, for domestic reasons in Iran, the Iranian government behaving in a much more aggressive regional way. That in turn sparks the U.S. to retaliate more justifiably with very serious sanctions that sparks Iranian withdrawal from the agreement. So I can paint other pathways there, but over a two-year time span, it just occurs to me there's a lot of different pathways by which this agreement can unravel. And individually, one can argue that the probability of each pathway is relatively small, but when you start to have them up cumulatively, one can start to worry about that. And I haven't even mentioned the possibility of Iranian non-compliance. So let me come to Angela first. You were the most optimistic about the agreement. You think there's only a 15% chance this agreement won't be enforced within two years. Help me to sleep at night. Convince me why I should be more optimistic about the future of this agreement. I think the difficulty with the agreement is that the minute the ink was drying on the document, there were already questions being raised about Iran's compliance and willingness to cooperate, et cetera. So I think it's been an agreement that from day one has been put in question somehow, and it's been put under a magnifying glass. And what it comes down to, and I remember there was also a discussion yesterday that was raised, it all comes down to how much do you actually trust Iran? And that, to my mind, is really one of the big factors that enters into it. That enters into it, yes, compliance, yes, the commission can look at this, or yes, they may have violated other arrangements that are not part of the compliance package. But it really comes down to the trust. And I am confident with the 15%, which for once I'm in the mainstream with the audience here, but on the other hand, what I find interesting is that it's not only the United States that's a partner in it. There are several partners in this. There's six, it's the EU3 plus three, you've heard Federica Moguerini yesterday, and you've Iran itself. And that of course is the one factor that also could very well influence, and that's what you were saying, is also the elections in Iran that have taken place this year. And we don't really know how Iran is going to react to the restrictions that are being put on in terms of traveling to this country, possible sanctions, et cetera. So there is a backlash factor that could come from that. But on the other end, I think that the six powers that have put this treaty together with Iran have enough of a cohesion and belief in that this agreement should work, not to destroy it. So that's why I put the probability as very low. Let me push you a little bit further there, because, you know, and I think a very nuanced answer that was very comprehensive, you gave a lot of different reasons for concern as well, coming out to an optimistic conclusion. I mean, you mentioned that Iran's compliance has been questioned from almost the moment the ink was dry. One can have a debate about whether those criticisms were fair or not, but their existence is not a good indicator of the future of the agreement. You know, you've indicated the potential influence of domestic politics in Iran. There's the potential influence of domestic politics in this country as well. Give me a bit more, though, about why, given all of those potentially confounding factors, you still think there's only a 15% chance that this thing is going to unravel. I don't think anyone really wants this agreement to fail. I think that, and I've seen this beforehand before the agreement was concluded, that Iran was a pariah in the international community for so long, and I think there was a factor of stability in a way, of having an agreement, but not only having an agreement, also having a process of negotiations that was very intense. And again, we've talked about trust is only created when you actually talk to the other side and when you actually have a discussion as to what is wrong, what is not wrong, how can you come to an agreement? That to me is very important, and that was a process that was very intensive and that went on for a long time. And that by itself basically means that Iran is being, I don't want to say welcome back, but it should be welcome back in the international community, and having particularly dealt with the whole Syrian issue and chemical weapons, where I've seen Iran's role and it's still playing a very major role, you can't really afford to say, we're gonna break this agreement, we're going to let Iran do whatever it does worst maybe I should say rather than best, and so therefore there will be a lot of political capital, I think also to shore up the agreement in the discussions, but also if there are suspicions that Iran is not complying with it. I mean, the compliance is one issue that absolutely is non-negotiable, but on the other end is the other issues that are coming in where it's like a borderline consideration about is it the ballistic missiles? What is it really that Iran is doing that may or may not be in the agreement? So that's really where the whole rubber hits the road and that needs to be talked about. You cannot just sort of accuse it of something that they're gonna say it's not in the agreement, but on the other end you need to sit down and talk to my mind that is one of the advantages of having a negotiation and having a post-negotiation process which still keeps the parties at the table. Thank you, Ramesh, let me bring you in here. Again, your answer, I mean all of the panelists answers were pretty similar on this point. Again, you're on the optimistic end of a fairly optimistic bunch. You had a 20% chance of the agreement surviving. I wanna kind of bring you in on the point that Angular left the agreement unravelling. I'm sorry, 20% chance of the agreement unravelling. I wanna bring you in on the point that Angular left off on, which is how well insulated the agreement is from all of the non-nuclear issues around Iran's program. The Iran panel yesterday really turned into a debate about what the effect of the nuclear agreement was on Iran's regional behavior. The merits of the nuclear agreement were not the primary issue in the panel yesterday. So we've seen particularly from the UAE on that panel, but other states in the region have expressed a lot of concern about Iran's regional behavior, its ballistic missile program. Chris Ford this morning indicated that if there have been any reticence to push back about against Iran's regional behavior in the past, there wasn't gonna be in the future. And again, this seems to me to set up one of these escalation spirals that I'm worried about in which serious pushback against Iran, whether you think it's justified or not, could ultimately spark an escalating spiral that leads to the destruction of the agreement. Why do you think that's unlikely to happen? Well, James, in general, to believe that if anything can go wrong, it will is not a bad guiding philosophy in world affairs. But in this case, I think for the sorts of reasons that Angela was outlining, and there's two different issues. And you're asking about the extent to which they can be cross infected from one to the other. Of course, there will be all sorts of pressures, not the least because of the domestic political context in this country on looking at non-nuclear issues and becoming more stringent in demands upon Iran and so on and so forth. But in the nuclear field, you've got effectively a fairly robust transparency, inspections, and consequences regime in the JCPOA, which is an international coalition, an agreement that we got to over multiple administrations in the United States. And it's a stable equilibrium in the sense that even if there are suspicions and signs of some deviation, the pendulum will swing back to the default position because more countries in the end, all parties gained more than they conceded. And therefore, all parties have more to lose than to gain if the agreement unravels. So I would expect that if there are non-nuclear issues which are of concern for the United States, there would have to be of a substantial import for even Washington to take the risk of unraveling the nuclear deal because that has an international coalition behind it with, as I said, sufficient things. I think the greater challenge will be to A, ensure enforcement and verification and compliance, and B, use the time gained, which is the eight, 10, 15 years, various benchmarks. Use that to improve upon parts that are considered to be weak. I think that's far more likely than risking the whole thing falling apart because you're not going to get together again if it falls apart. And I think you'd have a lot more to lose than to gain if it does fall apart. Let me pick up on the very last thing you said there, which is the most constructive way forward will be to improve upon the parts of the deal that are weak. I totally agree with you that is the most constructive way forward. But let me bring in Bruno here about whether, there has been some talk about a more for more agreement with Iran as a way of correcting some of the weaknesses of the deal. You know, we give Iran more of something to be determined in return for Iran giving us more of something to be determined on the regional or the nuclear front. You know, there's been talk, Trump administration has threatened to renegotiate the deal. How much of a possibility do you see there of being of handling disputes about the deal? Not about implementation of the deal, but about the deal itself in a constructive way. How much possibility do you see there of being improving upon what have been seen as some of the weaker aspects of the deal? Given the amount of time that an energy that it took to negotiate that deal, given the complexity of the matters, given the fact that the motto during the negotiation was nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, I think the probability of a more for more agreement is about zero. However, I think also that the sheer inertia of the created by the existence of the deal is very important and explains why I'm relatively optimistic. I want to point out something that I think you did not mention, nobody mentioned. It's not a bilateral agreement. The identity of the stakeholders, look at that. It's P5 plus one approved by the UNSC, 90% of the countries in the world have approved that. It's not a bilateral agreement. So I would submit that it's even more difficult to withdraw from it than from other agreements. And I think also that it might be like, there might be a Humpty Dumpty effect. If it's broken, it would be very difficult to fix. That being said, I still put the probability at 30% because precisely what you said, the dynamics of escalation, my worry is an incident in the region, be it in the Gulf or somewhere in Syria and Iraq, plus the existence in Iran of a strong constituency lobbying for withdrawing from the deal. That combination is what leads me to give the number of 30%. Laura, I want to bring you in here. A lot of the argument that we've heard about why we should be optimistic about the deal surviving and 35% chance of the deal unraveling, I'm still placing you in the optimistic camp, although you're the most pessimistic of the optimists. A lot of the argument we've heard is this is an international deal, this is an agreement of multiple states. There will be enough restraint on Washington to continue upholding its side of the deal. You're the sole American on this panel. I don't regard anyone in this country as being an expert in U.S. domestic politics at the moment. We're all guessing as much as anyone else. How much, how do you see potential causes of restraint playing in the Trump administration? How likely is it, do you think that, or let me rephrase that question because you've already answered that, but why do you think it is somewhat more likely than not that the Trump administration will abide by the internationalist nature of this deal in spite of what we've clearly seen as some pretty strong anti-international instincts within at least some parts of the administration? Well, on the international, let me cite one thing and then let me go back to the domestic for a second. I guess if I just picked out one thing, I'd say I think North Korea has a wonderful way of focusing the mind of the administration on what are, is the real issues that ought to be seizing our attention. And so, although they wouldn't phrase it this way, I'm sure, but I think it's sort of, if we do have this deal, let's focus on immediate issues. So I would actually put that as something, another reason why, amongst many other ones, why they would leave it in place. Domestically, when I look at things what might cause it to unravel, I look at Congress trying to impose new sanctions or something that would indeed amount, that could lead it to unravel. I think on the other hand, they will look to the White House for cues in terms of what they do. And I think there's a path forward that will allow President Trump to depict himself as being consistent with his, rip the thing up, worst agreement ever done, because I think there are some improvements that could be made without violating, I think the Director General himself referred to the levels of, for example, heavy water. Mr. Ford himself and his discussion talked, I think, positively about the joint commissions when they had met and establishing a record that there can be disagreements that can be clarified and so on. So I think there could be some modifications, perhaps a technical modification that could be made that would allow the administration to say, look, we've tightened it up, we fixed this. It seems to me though an issue like heavy water. I mean, there is just, I think it's 130 metric tons, if I remember correctly, like, you know, there is just in black and white in the deal a limit to the amount of heavy water that Iran is allowed to possess. So you seem to think there is a, you know, there is some possibility of lowering that limit, which would involve more than just the joint commission reinterpreting something. That would be an actual concrete change to the deal itself. No, no, what I meant was, because I think some people have occasionally leapt on things that sort of the level has fluctuated, say, month to month. So maybe in terms of tracking it more rather than just making sure, no, I was not suggesting that they come up with a different thing. I was just thinking more in terms of tracking it in terms of consistency so you don't see any, you know, frankly, be very minor things, but I'm just saying that there may be technical ways you can say fiddle with it that would allow the, and I hope nobody from the administration is listening to this, but claim victory in a way and say that, look how we've toughened this up, but frankly, they would be more in the lines of just technical adjustments, not renegotiating the deal. I mean, personally, Laura, I hope there are some people in the administration who are listening to the Carnegie conference. We don't mean to be. We didn't be then. I do want to get on to the last question, but Angela, like 15 seconds before we move on to the last question. 20 seconds. Let me just bring in one point and we've basically looked at this agreement in terms of the six parties that negotiated the agreement. We haven't looked at it in terms from Iran's eyes and let me bring here an international perspective and that is basically something that Iran has agreed to this agreement. It's been certified by IEA in five separate reports that they've complied with the agreement and there is this sense that they are being held up to a different standard than others and I'm particularly referring to India, Pakistan, Israel, North Korea, we can't really put in that same. So there is this feeling that it's not only held by Iran but it's also held by other countries in the United Nations and we have to take that seriously that there is also the possibility that Iran might say at some point, was this all worth it? Are we going to stick to that agreement? I'm just asking, I can't answer that. I'm not an Iran specialist but I think it's worth also keeping that in the back of the minds that that may also be a factor influencing because you said one or more of the parties that includes Iran. I think that's a good place to leave this. Okay, one last prediction question that the panelists are going to discuss before we do a tiny bit of data collection at the end. Okay, so question four and let me read this out. What is the likelihood that by 21st of March, 2019, the United States government will have publicly assessed that North Korea has deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine launch ballistic missiles or both. If I could ask our tech team to open the voting at this point and again 45 seconds, no music? Yeah. It helps. 15 seconds, perfect. Okay, if you can shut off voting at this point. Obviously, I say obviously, the question I kind of wanted to ask here was will North Korea have deployed ICBMs, SLBMs or both? Asking that question then raised another question, which is how will we know if North Korea has deployed these weapons? So I ultimately felt one had to have an arbiter of this in the question. I could have gone for North Korea's own statements, decided to go for US government statements on that issue. Obviously, that raises the possibility that the US may assess that North Korea has deployed one of these weapons when in fact it hasn't. And there's the possibility that North Korea may have deployed one of these weapons and the US chooses not to say so publicly. So that's a clear complication in this question. As we turn to the audience results here, I think it's fair to say there is a big spread here. I mean, this is basically a flat distribution. I'm not even gonna, I mean, the mode is up high about 81 to 90%, but that's okay. 81 to 90%, but it's a very, very spread distribution. That pretty much as it happens what the expert answers look like. If we could go to that now. It went from Bruno at 25%, all the way up to Angela at 85%, this was the biggest spread of any of the questions we saw. Bruno, I wanna come to you first. As I've mentioned, there is this complication about this is whether the US government says so. So is your 25% primarily because you think North Korea won't deploy these weapons within two years or because you think the US government won't assess it? I'm basing my vote on the assumption that the US government is saying the truth most of the time. So it's not related with the fact that there is the US arbitration, so to say. Look, I think that my low probability is explained by a combination of two factors. One that despite the acceleration of the nuclear and ballistic missile program by North Korea, it's still something that for which the last miles might be more difficult than the rest of the past, so to say, but mostly because I am assuming right or wrongly that the operational deployment is something that North Korea will hesitate to do because basically deterrence will apply, that this might just be one red line, one US red line that finally the US is not going to cross. Of course, the word deployment can be interpreted in different ways and maybe some of us did not, and maybe you in the audience did not interpret it the same way that we did. My assumption was that it was operational at all times or as operational as can be at all times. But my short answer is deterrence. I note they did not mention whether there would be a nuke atop that missile or not. You left it open. That's right. Let me come on to Angela next, who was obviously right at the other end of the spectrum. You go as high as 85% chance. I thought what was very interesting about Bruno's answer is it wasn't an answer primarily about or exclusively I think about North Korean technology. It was fundamentally came down to a political decision on North Korea's part that it didn't want to cross this red line. I would say one third was about the technology and two third was about deterrence. Angli, you go as high as 85% that the US will assess that North Korea has deployed either or both of these categories of weapons. It's kind of hard to argue in this format about the technology, but let's talk about this deterrence aspect, this political aspect. Why do you think deterrence is likely to fail in this case and North Korea is gonna deploy these weapons or at least one of them in spite of the red line that has been drawn on that issue? There are basically two reasons for that and the first one is that I don't really see any red lines that North Korea at this point is not willing to cross. I frankly think they don't have red lines. They are not seeing any red lines. If they are, they're disregarding them. Let's put it that way. What we've seen in the last couple of years, two, three years, and it's an increasing acceleration of developing their programs. I don't see a halt to that. I really don't and if there are experts around here who do, I'll have you to hear about that. But on the other hand, what I also see is that there is no willingness to engage with North Korea on any level. The only pressure is on China to say, you need to do something to deter them from this development. And China has publicly more or less rebuffed it and sort of said, no, we're not going to or we're going to or not. It's basically at a standstill. So what is happening is that that development is going unhindered forward. And I don't really see. It's like only once you're willing to talk about taking down the program, then we're willing, or you've had already taken down the program. I don't recall who said it, but it was said at this conference. Then we will actually talk to you. And that is a condition that from my experience, having dealt with North Korea also in my political career, I have not seen a willingness that they will accept that condition before coming to the table. They will not. And in the absence of any process, I don't really see how it can be stopped. And that's why also in my, and that's the second point I'm going to make, this administration as young as it is and as maybe unformed as it is in many aspects, as we just heard from Chris Ford, I think it's more willing to come forward with statements that are much more concrete and much more stated in terms of, this is what we have found and this is what we believe, then let's say previous administrations. So I see more of a willingness to call them out on that than previous administrations possibly. Let me question you a bit further on if the US were willing to do diplomacy with North Korea, how much you think that would alter the probabilities here? So you said the 85% chance of US assessing deployment within two years. Imagine that the administration in place was, had publicly said it was committed to diplomacy, there was diplomacy with no preconditions. It was open to providing North Korea with incentives and inducements in order to stop the development of ICBMs or SLBMs. How much, if that was the US policy that had been articulated, how much would that reduce the probability of North Korea deploying by? I mean, we're talking 10% here, 50% here. I'm curious kind of quantitatively how much of a difference you think this could make to the outcome? Dramatically, it would bring it down dramatically. And remember what we've talked about when, and I don't really want to draw a parallel, but when you talk about the Iran agreement, you talk about the Iran agreement kicking the can down the road. If minute you start negotiations or the minute you start engaging North Korea, it would be expected that they would stop also the further deployment or further development of whatever it is that they're developing right now. So I think that you not only gain time, but you also open a window of cooperation and you need somehow this cooperation because what are you going to do? If you don't have that, then basically that situation will fester, it will further deteriorate. And right now, those two situations, both Iran and North Korea are overshadowing the whole debate. And what you also have is the United States needs to look at that very careful is the deployment in South Korea of this thought, this thermal high altitude defense system because China has very publicly come out and sort of said, no, we don't want this, we see it as a threat. It's been muted at the beginning, but it's been very, very strong recently. And that's something that the United States also needs to look at in terms of, this is now an accelerated deployment, it's starting or it's started. And are you willing to look at that as a U.S. policy to go ahead with it? And that's why I'm saying with this administration, there's a different turn of events, there's more for willingness to call this out. Laura, if I can ask you to just be relatively brief on this, but I want to see if you agree with Angela about how effective diplomacy would likely be. Your prediction wasn't, I mean, a million miles away from Angela, Angela had an 85% probability of deployment, you had a 60% probability of deployment. How much do you think the U.S. could alter those probabilities if it were willing to engage with North Korea? I mean, the Obama administration did try, one can argue they didn't try hard enough, but I'm curious whether you agree you could dramatically alter those probabilities by engagement with North Korea? Well, I'm frankly not sure, but I do see a relentless march forward of North Korea which is why I gave it that relatively high percentage. But in terms of military options, in terms of actual kinetic forces, I think people have looked at this obviously many times over the years and there's not a lot of good choices there. So my hope is that there will be a resumption of diplomacy and diplomacy that's based on, as we did with Iran, a combination of sanctions and work with creating a coalition of allies. And I think there's a lot of work that this administration would have to do to get there, but I personally think that's the only way to go. And yes, I think it would alter that percentage rise, maybe not dramatically. This is one of the toughest questions out there that people have struggled with for decades. Ramesh, you're at the other end of the spectrum on this, you're 35%, you're relatively close to where Bruno is. Is that fundamentally a technical judgment on North Korean capabilities or a political judgment on their willingness to deploy or both of them and they're not mutually exclusive? Well, like Bruno, both. I think there's a, let me give you a three or four stop circle answer if you like. First it does link up with the JCPO question because if the United States were to withdraw unilaterally from the JCPOA, others will make judgments on the good faith of the United States in implementing agreements that have been internationally negotiated and signed on to. In the case of North Korea, Russia and China will be absolutely critical in getting some solution. Now, having said that, the next stop in my circle is, there are three parts to the question. Will North Korea actually go and cross these red lines if you like? Will the United States assess with sufficient confidence, confidentially if you like, that North Korea has done so? And then third, will it want to make that information public? And the reason it might hesitate, even if it has concluded that North Korea has done that, the reason it might hesitate is, will that advance or impede then negotiations that include Russia and China in getting to some agreed position? And that's where I think the complications come in. There are sufficient grounds for believing that any premature announcement publicly that it has done so will make it more difficult, much harder to maintain support for negotiations and diplomatic engagement, which will be necessary at some stage or the other to get a resolution of the problem. So I think there are linkages there. It's very difficult to answer with any sense of confidence at this stage, precisely because as we heard from Mr. Ford, there's so many issues that are under review that they cannot answer, but I think it will depend on a series of questions like that. I can make the exact opposite argument there. I mean, I could say that announcing that North Korea has deployed these capabilities would really focus minds and make diplomacy more likely to succeed. Why do you think that announcing these capabilities would hurt rather than help diplomacy? They could come to that conclusion. What I'm saying is you have to have those three things First, North Korea has to cross the thing. Second, the intelligence community here has to come to a consensus that yes, they have done so. Then third, the political judgment has to be made. And that judgment will depend on assessing the consequences of a public declaration, both in terms of getting cooperation with from Russia and China, and in terms of what are the positions of Japan and South Korea. It's not an easy question to answer and the Japanese and South Koreans might well say, we'd prefer you not to make that public at this stage for our reasons, including the pressure that we face the most. I don't think it's a simple answer. When you multiply those three probabilities, you get to something that's relatively low. Which I think is an interesting, I think that's a significant, there's interesting differences in reasoning there between you and Bruno, because I think Bruno is emphasizing much more the role of deterring North Korea from developing the capabilities. And you're placing more emphasis there on the US assessment of that. To conclude this session, we're gonna do two last polling questions to help me collect more data for this. We're not gonna display the answers, we're not gonna discuss these. You will be able to get the answers on the website next week from the audience. But let's do, we're just gonna do two last polling questions for data collection to finish. If we can flag up question five, what is the likelihood that by 21st of March, 2019, Russia and or the United States will have renounced or suspended participation in the 1987 Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty? If we can open voting on that question now. Can the Russians heck this all? We've got about 15 seconds left. Doubtless. Okay, if we can close voting there. As I say, we're gonna put the answers to these on the web. We don't have time to do that now. But if we could now go to question six. Question six, what is the likelihood that by 21st of March, 2019, the United States will have adopted an explicit policy of developing ballistic missile defenses to defend the United States homeland against China? If you can open voting now. This is that Jeopardy theme music. I think you have Alex Trebek for the next two years. I didn't realize the countdown clock was gonna stop when we reached the end of the session. So let's say about 15 seconds now and cut off voting. Let me just conclude with two quick thank yous and one housekeeping announcement. This went incredibly smoothly. There was a lot going on without technical team behind the scenes. So genuine thanks to everybody involved in the technical team, particularly Eric, our producer and Tim who was responsible for the app. This panel gave me nightmares and I'm very grateful to you. Thank you to our panelists for being great sports and taking part in this and more importantly for a really illuminating discussion. Lunch will start right away across the hall. Well, there'll be the panel on regional perspectives on non-proliferation and disarmament and the presentations of this year to raise Dalpeche Memorial Award. Thank you all.