I really enjoyed this conversation with Lowell Schwartz, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Nonproliferation Policy, who joined the podcast to talk about the role Congress plays in overseeing arms control and nuclear policy. I’m glad we were able to get Lowell’s perspective on the opaque world of executive-legislative branch relations, particularly on national security issues, and who better to offer insights on this topic than a former senior professional staff member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, who managed the WMD portfolio.

We talked about the New START and nuclear modernization compromise, how a staffer approaches oversight of the executive branch on these issues, and Lowell’s experience on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In addition to New START, we talked about the politics surrounding JCPOA negotiations on Capitol Hill, how to ask nicely for briefings from the Department of State, and the comparative advantages the executive branch has over Capitol Hill on the foreign policy, military and technical topics involved in arms control policy.

We also talk about the relevance of public support for arms control and defense spending decisions, Golden Dome, SDI, and missile defense politics historically, and the prospects for arms control with Russia and China today. Lowell and I also spent some time talking about the rationale for arms control, what aspects of arms control policy members of Congress and Senators may find important, and how historical arms control oversight on Capitol Hill—and deal-making involving defense spending and arms control limits—may relate to any contemporary effort to approve a new treaty. Finally, we end with a discussion about how far Congress can go with spending to modernize and possibly grow the arsenal in future without an arms control path to control costs down the road (and how hard that looks right now given relations with potential arms control partners).

Read Lowell’s writing on domestic and international politics at his Substack, “A New Sense of Freedom.“

Intro/outro music licensed by Soundstripe: “The Iron Curtain” by Wicked Cinema.

Recording and edits through Riverside.fm.

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