Bob Joseph, the U.S. special envoy for nuclear nonproliferation: “It’s important to support the new president in his efforts to deal with historic problems and challenges facing the United States, both in regard to the economy and in regard to national security,” he says. Very generous. He talks about Russia, where he says the “fundamental” issue is Russian leadership “seeking to reestablish Russia as a great power… to exercise Russian power and prestige around the world.” That’s not necessarily problematic, but what is a problem is Russia’s “increasingly aggressive actions abroad,” and its view of American power as a zero-sum game. (It’s kind of funny how Bush administration officials can say that about other countries.) Joseph says that outside “direct and intrusive sanctions” imposed by the U.N. Security Council, Iran will acquire nuclear weapons, and that requires “cooperation from Russia.”

Daniel Poneman, a longtime nuclear energy and proliferation official, ties the discussion to global climate change, “a different tipping point” than the one Perry mentioned. Moots the idea of a massive expansion of nuclear energy as a part of a solution — the process of creating nuclear power produces enriched uranium and plutonium, which “increases the risk of nuclear terrorism.” Poneman fears that avoiding a climate tipping point, the world might end up bringing about a nuclear tipping point. The alternative is to “talk to the utilities”: in other words “a leasing regime” to provide fuel for reactors but than to remove the spent fuel that could be used for nuclear weapons. He’s riffing — this is really difficult — but says “you have to avoid the third rail of political discrimination,” by which he means the regime has to include the entire world. “This will not solve the Iran problem or the North Korea problem,” Poneman concedes, but it will “put a sharp light of scrutiny on the international outliers.”

Now here’s Wendy Sherman, who offers perhaps the best window into the Obama administration. (She’s a protege of Madeleine Albright and is close with Secretary of State-designee Hillary Rodham Clinton. Wow, she just said “Bill Perry is one of my heroes.”) But she says she’s done with “all transition work” for the new administration and instead talks starkly about how she was eight hours away from staying at the Islamabad Marriott that Pakistani terrorists destroyed in the fall. Sherman talks about the need for President-elect Barack Obama to renegotiate nuclear weapons reduction treaties with Russia and other countries. In 2010, the Nonproliferation Treaty’s review conference will get underway, which requires “enormous leadership” from the United States to “impose a range of penalties for withdrawal from the NPT” while “creating access to a nuclear fuel cycle for everyone,” which speaks to Poneman’s point. The nuclear-watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency should be strengthened, as should the Bush administration’s signal proliferation effort, the Proliferation Security Initiative. “No– new– states” obtaining nuclear weapons capability. She also underscores the need for North Korean disarmament and preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons. The baton “won’t become a magic wand” in an Obama administration, though, Sherman concludes, which is a pretty cringe-inducing cliche.

Sherman says “it is quite crucial to maintain our deterrent” as Obama has said, “while we move toward the goal” of a nuclear-free world. Striking the balance is the difficulty, but she says the United States has to “define the norms” for nuclear reductions.

Perry’s part of an effort, once considered taboo, where former State and Pentagon chiefs “pal around with nuclear abolitionists,” as he joshes. Without U.S. efforts to actively reduce its own nuclear arsenal, getting other countries to do so is a non-starter, he’s argued as a part of that effort, which is led by Henry Kissinger. “I really am a card-carrying Cold Warrior,” Perry says, and the “risks of a nuclear catastrophe was never academic to me.” But without the Cold War, “I believe we should begin to dismantle the deadly nuclear legacy of the Cold War.”

Proliferation — from Russia, North Korea, Iran and the freelance efforts of Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan — is at “a tipping point” that will be “irreversible, and dangerous beyond the imagination of most people,” Perry says. The world has been “moving backwards” on nuclear proliferation, “and each year we have moved ever closer to a nuclear catastrophe.” That’s why it’s time to take what used to be considered drastic action to “move toward the elimination of nuclear weapons.” Not reduce, eliminate. “That will not happen until the American government takes a strong leadership position,” Perry says, and claims that Obama sees it that way based on campaign statement. Wants Obama to hector the world on nuclear abolition, and “deep cooperation” with Russia on “mitigating the danger of nuclear terrorism.” Says it’s time to work with the Senate on ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty “12 years after we signed it.” Bob Joseph and Eric Edelman, Bush administration officials on the panel, look uncomfortable and whisper something to each other.

Perry is worried about Iran, which is “moving inexorably toward becoming a nuclear power,” which is provocative to Israel. “President Obama will almost certainly face a serious crisis with Iran,” he says, most likely “in his first year in office.” It “can’t be solved unilaterally,” and it can’t be solved without the U.S. involved in negotations with Iran, something the Bush administration — like administrations going back to Jimmy Carter’s — rejected. It’s worth remembering that the National Intelligence Council no longer believes Iran has an active nuclear weapons program, though.

Accordingly, the event will offer a glimpse of how likely Obama appointees view the challenges ahead: speakers include Wendy Sherman, often mentioned as a possible State Department troubleshooter in east Asia; Daniel Kurtzer, a possible Israel/Palestine policy czar; Anne-Marie Slaughter, who may become the State Department’s chief of policy planning; noted counterinsurgency expert Janine Davidson, who’s part of President-elect Barack Obama’s Pentagon transition team; as well as two military officers you may have heard of: Gen. David Petraeus and Adm. Michael Mullen.

Rice’s imminent speech won’t be the only one offering a defense of the Bush administration’s record. Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage is in the lineup, as is outgoing Pentagon Undersecretary for Policy Eric Edelman and proliferation official Bob Joseph (he of the Sixteen Words). Naturally, I will be riveted. Dispatches will come throughout the day.

Update: Never mind! Rice, it was just announced, is in New York working with the U.N. Security Council on a Gaza ceasefire. However, I just saw former Secretary of Defense Bill Perry walk in, so there you go.