Project on Strengthening Arms Control and Nonproliferation
For information about the project, contact Kingston Reif
From 1961 until 1999, the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) functioned as an independent voice for formulating, advocating, negotiating, implementing, and verifying effective arms control, nonproliferation, and disarmament policies.
Among its many accomplishments, ACDA advocated for and played a leading role in negotiating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT I and II), and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). The key reason for ACDA's success lay in its status as an independent arms control agency, with a Director who could take key issues directly to the President and ensure that those issues were given a voice at all levels of interagency policy formulation.
Senators Barack Obama and Dick Lugar at the Donetsk State Chemical Product Plant.
In 1999, ACDA was officially dissolved and its functions were merged into four different bureaus within the State Department. Crucially, however, the new Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security Affairs retained the right to: attend all National Security Council (NSC) meetings pertaining to arms control, nonproliferation, and disarmament; communicate directly with the President; and play an interagency policy role.
The George W. Bush administration came into office in 2001 seeking to eliminate independent arms control and nonproliferation voices within the State Department. In July 2005, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced a reorganization plan which eliminated the nonproliferation and arms control bureaus and combined them into a new Bureau for International Security and Nonproliferation (ISN). The reorganization reflected the Bush administration's general disdain for treaties and multilateral approaches to arms control and nonproliferation issues.
The stated purpose of Rice's plan was to augment the role of the State Department in "protecting America from weapons of mass destruction." In reality, it has compromised the Department's ability to effectively address arms control and nonproliferation issues in the following ways:
- The new Undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security Affairs no longer has a guaranteed separate seat at National Security Council (NSC) meetings considering arms control and nonproliferation policy. Direct access to the President has been curtailed and the bureau's role in interagency policy formulation has been diminished.
- Expanding the focus of the new nonproliferation bureau to include such areas as missile defense and General Assembly resolutions has weakened the State Department's ability to achieve priority nonproliferation objectives.
- An exodus of key staff members in the wake of the reorganization has left the new nonproliferation bureau starved for experience and expertise in arms control and nonproliferation policy and multilateral diplomacy.
- The decision to abolish the Arms Control Bureau will make it more difficult for the next administration to pursue a renewed arms control agenda.
The next President faces a Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I) that expires in 2009, a Nuclear Non-Proliferation Review Conference in 2010, and ongoing challenges from the North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs. If the next administration returns to a focus on bilateral and multilateral arms control treaties – as both Barack Obama and John McCain have promised – it remains to be seen how either President will organize his Administration to manage these issues.
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