Combating Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction

Department of StateThe Department of State (State) has preeminent responsibility and authority for theconduct of U.S. foreign policy. Thus, State should be assigned the principal responsibilityfor communicating to foreign governments U.S. policy on proliferation of weapons of massdestruction, and should play a central role in defining and coordinating U.S. policy.A Reorganized Department of State: Long-term Challenges andOpportunitiesThe integration of the Arms Control Disarmament Agency (ACDA) into the StateDepartment in April 1999 resulted in the consolidation under the Department’s purview ofa number of new international security affairs and arms control functions. Prior to 1999,ACDA was responsible for formulating, advocating, and negotiating arms control and nonproliferationagreements. During this time, ACDA worked to establish and institutionalizean arms control verification process that was used (1) to focus Intelligence Communitycollection, analysis, and dissemination and (2) to provide procedures by which noncompliantbehavior could be brought to the attention of other agencies and deliberated inthe interagency process. Important proliferation-related agreements, such as the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Biological Weapons and ToxinConvention, and the proposed Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, have all been the focus ofACDA negotiation and advocacy. Implementation was left to other agencies.When ACDA existed as a separate agency, activity within the Department of State onproliferation-related policy was divided between regional (e.g., European and CanadianAffairs) and functional (e.g., Political-Military Affairs) bureaus. Moreover, coordinationauthority was divided between the Under Secretaries responsible for bilateral affairs(Under Secretary for Political Affairs) and arms control (Under Secretary for Arms Controland International Security Affairs). These circumstances often led to a wide range ofbilateral policy considerations dominating functional policy concerns, includingproliferation-related policy objectives. Thus, despite the primacy of proliferation-relatedgoals in U.S. declaratory policy, the imperatives of day-to-day bilateral policy concernsundercut our proliferation goals vis-a-vis certain governments.Arms control and non-proliferation are now under the day-to-day jurisdiction of a neworganization headed by the Under Secretary for Arms Control and International SecurityAffairs. The Department has reorganized its political-military affairs bureaus accordingly,replacing the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs with three new bureaus designed toaccommodate new missions, as well as the substantial increase in personnel, resultingfrom the absorption of ACDA.47