The Foreign Service Journal, December 2009

28 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 9 space and nuclear arms control); • Representation to the IAEA, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the Preparatory Commission for the CTBT Organiza- tion, and the Organization for Secu- rity and Cooperation in Europe; • Dealing with the proliferation challenges of civil nuclear fuel cycle expansion in terms of the environ- ment. (Adding technically trained per- sonnel to the arms control bureaucracy who could look across the spectrum of renewable energy options and eval- uate alternatives to nuclear energy would be useful.) •Preparing for multilateral negotiations on nuclear arms control. These will at some point involve, at a mini- mum, China, the U.K., France, India and Pakistan. The complications posed by Israel, and the possibility of a nu- clear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East, will need to be addressed. Thus, there should be a complement of staff to think beyond the current implementation and negoti- ating responsibilities, and to sponsor research on future steps. As noted above, ACDA staffing never exceeded 250 personnel slots (full-time equivalents). The State bureau- cracy devoted to these issues has never exceeded 500. Considering that there are 200,000 persons dedicated to intelligence missions, as stated by Director of National In- telligence Dennis C. Blair in September, the number of slots allocated to arms control could be greatly increased and still be minimal. The U.S. share for funding international arms control organizations should be ensured. For treaties such as the NPT, START and CTBT, all key to maintaining global sta- bility, the costs are modest compared to our expenditures on nuclear weapon systems or intelligence (which Dennis Blair estimated at $75 billion). The U.S. contributes only 22 percent of the IAEA’s an- nual budget of about $500 million — itself quite modest considering the importance to national security of the agency’s safeguards. The resources to support a military response to every threat to national security are likely to dwarf those needed for arms control. Fourth , within the separate administrative structures policy direction must be organized to optimize decision- making. Verification and compliance are key to effective arms control, for instance, but need to be considered in a wider context, so that the verification provisions of an agreement ensure that militarily significant violations are not occurring. In addition, both bilateral and multilateral issues need to be con- sidered holistically. This includes, for example, understanding how Russia might consider linkages among imple- mentation of the CFE Treaty govern- ing conventional forces (which it has suspended), plans for ballistic missile defense in Europe and the prospective START follow-on agreement. Fifth , State should provide expert staff for service in international organizations. The IAEA, OPCW, the CTBT Preparatory Commission and the U.N. Disarmament Af- fairs office should employ a substantial number of U.S. arms control experts, given the fact that such organizations are the international matrix for implementing or consid- ering agreements. At the IAEA, individuals with back- grounds in the technical and policy issues related to North Korea and Iran are important. At the CTBT Preparatory Commission, of importance are backgrounds in monitor- ing technologies and systems and on-site inspection tech- nologies. Some positions will be filled by FSOs, some by experts from DOD, DOE and its laboratories. Still an Urgent Priority In the half-century since the failure of the Baruch Plan, the world has witnessed a U.S.-Soviet arms race in which each side deployed tens of thousands of weapons, ready to be launched on short notice — just a single one of which could spell the destruction of a city, its people and its civ- ilization. But it has also witnessed, mainly pursuant to ne- gotiated agreements, rapid reductions in these deploy- ments. Furthermore, nuclear “horizontal” proliferation has been held to less than a dozen states. Negotiators have also succeeded in outlawing biological and chemical weapons, and made progress with respect to conventional weapons. But investments in military solu- tions to security concerns, including nuclear weapons, re- main very large, far outweighing the investments to pursue arms control solutions. For all these reasons, preventing the use of nuclear weapons, ultimately through the process of negotiating a world free of such armaments, remains the urgent prior- ity it has been from the dawn of the atomic age. ■ F O C U S More than 40 years after its inception, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty still enjoys near-universal adherence.