The Foreign Service Journal, December 2010

D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 0 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 39 F OCUS ON M ULT I LATERAL D I PLOMACY T HE A RMS C ONTROL A GENDA OF THE O BAMA A DMINISTRATION he Obama administration has put forward a bold agenda in arms control, which is par- ticularly noteworthy after the skepticism and reluctance of the George W. Bush years. Inspirational rhetoric and pol- icy pronouncements are seen, for example, in the presi- dent’s speeches in Prague on April 5, 2009, at the United Nations on Sept. 23, 2009, and in the Nuclear Posture Re- view released in April 2010. This is matched by some spe- cific achievements — completion of the New START Treaty, the Nuclear Security Summit held in Washington in April 2010 and the successful Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty held in New York this past May. Admittedly, efforts to resolve the nuclear proliferation problems posed by Iran and North Korea have been dis- appointing thus far. Moreover, there is a surprising de- gree of opposition to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, whose ratification and entry into force are a high priority for the administration. Indeed, the administration places a high priority on both bilateral and multilateral consultations regarding arms control. For example, Ambassador Susan Burk met with representatives of more than 70 foreign governments in the run-up to the 2010 NPT RevCon and intensive con- sultations continued throughout the three-week meetings. (For more specifics, see “The Way Forward on NPT Diplomacy,” p. 28.) The U.S. is active in other relevant multilateral fora, as well, such as the U.N. First Committee, the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, the Conference on Dis- armament in Geneva, the Organization for the Preven- tion of Chemical Weapons in The Hague, the Nuclear C URRENT U.S. EFFORTS ARE INTENDED TO RESTORE U.S. MORAL AUTHORITY IN THE WORLD , PROMOTE THE RULE OF LAW AND ENHANCE GLOBAL SECURITY . B Y E DWARD I FFT T Edward Ifft, a retired member of the Senior Executive Service, has been involved in negotiating and implement- ing many of the central arms control agreements of the past 40 years in various positions with the State Department, U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the Depart- ment of Defense. He served on the U.S. delegations to the negotiations on SALT, TTBT, START and the CTBT, was deputy chief negotiator during 1988 for the START nego- tiations in Geneva and served as a START inspector. The author of many articles, as well as of chapters in two books published by the United Nations, Ifft works part-time for State and is an adjunct professor in the Security Stud- ies Program of the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policies of the U.S. government or Georgetown University.