Many observers, inside and outside the U.S. Government, believe we are at a critical juncture, some say a tipping point, in global efforts to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction and the missiles materials, technology and expertise associated with them.  While much progress has taken place over the past few years, the trend lines are not very promising and we may be falling behind where we need to be.  The next administration will be tested the first day it takes office.  It will need to prepare itself for the long haul with a policy agenda, an organizational structure, skilled leadership and adequate staffing to rally our country and our friends and allies to the cause, if it hopes to reverse this trend.

Controlling the spread of WMD is a bipartisan national priority. Improving the way we organize our arms control and nonproliferation structure to prevent WMD proliferation should be a bipartisan challenge as well. Dispassionate discourse on the strengths and weaknesses of past and current organizational practices can help shape the next administration’s strategy on stemming and reversing the proliferation of WMD.

First, let’s look at the tricky issue of institutional culture. The State Department must change its cultural biases against multilateral diplomacy and transnational activities.  State has a strong preference for service in the geographic bureaus and foreign country posts, but service in functional or transnational bureaus and international organizations is seen with disfavor.  The Department doesn’t staff the regional bureaus or foreign country missions with skills involved in nonproliferation and arms control negotiations,  and prefers conducting our diplomacy through bilateral, rather than through multilateral channels or in international institutions.  This attitude has been especially pronounced in recent years, but it has been a cultural attribute of the Department for years.

State’s institutional culture makes it difficult to recruit Foreign Service Officers to serve in functional bureaus.  Foreign Service Officers who serve repeated assignments in functional bureaus are generally not promoted as rapidly and frequently opt to terminate their careers early, thus depriving the Foreign Service and the United States government of the expertise and experience they have accumulated over the years.
To tackle these cultural biases directly would be very difficult and would take a long time to implement because they are part of the core make-up of the Department.

A potentially more rewarding option would involve a fundamental change in organizational structure, by creating a separate independent or semi-independent entity—inside or outside the Department –that would be guaranteed a seat at the table in important decisions.  A separate agency(modeled perhaps after the former Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA)) would work in tandem with the State Department but possibly report directly to the Secretary of State and the President, with inter-agency coordination managed by a senior member of the National Security Council.  This type of re-structuring would elevate the role of the agency and its head above the Under Secretary or Assistant Secretary, could give the agency more clout in inter-agency and international negotiations, give more weight to multilateral diplomacy than it now has, and yield greater influence over its funding needs.

Of course, changing basic organizational structure—especially doing so frequently—is not without cost or challenges. There have been two major reorganizations in the structure and management of arms control and nonproliferation policy in the State Department in the past ten years.  The next administration will want to weigh carefully the possible costs of undertaking a third major realignment, whatever its intrinsic merits, as it begins to organize itself.

A less risky option for improving the conduct of our nonproliferation and arms control diplomacy would involve organizational reforms.   Several organizational and personnel changes could improve the conduct of our nonproliferation and arms control policy:

(1) More programmatic funding.  Current spending for nonproliferation and arms control in the 150 NADR account is less than one percent of the Department’s overall budget.

(2) The ISN (International Security and Nonproliferation) bureau needs authorization for additional permanent personnel so that it doesn’t have to rely less on temporary or part time staff to manage key issue-areas.

(3) The FSI (Foreign Service Institute) should add more courses on multilateral diplomacy and on nonproliferation and arms control to its training curriculum.

(4) The Foreign Service should include assignment(s) in functional bureaus as a required part of the Foreign Service career path.

(5) The Department should consider resurrecting the Foreign Service Reserve Officer program, or something similar, to recruit specialists for skills difficult to fill, such as physical and natural scientists needed to tackle the complexities of nuclear, chemical and biological proliferation and arms control.

(6) Re-writing the mission statement of the Under-Secretary for Arms Control and International Security to place it on a par with the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs to strengthen the internal trade-offs involving the nonproliferation/arms control agenda.

These types of incremental changes should be considered, but caution is in order. Perfecting an organization structure will by itself not translate into good policy.   Getting the attention of the Secretary or the President, having a seat at the decision table, or implementing a fair and balanced personnel system can improve the policy process and the policy itself, but it cannot be a substitute for good, sound policy. The next administration will have to first determine its nonproliferation and arms control agenda, then shape the structure and chose the personnel to implement it.

As a statistician might put it:  most of the variability in success or failure of policy lies with the quality of the policy itself.  But, it doesn’t account for all variability.  Congress can play a constructive role by focusing its oversight attention on our nonproliferation and arms control policy, as well as giving careful consideration to the organizational structure and personnel policies that underlie it.

If the next administration wishes to re-direct and strengthen the U.S. nonproliferation and arms control policy agenda, it would do well to elevate the status and role of the organization(s) responsible for conducting our policy by ensuring that they are amply resourced, appropriately organized and led, and staffed with quality and experienced personnel with the right skills.

This will require greater support from the Secretary of State and the President – and from the Congress — and may entail the creation of a more independent or separate entity devoted to nonproliferation and arms control.  More modest institutional changes can help improve policy development and implementation and should be seriously considered.

It would be wise to create a bipartisan blue ribbon task force to think through and make recommendations on what our nonproliferation and arms control policy agenda should be, and how that agenda should be structured and managed to optimize chances of successful implementation.  This should be done as soon as possible so that its findings and recommendations are available for consideration by the incoming administration.

Related posts:

1. 30 Top National Security Leaders Come Out in Support of New START Treaty
2. An End to False STARTs?
3. Science Diplomacy gets a Boost with New Bipartisan Bill
4. Big, Allied and Dangerous: The Behavior of Terrorist Organizations
5. Obama Takes a Long View of Missile Defense