As I have said, I believe it unlikely that the United States will be able to successfully take the steps in the arms control/nonproliferation area that we must to safeguard American and world security unless the bureaucratic structure and personnel are in place to carry out the relevant policies. However, Laura correctly says that structure must serve policy and a President and Secretary of State committed to sound arms/nonproliferation policies would certainly make a difference even under the current structure.

Nevertheless, it is the genius of the American government to recognize that too much power located in one place, even with the best of intentions, is bad and that some institutions have to be protected from themselves. The central mission of the Department of State is to maintain and strengthen bi-lateral and multi-lateral relations with other countries. Often efforts, for example, to limit armaments, bring up cases of violations of arms control treaties and inhibit countries from acquiring nuclear weapons run directly counter to this central mission of the State Department and the requirements to carry out the mission will usually trump arms control/nonproliferation concerns within the Department.

Further, in the past the best policies, in my view, in the international security field often emerged from the policy clash among the Department of State, the Department of Defense, the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and an independent ACDA-all with their differing viewpoints. ACDA should never have been merged with the Department of State and it was done to placate one member of the United States Senate, Jesse Helms, who happened at the time to be Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, holding hostage the Chemical Weapons Convention.

I agree entirely with Laura’s comment that there should be located on the National Security Council staff a Deputy National Security Advisor dedicated to WMD issues. Such an officer would be in a position to contribute to ensuring continuing effective organization of the arms control/nonproliferation mission in the government.

Andy raises the very important issue of career paths and how foreign service officers and civil service personnel are rewarded and groomed for leadership in the State Department. If these personnel and staffing policies are at odds with achieving desired policy outcomes, they need to be adjusted, but this ship will take time to turn. If such policies are so ingrained in the culture of the State Department that they cannot be changed, that may be a good reason to create a new organization. Another consequence of the last 10 years of mergers among the nonproliferation and arms control structures is the loss of authorized federal positions and management opportunities. If staff and management are spread too thin, they won’t be effective, and if there are minimal opportunities for promotion within a specialized area of knowledge, the staff will stagnate and shrink. The fact that so many talented federal employees have stuck with these missions and offices even in the face of limited opportunities for advancement speaks highly of their dedication, but we rely on future staff to share this commitment at our peril unless we change the reward structure.

A question that is only tangentially referenced in Andy’s and Tom’s comments is the relationship between the arms control/nonpro structures — whether independent or not — and how the NSC operates, which can either compensate for imperfect structure, or contradict ideal structure. Many of us have been arguing for a more focused NSC position embodied as a Deputy National Security Advisor dedicated to WMD issues. It would be interesting to consider what such a position might mean for effective organization of the arms control/nonrpoliferation/threat reduction mission in the agencies.