U.S. State Department to Combine Arms Control, Nonproliferation Bureaus

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has approved the merger of the State Department’s arms control and nonproliferation bureaus, officials said yesterday (see GSN, Jan. 7).

The decision to merge the two bureaus was based on a recommendation made last fall by the department’s inspector general, according to the Washington Times. The department’s other two international security-related bureaus — political-military affairs and verification and compliance — would remain separate, the officials said.

“The report of the inspector general found that we still have structures created for Cold War challenges,” a State Department official said. “We need to reduce overlap by retooling and improving efficiency.”

Arms Control Association Executive Director Daryl Kimball said, though, that the merger “represents a further diminishing of the importance of U.S. arms-control policy within the larger federal bureaucracy” (Nicholas Kralev, Washington Times, Jan. 12).

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