Senior Program Officer, Global Nuclear Policy Program
Paul Warnke serves as a Senior Program Officer with NTI’s Global Nuclear Policy Program (GNPP). In this role, he supports NTI’s efforts to reduce global nuclear risks, focusing on U.S.-Russia arms control, transatlantic security, and U.S. nuclear force structure and deterrence policy.
Before joining NTI in 2025, Warnke served as a Foreign Affairs Officer in the U.S. Department of State, first in the Bureau of Arms Control, Stability, and Deterrence, and most recently in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs. In these roles, he worked on transatlantic security, NATO nuclear policy, and U.S.-Russia arms control issues. Warnke also completed a rotation with the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, where he focused on U.S. nonproliferation and civil nuclear cooperation policy in South America.
Prior to working in the State Department, Warnke served as Senator Chris Van Hollen’s nuclear policy aide, advancing bipartisan legislation on U.S.-Russia arms control, advanced nuclear technology, and nonproliferation. During his graduate studies, he served as a graduate research assistant at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies as well as interned at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and at the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs.
Warnke holds an M.A. in Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey and a B.A. in History from Middlebury College. He is fluent in Portuguese and proficient in Spanish.
Congress’s oversight of U.S. nuclear policy is at a critical juncture. When the U.S. Senate approved New START in 2010, it mandated several annual reports and certifications to ensure strong congressional oversight of Russian compliance with the treaty. These requirements expired along with the treaty, creating oversight gaps just as strategic competition heats up.
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