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National
Security and International Affairs Current Projects
Critical Infrastructure Protection
Working with the National Science and
Technology Council, we are striving to ensure that Federal research and
development for critical infrastructure protection is fully coordinated
and focused on identified technological needs. We are working with other
agencies to ensure that policies considered to strengthen the operational
continuity of U.S. critical infrastructures are fully consistent with S&T
realities, in terms of threats and opportunities. Recognizing the essential
roles that the private sector and academia will play in critical infrastructure
protection R&D, we fully support and encourage the development of an
R&D partnership among the government, private sector, and academia.
Our long-term objective is to continue
the nuclear reduction process by negotiating and implementing continuing
reductions in nuclear materials, weapons, testing, and delivery systems.
This would fulfill the commitments the U.S. made in the Non-proliferation
Treaty (NPT) and the NPT Review and Extension Conference. We are
working with other agencies to ensure that U.S. preparations for START
III are aware of the scientific and technical implications of specific
arms reduction proposals. One particular focus is the March 1997
U.S.-Russia pledge in Helsinki to seek agreements to dismantle actual warheads
as well as delivery vehicles. We are also working to help establish
the groundwork for the eventual ratification of the Comprehensive Test
Ban Treaty by the United States.
Our long term objectives are to work with
other agencies and provide the requisite scientific and technical input
to ensure that the President's plans for national and theater missile defense
are funded by Congress and implemented, and his efforts to clarify and
preserve the ABM Treaty are successfully completed.
Our long-term objective is to ensure that
U.S. government scientific and technical activities to support counterterrorism
are conducted efficiently (no unnecessary duplication) and effectively
(no important gaps), that they address the most important terrorist threats,
and that appropriate solutions (technical and otherwise) are deployed to
prevent, detect, mitigate against, respond to, and/or recover from terrorist
attack. We are paying particular attention to possible terrorist use of
weapons of mass destruction, such as chemical and biological weapons.
Our long-term objective is to ensure that
U.S. Government conducts a coordinated program of technology development
for humanitarian demining in support of the President's anti-personnel
landmine policy, which directs that improved technologies for detecting
and clearing antipersonnel landmines be developed and shared internationally.
We are also working to support the Global Humanitarian Demining 2010 Initiative,
under which the threat posed by landmines in the ground to civil populations
is to be eliminated by the year 2010. Improvements in demining technology
and better international coordination among national demining R&D programs
will be required to reach this ambitious goal.
Humanitarian Demining Information Center
(James Madison University)
The goal of this activity is to strengthen
effectiveness and consistency of U.S. Government policies that deal with
the international transfer of technologies developed with the assistance
of public funds, particularly with respect to concerns over national and
economic security
Emerging Infectious Diseases
(EID)
In response to the increasing threats
to the health of the U.S. and the global community from emerging infectious
diseases, the Administration released a Presidential Decision Directive
in June 1996, to developed a global surveillance and response network;
enhance research; strengthen international collaboration; and raise public
awareness. The PDD created a Task Force, co-chaired by OSTP and CDC, which
is charged with implementing the President's policy and ensuring that EIDs
continue to receive priority in the Federal agencies, and that non-Federal
entities are widely brought into the process.
Improving International Partnerships
in Science and Technology
A fundamental goal of NSIA is to strengthen
international science cooperation in support of our science and technology
and foreign policy goals. The Division is taking specific steps to improve
science cooperation in both multilateral organizations and bilateral relationships
in order to promote leading edge scientific research that serves common
interests and goals. Multilateral arenas through which Administration goals
are pursued include the OECD (particularly the Megascience Forum), the
G8, Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, and the Summit of Americas.
Priority bilateral areas of activity include work with Russia, China, Japan,
the European Union, South Africa, Ukraine, and Egypt. In addition, priority
is placed on reducing barriers to effective cooperation, including:
- reducing administrative barriers to
cooperation (e.g. taxes, visas, immigration, customs, and other restrictions
on the importation of science equipment);
- maintaining open access to international
scientific research facilities (supporting the U.S. policy of providing
open access to international facilities, based on merit); and
- strengthening international coordination
in planning large science projects and programs (e.g., OECD Megascience
Forum technical working groups, emerging infectious diseases, endocrine
disruptors, etc.)
Our objectives are to help orchestrate
an international effort to achieve the disposition of Russian excess weapons-grade
plutonium; provide overall technical and management oversight of bilateral
U.S.-Russia scientific and technical cooperation in this area; facilitate
reaching a domestic consensus on and implementation of a strategy for the
disposition of U.S. excess weapons-grade plutonium; and monitor implementation
of the HEU purchase agreement and the blend-down of U.S. HEU to assure
continued success. To achieve these goals, NSIA co-chairs, with the NSC,
the Interagency Working Group on Plutonium Disposition and co-chairs the
Joint U.S.-Russian Steering Committee on Plutonium Disposition. We are
also working with the independent Holdren-Velikhov Commission.
In response to the threat posed by the
collapse of the former Soviet Union's weapons of mass destruction (WMD)
infrastructure, the United States initiated a series of threat reduction
programs. The goal of these programs is to help Russia limit the
potential proliferation of scientists and information to would-be proliferant
states—the so-called "brain drain"—and to secure and destroy Russia's weapons
of mass destruction and weapons materials. The International Science
and Technology Center (ISTC), Science and Technology Center in Ukraine
(STCU), Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention (IPP), and Nuclear Cities
Initiative (NCI) seek to provide opportunities for former WMD researchers
to redirect their talents to peaceful projects, while remaining gainfully
employed at their original institutes. The Cooperative Threat Reduction
Program's mission is to provide assistance to Russia in order to dismantle
or secure its weapons of mass destruction and weapons materials, thereby
reducing the threat of proliferation.
Office of
Science and Technology Policy National Security
and International Affairs Division
1600 Pennsylvania Ave, N.W
Room 494
Washington, DC 20502
202.456.6056
202.456.6028 fax
Information@ostp.eop.gov