ABOUT THE SPEAKER


Thomas Countryman is Chairman of the Board of the Arms Control Association. The ACA, founded in 1972, is a nonpartisan NGO which analyzes key security issues and advises the executive branch, Congress and the public on choices to promote global security and reduce the risk that weapons of mass destruction will be used.


Countryman retired from the Senior Foreign Service in January 2017 after 35 years of service. At that time, he served simultaneously as acting Undersecretary for Arms Control, and as Assistant Secretary for International Security and Nonproliferation, a position he held since September 2011. The ISN Bureau leads the US effort to prevent the spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.


After serving in Belgrade, Washington and Cairo, he advised Ambassador Albright on Middle East affairs at the US Mission to the United Nations, and was Director for Near East affairs at the National Security Council.


He directed State’s Office of South Central European Affairs, and was Minister for Political Affairs in Rome, Deputy Chief of Mission at the Embassy in Athens (including five months as Charge d'Affaires), and Foreign Policy Advisor to the US Marine Commandant.


Before ISN, Countryman was Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Political-Military Affairs, and Deputy Assistant Secretary for European Affairs with responsibility for the Balkans.


He returned to State in 2021-22 to serve as a Senior Advisor for the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Mr. Countryman graduated from Washington University in St. Louis (summa cum laude) in economics. He speaks Serbo-Croatian, Arabic, German, Italian and Greek. He was born and raised in Tacoma,WA.

ABOUT THE MODERATOR


Jack Segal, former senior U.S. diplomat and IAF co-chair, has had a long career in arms control and nonproliferation. He served at the National Security Council as Director for Nonproliferation and Export Controls from 1999-2000. Prior to that, in Moscow, he was responsible for implementing a variety of arms control agreements. From 1986-87, he served as a State Department representative to the strategic weapons talks of the START negotiations with the USSR in Geneva. While there, he drafted the Agreement on Nuclear Risk Reduction with the USSR which was signed in 1987 and which continues to be honored by the U.S. and Russia today despite the current state of the relationship (June 2023).

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SUGGESTED RESOURCES

Recommended by Thomas Countryman


RECENT BOOKS


  • Charles Glaser/Austin Long/Brian Radzinsky, Managing U.S. Nuclear Operations in the 21st Century, 2022
  • Vipin Narang/Scott Sagan, The Fragile Balance of Terror: Deterrence in the New Nuclear Age, 2022
  • Mariana Budjeryn, Inheriting the Bomb, 2022


HISTORICAL READING


  • Rose Gottemoeller, Negotiating the New START Treaty, 2021
  • William Perry/Tom Collina, The Button: The New Nuclear Arms Race and Presidential Power, 2020
  • Fred Kaplan, The Bomb: Presidents, Generals and the Secret History of Nuclear War, 2020
  • Daniel Ellsberg, The Doomsday Machine, 2018
  • Ronan Farrow, War on Peace: The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence, 2018
  • Joseph Cirincione, Nuclear Nightmares: Securing the World before it is Too Late, 2013


COMMENTARY on Russian Decision to ‘suspend’ New START



WEBSITES



ARMS CONTROL ASSOCIATION Monthly journal: Arms Control Today



COUNTRYMAN SPEECHES / ARTICLES / INTERVIEWS