As the fall of the Soviet Union appeared imminent, the United States and their NATO allies began to worry about the concept that the nuclear weapons held in smaller countries by the Soviet Union could fall or would fall into enemy hands. The Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) Program was an initiative housed within the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). The CTR program is better known as the Nunn–Lugar Act based on the Soviet Nuclear Threat Reduction Act of 1991 which was authored and cosponsored by Sens. Sam Nunn (D-GA) and Richard Lugar (R-IN). This Act was created in 1986 in a congressional meeting. According to the CTR website, "the purpose of the CTR Program is to secure and dismantle weapons of mass destruction and their associated infrastructure in former Soviet Union states."Another explanation of purpose of the program is "to secure and dismantle weapons of mass destruction in states of the former Soviet Union and beyond".
United States Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) is one of the eleven unified combatant commands in the United States Department of Defense. Headquartered at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, USSTRATCOM is responsible for strategic deterrence, global strike, and operating the Defense Department's Global Information Grid. It also provides a host of capabilities to support the other combatant commands, including strategic warning; integrated missile defense; and global command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR). This command exists to give national leadership a unified resource for greater understanding of specific threats around the world and the means to respond to those threats rapidly.
The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) is an agency within the United States Department of Defense (DoD) and is the official Combat Support Agency for countering weapons of mass destruction. According to the agency's Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2018 to 2022, the DTRA mission "enables DoD and the U.S. Government to prepare for and combat weapons of mass destruction and improvised threats and to ensure nuclear deterrence." The agency is headquartered in Fort Belvoir, Virginia.
George Peter Nanos is a retired vice admiral in the United States Navy and former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
NetOps is defined as the operational framework consisting of three essential tasks, Situational Awareness (SA), and Command & Control (C2) that the Commander (CDR) of US Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM), in coordination with DoD and Global NetOps Community, employs to operate, manage and defend the Global Information Grid (GIG) to ensure information superiority for the United States.
Joint Task Force-Global Network Operations (JTF-GNO) was a subordinate command of United States Strategic Command whose mission was to: direct the operation and defense of the Global Information Grid (GIG) across strategic, operational, and tactical boundaries in support of the US Department of Defense's full spectrum of war fighting, intelligence, and business operations.
The Joint Functional Component Command for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance is a subordinate command of the United States Strategic Command, one of the nine Unified Combatant Commands under the United States Department of Defense (DOD) and co-located with the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). In its relatively new status, it serves as the center for planning, execution and assessment of the United States military's global Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance operations; a key enabler to achieving global situational awareness.
Major General Trudy H. Clark, USAF (retired) is a former Deputy Director of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) in Fort Belvoir, Virginia in the United States.
The United States Department of Defense is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national security and the United States Armed Forces. The DoD is the largest employer in the world, with nearly 1.3 million active-duty service members as of 2016. More employees include over 826,000 National Guard and Reservists from the armed forces, and over 732,000 civilians bringing the total to over 2.8 million employees. Headquartered at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C., the DoD's stated mission is to provide "the military forces needed to deter war and ensure our nation's security".
The Joint Force Space Component Command (JFSCC), formerly Joint Functional Component Command for Space, was a component of the U.S. Strategic Command before being formed into United States Space Command in August 2019.
The Joint Improvised-Threat Defeat Organization (JIDO) is a combat support organization of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) organization under the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) that deals with improvised threats such as the improvised explosive device (IEDs) and small unmanned aerial systems (sUASs). JIDO was born from the Joint IED Defeat Organization (JIEDDO) established in 2006, which focused on IEDs. JIDO's mission is to "enable Department of Defense actions to counter improvised threats with tactical responsiveness and anticipatory acquisition in support of combatant commanders' efforts to prepare for, and adapt to, battlefield surprise." This mission supports counter-terrorism, counter-insurgency and other related mission areas including Counter-IED.
Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC) is a Major Command (MAJCOM) of the United States Air Force, headquartered at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana. AFGSC provides combat-ready forces to conduct strategic nuclear deterrence and global strike operations in support of combatant commanders. It is subordinated to the USSTRATCOM.
Kenneth A. Myers III was the fourth and longest serving director of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), from September 2009 to March 2016. DTRA is the intellectual, technical and operational leader for the Department of Defense (DoD) and the U.S. Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) in the national effort to combat the weapons of mass destruction (WMD) threat. Myers is also dual-hatted as the director of the USSTRATCOM Center for Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction. The center integrates and synchronizes DoD-wide efforts in support of the combating WMD mission.
Joint Elimination Coordination Element (JECE) is a staff element of United States Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) with the mission of integrating WMD Elimination doctrine into operational plans and joint doctrine, augmenting an existing headquarters to provide elimination planning and command and control expertise, and forming the core of a Joint Task Force for Elimination of WMD (JTF-E).
The Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical & Biological Defense Programs, or ASD(NCB), is the principal adviser to the Secretary of Defense, Deputy Secretary of Defense and the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics on policy and plans for nuclear, chemical, and biological defense programs.
Joint Functional Component Command for Space and Global Strike was a component of the United States Strategic Command. It was headquartered at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska. The Commander, JFCC SGS was dual hatted as the Commander, Eighth Air Force and Commander, JFCC SGS. On 19 July 2006, JFCC SGS was reorganized into two separate JFCCs: Joint Functional Component Command for Global Strike and Integration and Joint Functional Component Command for Space. The Commander of JFCC SGS at the time of the reorganization was Lieutenant General Robert J. Elder, Jr., USAF, who became the new Commander of JFCC-GSI.
Bonnie Jenkins currently serves as the U.S. Department of State's Coordinator for Threat Reduction Programs in the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation. She is also the U.S. representative to the G7 Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction (WMD) and chaired the Global Partnership in 2012. She is the Department of State lead on the Nuclear Security Summit, and she coordinates the Department of State's activities related to the effort to secure all vulnerable nuclear material. Jenkins coordinates the Department of State's Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) programs and helps to ensure a coordinated approach when promoting these programs internationally. Jenkins engages in outreach efforts and regularly briefs United States Combatant Commands about WMD programs in their area of responsibility, works closely with relevant international organizations and multilateral initiatives, and works closely with nongovernmental organizations engaged in CTR-related activities.
Harold Palmer Smith Jr. is an American professor, consultant, and expert on defense policy. He was Assistant to the Secretary of Defense from June 1993 to March 1996, when the name of the position changed to Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical & Biological Defense Programs, and remained in the position until January 1998.
Laura S. H. Holgate was the United States of America Ambassador to the United Nations from 2016 to 2017. While she was NSC Senior Director for WMD Terrorism and Threat Reduction, she and Gary Samore first implemented Gift basket diplomacy.