Eric David Newsom
Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs
Link to Biography

The "central mission" of the bureau directed by Eric Newsom, Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs, is to serve as "the focal point for interaction between the Department of State and the Department of Defense on political-military matters."

That central mission has remained unchanged for four decades, Newsom said in a June 26 interview in which he outlined ongoing programs of the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs related to international security policy.

One top priority is the modernization of "our defense export control system," Newsom said. "We are engaged in a major initiative now called the Defense Trade Security Initiative, or DTSI, which relates to our defense trade arrangements with NATO countries, Japan, and Australia." This involves making "substantial changes in how we license defense exports to these countries and may well lead to bilateral agreements between the United States and individual allied countries for improvements in their defense export licensing systems," he said.

Newsom discussed other objectives, including efforts to protect U.S. computerized information management systems, reducing dangerous accumulations of small arms and light weapons, and "the implementation of our global humanitarian demining program."

"Another high priority...is strengthening the overall relationship between the Department of State and the Department of Defense in the coordination and effective management of political-military contingencies abroad," he said, citing in particular peacekeeping operations and humanitarian interventions.

Following is the transcript of the interview conducted by Washington File Staff Writer Susan Ellis:

Question: What role does the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs have in shaping international security policy?

Newsom: Our central mission in the Department of State and the U.S. government is to advise the Secretary of State on political-military matters and, in particular, issues of regional security. We interact with the Department of Defense, the National Security Council staff, the Intelligence Community, and the regional bureaus in the Department of State on a whole range of political-military matters. We tend to orient these issues around how our global policies are applied in particular regions and how they affect national security and foreign policy.

Q: How would you describe and rank the current priorities of your bureau?

Newsom: At the moment one of our top priorities is the modernization of our defense export control system. We are engaged in a major initiative called the Defense Trade Security Initiative, or DTSI, which relates to our defense trade arrangements with NATO countries, Japan, and Australia. This will allow us to make substantial changes in how we license defense exports to these countries and may well lead to bilateral agreements between the United States and individual allied countries for improvements in their defense export licensing systems to make them more compatible with ours.

Another important new area in the national security field is critical infrastructure protection -- the protection of our information management systems, our computerized information management systems -- from hostile attack.

The Political-Military Bureau has the lead within the Department of State and the United States government on examining how we might engage in cooperative efforts with selected countries to look at interdependencies in our information management systems that might affect our national security or foreign policy. We will engage in some forms of cooperation and information sharing with selected foreign countries in order to defend against these kinds of attacks.

A third priority, and one of particular interest to both the military and the Secretary, is reducing the destabilizing proliferation and accumulation of small arms and light weapons. These weapons -- automatic rifles, rocket propelled grenades, small mortars, mines, and missiles -- contribute to crime, terrorism, political instability, and ethnic cleansing. We are particularly focused on tightening export controls and destroying surplus stocks.

Another Bureau priority is the implementation of our global humanitarian demining program. The Political-Military Bureau serves as the focal point within the U.S. government for conducting humanitarian demining activities in 36 countries around the globe. We manage a $40 million-a-year budget to fund humanitarian demining activities. Of all of the things we do, this is the one I think in which I feel the most personal satisfaction and pride, because we are saving lives by getting these landmines out of the ground.

The fighting is over, and civilians are returning to these areas, stepping on landmines and suffering severe injuries, and in some cases, being killed. So we are very proud of what we are doing in this particular area.

Finally, I will mention that a very high priority for us is strengthening the overall relationship between the Department of State and the Department of Defense in the coordination and effective management of political-military contingencies abroad.

I'm thinking in particular of peacekeeping operations and humanitarian interventions, where U.S. military forces are involved, and where there is a very significant diplomatic or political content, which is the case in every one of these peacekeeping operations or humanitarian interventions.

We have worked very hard over the past couple of years to strengthen the mechanisms for coordination between the Department of State and the Department of Defense in the conduct of these operations. And we have provided superior diplomatic policy advice to the Department of Defense as it sends military forces to engage in these kinds of contingencies.

I can cite one example that took place during the Kosovo bombing campaign. Even as the air war was going on, we began joint planning with the Department of Defense on how to manage the restoration of civil administration, economic stability, and a return to normality in Kosovo after the campaign was over. We engaged in a lengthy coordination and preparation exercise, primarily with the Department of Defense, although a number of other agencies were engaged too. And when the war was over, the United Nations was charged with the task of restoring normality to Kosovo. It was the plan we had developed with the Department of Defense that became the basis for the year-end structure in Kosovo and the plan to restore civil administration.

Q: How long has your bureau been directly involved with the Department of Defense on issues related to international security?

Newsom: The Political-Military Bureau was originally established in the early 1960s, as a small staff, by then Secretary of State Dean Rusk, as the office in the Department of State that directly related to the Pentagon.

From that small staff in the early sixties, we have grown over the years to a full-fledged bureau in the Department of State. But our central mission remains exactly as it was when Dean Rusk set it up with about four people nearly 40 years ago: to serve as the focal point for interaction between the Department of State and the Department of Defense on political-military matters.

We have a large number of military officers detailed to the Political-Military Bureau -- almost 30. We have about 20 State Department employees detailed to the Department of Defense. And we have a whole range of mechanisms and interactions -- a lot of which are based on personal contacts -- for ensuring good communication between two very different organizations with two very different languages and mentalities -- the Department of State and the Department of Defense.

We are the ones in the Department of State who understand, more or less, what they mean when they talk in the Pentagon. We can help them explain what we mean when people talk in the Department of State, because there is so much interaction between the two of us.

I continue to regard that ability to communicate effectively between Defense and State on national security and foreign policy issues to be the central mission of the Political-Military Bureau.

Q: How will the new Defense Trade Security Initiative (DTSI) -- announced on May 24 by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright -- improve U.S. cooperation with its allies in the area of defense trade?

Newsom: That is the whole thrust of the Defense Trade Security Initiative. We have been aware for some time that the U.S. defense industry and defense industries in many of our allied countries -- particularly in Europe, but also in Japan and Australia -- had come to view our export licensing system as a serious impediment to the kind of cooperation and interaction we would like to see between NATO and the U.S. defense industry.

So about seven or eight months ago we formed a working group with the Department of Defense - co-chaired by me for State and Deputy Under Secretary David Oliver for the Department of Defense. Our goal was to develop reforms in our defense export licensing process, procedures, and system to improve interaction between European and American defense industries.

We wanted to do this for a number of reasons:

First of all, we do not want to see a wall grow up between American defense industry and European defense industries. There is always a risk that these two great defense industry sectors will close in on themselves and become fierce rivals for international arms sales. This would be very harmful to the long-term relationship between the United States and our principal allies in Europe.

Secondly, and also very important -- as defense spending on research and development has been declining, both in the United States defense budget and even more sharply in European defense budgets, we have become concerned about the availability of innovative new defense technologies.

Since defense industry is not as directly funded by governments as it once was, we wanted to encourage defense industry -- European and U.S. defense industry in particular -- to cooperate, share resources, and share risks in developing significant new technologies. These technologies would then be available for government procurement -- by the U.S. and other NATO governments.

And we definitely want to maintain the competitiveness of U.S. defense industry. There were complaints that the complexity of our licensing system and delays inherent in many of the licensing decisions were beginning to deter foreign companies from seeking arrangements with U.S. defense companies for meeting the needs of European defense industry.

And, in particular, there was a very serious concern that had grown up over the past year that our licensing system was impeding the competitiveness of U.S. aerospace -- particularly communications satellites.

After all of the well-known problems over activities in China related to communications satellites, when the licensing of communications satellites was under the control of the Department of Commerce, Congress transferred the licensing jurisdiction of communications satellites to the Department of State and to the munitions licensing system, which is more rigorous than the system in the Department of Commerce. There was a lot of concern that this was going to really impede the effectiveness and competitiveness of U.S. aerospace.

In practice we have done well in the management of our licensing of communications satellites. Yet there has been a very strong perception among the U.S. defense industry and some in the European defense industry that the licensing process was an impediment. To the extent that perception had any reality, we wanted to overcome it. And so part of the Defense Trade Security Initiative is an important streamlining of our licensing process for communications satellites with our NATO allies.

We think the overall effect of the Defense Trade Security Initiative will significantly boost the interactions and cooperation between U.S. and NATO and Japanese and Australian defense firms.

This is the most significant change to our licensing system since the end of the Cold War. In the long term it will have a major impact on defense-trade cooperation between the United States and our major allies.

Q: Do you consider DTSI to be an international security provision or an arms control measure and why?

Newsom: It actually has elements of both. It's an international security arrangement in that a core purpose is to promote defense trade cooperation between the United States and our principal allies, and to make technological innovation coming out of the private sector more available for procurement by governments, defense ministries, and the Department of Defense, rather than having to be funded directly by them.

In promoting interactions between the U.S. and, in particular, European defense industry, we think this is going to help with a very important problem in NATO, which is the wide gap in the level of capabilities of U.S. forces and the forces of our NATO allies. We are well ahead of them technologically, and the Kosovo air war and Persian Gulf war demonstrated that very dramatically.

And NATO has launched a big initiative, called the Defense Capabilities Initiative, to try to narrow that gap and bring our European allies closer to us in terms of capabilities. We think that making the technology more accessible will have a very important effect. Through a teaming arrangement between European and American defense firms, it will make advanced technologies more accessible to our NATO allies and, we hope, will improve interoperability. So it does have a major security component to it.

But there's another side to it, too -- I don't know if I would call it arms control -- which serves one of the central objectives of the U.S. export licensing system, and that is restraint in arms trade.

Part of this initiative is a willingness on the part of the United States to negotiate bilateral agreements with any of our NATO allies, Japan or Australia, in which they would strengthen their defense export control system to a level comparable to that of the United States, in return for which we are prepared to carve out a sector of our unclassified defense trade that would be exempt from licensing altogether.

And how does this serve the goals of restraint? Well, under the United States system, there are a number of elements that go into meeting legitimate self-defense needs -- interoperability with U.S. forces and many others -- but one is restraint in the export of arms to countries of concern.

So I think that offers a very important inducement to our NATO allies -- some of whom have very good export control systems, some of whose export control systems are rather weak. It gives them a very strong incentive to begin to upgrade their defense export control systems to be much more like that of the United States, and we have by far the most rigorous one in the world.

And that will serve the overall goal, I think, of restoring a responsible arms trade.

Q: Do you believe implementing DTSI will accelerate widespread use of interoperable military equipment with NATO allies, Australia, and Japan?

Newsom: A core objective of the DTSI is to promote interoperability. We want to make it more attractive for the defense firms and defense ministries of our allies to cooperate with U.S. defense industry and the U.S. Department of Defense in the development and sharing of new technologies. We expect that this DTSI is going to result in a lot more teaming arrangements between companies, joint ventures where they get together and co-develop new technologies.

We expect this will lead to smoother acquisition of advanced U.S. technologies by our NATO allies, Japan, and Australia. And the overall effect of this initiative over time should, in conjunction with other things that NATO is doing like the Defense Capabilities Initiative -- lead to a significant improvement in the level of their capabilities and much greater interoperability with the U.S.

Q: How do you respond to those who suggest that proposed U.S. export reforms will lead to less control over conventional arms proliferation?

Newsom: I already touched on that in discussing the element of restraint. The United States munitions or defense export control system is by far the most rigorous one in the world. The Conventional Arms Transfer Policy, approved by President Clinton in the fall of 1994, establishes that we make our licensing or arms export decisions on a case-by-case basis.

That means we review every case individually, and we apply to our decision-making in every case a series of criteria that are set forth in that policy. I mentioned some of them: meeting the legitimate defense needs of friends and allies; avoiding contributing to regional instabilities or regional arms races; taking into account the human rights record of potential recipient countries; making progress on democracy; implications for the health of the United States defense industrial base; whether a country can really afford its weapons system; whether it is diverting funds from economic and social development for unnecessary military procurements; willingness to grant the U.S. authorization for any re-transfer or change in end-use, etc.

All of these are taken into account. There is a very serious component of restraint woven throughout the U.S. conventional arms transfer policy and the licensing system that implements that policy.

As I mentioned earlier, if any of our NATO allies, Japan or Australia are willing to change their own defense export control systems through law, regulation and practice, and make them more comparable to those of the U.S., then we are prepared to forego licensing for some defined elements of U.S. defense technology.

This should lead to a significant improvement in control of their arms exports. And that will lead to more restraints along the lines of those practiced by the United States.

Q: How do you respond to charges that the Defense Trade Security Initiative primarily benefits the U.S. defense industry and arms manufacturers?

Newsom: I don't accept this argument. The whole concept underlying the Defense Trade Security Initiative is the facilitation of defense trade cooperation between the United States defense industry and defense industries of our major allies.

The core element of DTSI is to make it easier for European, Japanese, and Australian defense companies, and American defense companies to interact, share technology, develop new products for defense applications, and facilitate the flow of defense trade back and forth. That will benefit to the European, Japanese, and Australian defense industries just as much as it will benefit American industry.

Q: Do you believe that as a result of implementation of DTSI there will be an increase, decrease, or no change in the number of licenses granted, and why?

Newsom: Over time, I think it's bound to result in a significant decrease in the number of licenses issued for defense trade. We are instituting four new types of global licenses. However, a single authorization at the beginning of a program or a project will cover the entirety of the project through its life as well as the addition of subcontractors to that project as it unfolds.

Right now a new program or project is typically licensed at each stage of its development over a period of many years, and as new subcontractors are brought into the process, every one of those actions requires a license. A major project that lasts over six or seven years can easily require two or three dozen licenses.

Under this initiative, for those companies willing to carry out the various requirements, there will be one authorization at the beginning. And it will cover the entire scope of the program, and the additional subcontractors will be brought under the single authorization. That's going to have a dramatic impact on the number of licenses that we issue.

If we are successful in negotiating these agreements with individual allied countries who will modernize and improve their export control systems, we will exempt whole areas of defense trade from licenses altogether.

The net result of this, over a period of time, is going to be a very significant drop in the number of licenses that we issue. And another thing to remember is that of our total global licensed trade of about $20 billion, 70 percent of it is to Japan, Australia, and NATO. So that means potentially 70 percent of our commercial arms export licenses are affected by this initiative. That is going to have a very big impact.

Q: Is there a long-term possibility that export reforms could lead to the channeling of weapons into zones of conflict?

Newsom: No. It is going to result in more responsible arms export behavior by countries that now have somewhat weak export control systems. For those countries willing to take steps to raise their export control systems to a level comparable to that of the United States, we are prepared to take these additional steps toward exempting trade from U.S. licensing requirements.

That is a powerful incentive. Countries will want to have that kind of access to U.S. defense technology and defense products. And I think this is going to be -- over a period of years -- of great interest to a large number of our allied countries. And we will negotiate these individual agreements, the result of which, I believe, is going to be a great improvement in responsible behavior on arms exports.

Q: Do you believe that DTSI will promote transparency or make it more difficult for those watching the process from outside the governments that are involved?

Newsom: There will be no impact on transparency. There will be no change in the policies and actions of the United States government in fulfilling its national and international commitments and obligations, such as: producing the Section 655 report on U.S. arms transfers to the U.S. Congress, the Wassenaar arrangement, the MTCR (Missile Technology Control Regime), Nuclear Suppliers Group, and the recording of arms transfers to the UN Register. We will continue to comply with all of these obligations, and the DTSI will not interfere with any of them. We strongly support greater transparency in arms transfers.

Q: What U.S. government preparations are being made in the lead-up to the small arms/light weapons conference next year?

Newsom: Within the Department of State, two bureaus -- the Political-Military Bureau and the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement -- are cooperating in leading our preparations for that conference.

We are looking at how we can develop a strategy that will lead that conference to develop a concrete, realistic, pragmatic action plan for moving ahead with various steps that will improve the overall situation regarding the availability of small arms and light weapons around the world.

We are not in favor of some grand international treaty or convention. We don't think that is feasible or practicable at this stage. We're focusing on how we can put together a series of realistic measures aimed at specific situations in specific regions around the world and get broad international backing for that kind of an approach.

Q: Who will lead the U.S. delegation?

Newsom: It is much too soon to say who will lead it. In fact, it will be led in the next administration, and the decisions will be made by the next administration. Our job right now is to lay the foundations for a strong, active U.S. leadership at that conference. And we will leave it to the next administration to decide who the actual leaders of the U.S. delegation will be.

(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)