The State Department is relying in part on the Sandia National Laboratories to prioritize spending on global nonproliferation assistance programs, a senior State official said Tuesday.
The New Mexico-based laboratory will help State’s bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation target financial aid to foreign countries based on the urgency of threats to the United States, Chris Ford, assistant secretary of state for the bureau, told an audience at the Stimson Center.
Ford said Sandia is helping the bureau expand its “in-house threat-prioritization index,” which includes inputs from the intelligence community, among others, “allowing effort to be focused where most needed.”
Sandia mostly works on the National Nuclear Security Administration’s nuclear-warhead refurbishment programs, but it also has expertise helping other government agencies build threat-assessment tools.
Ford said the lab’s assistance will help State transition away from distributing nonproliferation aid dollars to “as many international partners as possible, possibly for its own sake.” The transition is part of a review Ford started shortly after he arrived at the Cabinet agency from the National Security Council. Ford said ongoing the review will be a “multiyear” affair.
The Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation aims to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons, in part by funding nonproliferation training and capabilities in potentially risky regions where willing nations might not be able to afford such investments themselves.
