Veteran national security correspondent Laura Rozen has claimed that the entire State Department’s Office of Multilateral Nuclear Affairs was dismissed last week, citing a report in the Council on Foreign Relations.
Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Arms Control, Deterrence, and Stability (ADS) Alexandra Bell has been cited in the report as saying, “These were people responsible for efforts to ban explosive nuclear testing, the production of weapons grade material, people working on nuclear disarmament verification, experts that simply cannot be replaced.”
The move, which may have involved dismissing over 1,000 people, appears to be more Trump-backed gutting of federal bureaucracy which began under Elon Musk’s DOGE office, though Musk has since left his government advisory role, after a rift with White House leadership.
Rep. Gregory Meeks ranking Democratic member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee has expressed outrage at the recent firngs.
“I am absolutely devastated about the firings …in the State Department, particularly around nuclear weapons. We are losing patriots who love the country…I asked Sec. Rubio the one time that he came before our committee, what happened to Senator Rubio?“
Meeks continued in his statement to Rozen, “When you think about the talent that we’ve lost, those 1300 people, …even if we have some new people come in down the road, who’s going to train them? who’s going to give them the knowledge that they need? …, they’re gone.”
“I need to speak out and stand up and tell everyone about it, so that we can hopefully stop some of the hemorrhaging, because that’s what I’m focused on right now, is to stop the hemorrhaging, and that’s one of these decisions that we voted on last week.”
According to its website, which is still live, the Office of Multilateral Nuclear and Security Affairs (ISN/MNSA) “leads Department of State formulation and implementation of U.S. policy relating to the global nuclear nonproliferation regime, especially the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), the NPT review process, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Nuclear-Weapon-Free-Zone treaties and protocols, and nuclear-related security assurances.”
And earlier in the Trump administration’s second term…
“Mass terminations of probationary workers also swept through the National Nuclear Security Administration, a semi-autonomous agency within the Energy Department that oversees the nation’s nuclear weapons.” https://t.co/sM6Odc30Vr
— Marc Polymeropoulos (@Mpolymer) February 14, 2025
Likely much of its monitoring or decision-making has been handed off to other areas of the US federal government which does nuclear monitoring. This area currently is surrounded by extra pressure and sensitivity given the NATO standoff with nuclear-armed Russia in Ukraine.
The past days have also seen British media reports saying that the US military is hosting a tactical nuclear weapon on UK soil for the first time since 2008.
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