Event Information:

• Mon

  22

  Feb

  2021

  NPWG Keynote: Michael Albertson

  5:30 pmRSVP at http://bit.ly/NPWG-keynote-event

  RSVP: Click here!

  Join us in welcoming Michael Albertson, Deputy Director at the Center for Global Security Research at LLNL, who will be presenting on the politics of arms control!

  Reductions, bans, limitations, bilateral, multilateral, confidence building measures, legally binding treaties. Arms control is a field that doesn’t lack for ideas on what to do next. Ideas will never come to fruition, however, without a deeper understanding of bureaucratic dynamics, processes, and politics. Although often overlooked in the present discussions of arms control, these are the factors that have to be understood and overcome to make thoughts into practicable proposals and durable agreements that can run the gauntlets of interagency meetings, bilateral negotiations, and Congressional scrutiny. This understanding is especially important given the generational turnover in arms control, as the senior experts from the golden age of arms control in the 1980s and 1990s cede the stage to an emerging cadre of people interested in making a difference in the field.

  Michael Albertson is deputy director of the Center for Global Security Research (CGSR) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Prior to his current position at CGSR, he served for 16 years in the federal government handling a wide variety of deterrence and arms control-related portfolios for various organizations. From November 2018 to September 2020 he was a senior policy advisor in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) in the Office of Nuclear and Missile Defense Policy, facilitating extended deterrence dialogues with NATO and Asian allies. Before OSD, Mr. Albertson worked as a team lead in the Department of State’s Office of Strategic Stability and Deterrence Affairs from 2015 to 2018 on Russian strategic nuclear arms control issues including implementation and compliance of the INF Treaty and New START Treaties. He served from 2013 to 2014 on the National Security Council Staff as a director for Russia covering Russian military-security issues; from 2010 to 2012 as a policy advisor to the senior advisor for Arms Control and Strategic Stability to the Under Secretary of Defense (Policy) participating in the negotiation, ratification, and implementation of the New START Treaty; and from 2004 to 2010 as an intelligence analyst and then senior intelligence analyst in the Department of Defense studying Russian military capabilities and doctrine. He holds a B.A. in international relations and government from Claremont McKenna College, an M.S. in strategic intelligence from the National Defense Intelligence College, and an M.A. in security policy studies from George Washington University.