§ 601.12 - Strategic and Eurasian Affairs Bureau (SEA).

SEA has principal responsibility within the Agency for the diplomatic, political, and technical aspects of negotiations and implementation of strategic and nuclear arms control agreements, particularly with respect to the new independent States of the former Soviet Union, and of policy initiatives to facilitate the denuclearization of Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine. Expansion of arms control efforts in the Eurasian region, including consideration of discussions with China on strategic stability, is also part of the Bureau's portfolio. Further, SEA has principal responsibility within the Agency for development and implementation of the Nunn-Lugar program, the Safeguards, Transparency and Irreversibility initiative (to ensure that nuclear warhead dismantlement is irreversible and transparent) and of defense conversion policy and programs related to the former Soviet Union and China. Other areas in which SEA has responsibility include: ballistic missile defense arms control, the Standing Consultative Commission (SCC), the Joint Compliance and Inspection Commission (JCIC), and the Special Verification Commission (SVC). SEA coordinates implementation of agreed policy, generates and analyzes proposals, and evaluates weapons systems and other questions relating to these negotiations. It also takes the leading role in formulating Agency positions on basic strategic and theater offensive arms control, ballistic missile defense arms control, nuclear warhead dismantlement initiatives and the storage and disposition of fissile material from dismantled nuclear warheads, and other strategic or global arms control and outer space policy issues that require high-level decision within the Government. SEA chairs the interagency backstopping committees for the JCIC, the SCC, the SVC, and the Bilateral Implementation Commission (BIC). The Bureau also provides technical expertise to teams implementing various elements of denuclearization, fissile material disposition, and related openness initiatives, as well as to defense conversion committees and relevant interagency working groups.