Robert Einhorn

Special adviser to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton (since March 2009)

Why He Matters

Einhorn has worked on nuclear proliferation issues during almost every administration since President Richard Nixon, and that won't change under Obama. Though he turned down an official gig as undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security Affairs , Einhorn will counsel Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton as a senior adviser and member of her inner circle. His selection has been widely hailed by nuclear experts. "Einhorn is the Thomas Jefferson of arms control-erudite, scholarly, and experienced," non-proliferation advocate Joseph Cirincione told The Cable, a Foreign Policy blog.

Einhorn's relationship with Clinton stretches back to his years in President Clinton 's State Department , where he specialized in non-proliferation issues. But Einhorn has been developing his expertise in nuclear treaties and diplomacy since 1972, when he joined the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. He continued to work for the federal government until 2001, when he joined the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a centrist foreign-policy think tank.

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Background

At a Glance

Career History: Senior adviser, CSIS (2001 to present); Assistant Secretary for Non-Proliferation, State Department (1999 to 2001); Deputy Assistant Secretary for Non-proliferation (1992 to 1999)
Hometown: Rockville Center, N.Y.

Alma Mater: Cornell University, B.A., 1969; Princeton University, M.P.A.
Web site

Path to Power

Einhorn grew up in Rockville Center, N.Y. He earned his B.A. in government from Cornell University in 1969 and a master's in International Relations from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University.

In 1972, Einhorn began working for the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA). There, he handled strategic-arms issues, nuclear-testing limits, non-proliferation and other security issues. He represented ACDA at the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty talks in 1982. The treaty regulates the number of nuclear weapons Russia and the U.S. must remove from their arsenals and is set to expire in December 2009.

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The Issues

Einhorn believes the two biggest nuclear threats the U.S. faces are the possibility of a nuclear Iran or North Korea, and the danger of terrorist groups acquiring nuclear weapons. He also believes that the U.S. must stem the dissemination of nuclear weapons to avoid regional arms races and to more easily control the sale of materials and technology.

Iran and North Korea

The U.S. must use both bilateral negotiations and multilateral diplomacy if it hopes to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, according to Einhorn.

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In Iran, Einhorn supports including in talks Europe, Russia, China, Japan and Iran's neighbors. He also believes that the U.S. must impose strong economic and financial sanctions on Iran, surpassing the ones currently in place by the United Nations Security Council unless the country stops its nuclear program. However, if Iran is willing to make the necessary sacrifices, America must be willing to normalize relations with the country. "Failure to stop Iran's enrichment program would create a damaging precedent," Einhorn wrote in an October 2007 report.

North Korea is "backtracking," from its earlier promises to stop developing unconventional weapons, Einhorn told the Christian Science Monitor in 2007. One of the top priorities for the Obama administration should be rolling back North Korea's nuclear weapons capabilities.

India

Einhorn believes the U.S. must push India to limit its stockpiling of nuclear weapons.

To do so, he proposed asking India to limit its production of weapons-grade material, thereby capping its stockpile (and possibly encouraging Pakistan to do the same). In exchange, the U.S. would sell civilian nuclear technology to the country.

"The five original nuclear powers - U.S., U.K., France, Russia and China - have all stopped producing fissile material for weapons. If we are going to bring India into the club, it should do so as well," he told The New York Times in October 2007.

Homeland Security

In October 2007, Einhorn and a team of non-proliferation experts drafted a series of proposals for U.S. national security officials. The group focused on ways to minimize threats to the U.S. posed by nuclear weapons. Its suggestions included strengthening America's ability to detect nuclear weapons being smuggled into ports, airports and land crossings. Additionally, the group wrote that it is essential for the U.S. to rapidly identify the origins of nuclear materials contained in a nuclear device.

The group also called on the U.S. to develop a national contingency plan for handling a potential nuclear assault. "A nuclear attack on the United States would make the challenges posed by Hurricane Katrina - which revealed gross inadequacies in our federal response system - seem tame," the authors wrote in October 2007.

The Network

At the State Department, Einhorn joins a non-proliferation powerhouse that includes Ellen Tauscher , under secretary for arms control and international security affairs; Rose Gottemoeller , assistant secretary for verification, compliance and implementation; and Andrew Shapiro, assistant secretary for the Political-Military Affairs Bureau. The team has been praised by Laura Rozen of The Cable and others as the "the real power center on nuclear policy issues, both functionally and regionally."

Einhorn will likely also work with Gary Samore, special assistant on non-proliferation for President Barack Obama .

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Additional Resources