Defense Threat Reduction Agency

A U.S. Department of Defense organization, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency is concerned with reducing the threat of weapons of mass destruction, through specialized military training, work in arms control, and now in research and development for neutralizing WMD threats. Nuclear weapons expertise has been shared with the U.S. Department of Energy and its predecessors. DTRA is simultaneously the Center for Combating WMD of the United States Strategic Command, acting as a field-oriented Combat Support Agency.

History

It also absorbed the On-Site Inspection Agency, "formed in 1988 to carry out the on-site inspection and escorting responsibilities of the U.S. government under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty." DTRA also obtained received the functions opf the Cooperative Threat Reduction program office, which transferred from the Office of the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Defense Programs. Its mission was to implement the Nunn-Lugar program to assist the nations of the former Soviet Union in reducing their weapons of mass destruction subject to international arms control treaties."

"For a time, the Director of DTRA was also dual-hatted as the director of the Defense Technology Security Administration, which was formed in 1985 as a field activity under the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy to manage the Department of Defense’s license review process for the export of dual-use technologies and munitions. That organization eventually returned to the Pentagon."