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Greg Thielmann

Greg Thielmann

Greg Thielmann has served more than three decades in the executive and legislative branches of government, specializing in political-military and intelligence issues. Before joining ACA in 2009, he worked for four years as a senior professional staffer of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI). He was previously a U.S. Foreign Service Officer for 25 years, last serving as Director of the Strategic, Proliferation and Military Affairs Office in the Department of State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research. His foreign posts include Deputy Political Counselor of the U.S. Embassy in Brasilia, Brazil; Political-Military Affairs Officer in Moscow, USSR; and Political-Military Affairs Officer in Bonn, Germany. Thielmann also served as Deputy Director of the State Department’s Office of German, Austrian and Swiss Affairs; Special Assistant to Ambassador Paul Nitze (then Special Adviser to the President and Secretary of State on Arms Control Matters); and State Department advisor to the U.S. Delegation at the Geneva INF arms control negotiations. Greg is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a former member of the Board of Directors of the Arms Control Association (2003-2005). His July 2003 appearance at an ACA press briefing on faulty intelligence assessments on Iraq’s WMD capabilities <http://www.armscontrol.org/events/iraq_july03> led to a CBS News 60 Minutes II segment <http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/10/14/60II/main577975.shtml> titled “The Man Who Knew,” which won an Emmy Award for reporter Scott Pelley.

Greg Thielmann's primary research areas include:

Read more by Greg Thielmann:

  • Dealing With Long-Range Missile Threats: It's All About Russia
    Threat Assessment Brief
    November 20, 2009

    The nearly 2,000 nuclear warheads on Russian ICBMs and submarine-launched ballistic missiles constitute the sole near-term existential threat to the United States. The U.S. response to this threat has been to maintain the nuclear war-fighting posture adopted during the Cold War. Yet, this posture does not lead toward an improvement in U.S. security; it merely reinforces Russia’s incentive to persist in its own anachronistic security calculus. The New START and a transformational post-Cold War Nuclear Posture Review would clear the path for major U.S. and Russian arms reductions, laying the foundation for a rejuvenated effort to halt nuclear nonproliferation and for engaging other nuclear-weapon states in arms control.
  • ACA Event - Iran's Nuclear Challenge: Where to Go From Here? Full transcript now available
    ACA Events
    October 15, 2009

    Panelists: Paul Pillar, Greg Thielmann, and James Dobbins
  • Greg Thielmann Discusses Iranian Nuclear Program at Cannon Building
    Arms Control TV
    October 7, 2009

    On October 7, 2009, Senior Fellow Greg Thielmann participated in a briefing to congressional staffers and the press on the Iranian nuclear program arranged by Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX). His remarks at the Cannon House Office Building built on his September ACA Threat Assessment Brief, "Is There Time to Prevent an Iranian Nuclear Weapon?" (PDF).  Watch it here.
  • Is There Time to Prevent an Iranian Nuclear Weapon?
    Threat Assessment Brief
    September 10, 2009

    The Obama administration has identified September as a time for reassessing its approach to negotiation with Tehran over Iran's nuclear program. It is imperative that this reassessment be based on a realistic appraisal of Iran's weaponization capabilities and limitations and not fall prey to politically motivated hyperbole. Iran's nuclear program is undeniably bringing that country closer to an ability to construct nuclear weapons-bad news for the region, the United States, and the world. Yet, a nuclear-armed Iran is years, not months, away, which is ample time for negotiating an outcome that prevents Iran from becoming a nuclear-weapon state while strengthening the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
  • Strategic Missile Defense: A Reality Check
    Threat Assessment Brief
    May 21, 2009

    Strategic Missile Defense offers no real disincentive for rogue regimes such as North Korea or Iran to develop or use ballistic missiles, nor does it offer any protection against the more acute threat of terrorist groups smuggling weapons of mass destruction into the United States. Instead the aggressive pursuit of strategic missile defense makes it more difficult to constrain the potential offensive nuclear threat from Russia and China.