F. David Diaz is a Nonresident Fellow at Stimson in the Conventional Defense Program. His areas of expertise include policy and strategy formulation and coordination, conventional weapons and munitions security and proliferation, and security sector capacity-building to mitigate or recover from conflict.
Prior to joining Stimson, Dave spent over a decade as a Foreign Affairs Officer in a variety of roles within the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, U.S. Department of State. Most recently, he served as a Strategic Coordinator, primarily synchronizing interagency efforts to defeat the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria and contributing to strategic plans and cooperative activities that build partner nation security capabilities to reduce instability in Africa and the Middle East. While at State, Dave also served as Deputy Director of the U.S. Government’s Interagency Task Force on man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS), overseeing USG efforts to reduce global threats from illicit proliferation of these weapons to terrorists and insurgents. In the Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement, Dave worked with European governments and organizations to reduce or better secure stockpiles of conventional weapons and munitions, including establishing the Regional Approach to Stockpile Reduction (RASR) for the Western Balkans.
During his previous service in the U.S. Department of Defense, Dave established a program at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency that trained foreign militaries to reduce illicit weapons flows by improving their physical security and stockpile management. He launched the Multinational Small Arms and Ammunition Group (MSAG), an ad hoc group of experts that continues to coordinate international assistance and develop best practices and technical guidelines. As a technical advisor to U.S. delegations at the UN and the OSCE, Dave also helped coordinate interagency implementation of small arms and light weapons agreements and conventional arms control treaties. While working in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, he focused on post-conflict stability operations.
Dave is a former U.S. Marine Corps Officer and holds a Master of Arts in International Relations from Boston University and a Master of Science in National Security Strategy from the National War College. He is currently pursuing an interdisciplinary Masters at Georgetown University focused on implementation of international security sector assistance in post-conflict environments.