Ten years after beginning his foreign affairs career, he left Washington, D.C., to serve as the deputy director general of the Multinational Force and Observers, the Sinai peacekeeping force headquartered in Rome. He returned in 1988 to join the faculty of the National War College, where he taught for three years. In April 1991 he moved to New York to take up an appointment as the deputy executive chairman of the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) overseeing the disarmament of Iraq. He returned again to Washington in 1992 to join the Office of the Deputy Secretary as the senior coordinator responsible for nonproliferation and nuclear safety initiatives in the former Soviet Union. In July of the same year his appointment as the Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs was confirmed. During the North Korean nuclear crisis of 1994, Gallucci was the chief U.S. negotiator. He also has served as an ambassador-at-large with the Department of State, since August 1994.