Why the NSC Structure Matters – and When it Does Not
A president who is himself a product of the establishment consensus – a George Bush, Sr. or a Dwight Eisenhower– is looking for a National Security Adviser who is an honest broker and staffs his NSC with military and foreign service officers, with a sprinkling of CIA and DIA veterans. They will expect obedience from State and the Pentagon but as their policy choices coincide with Beltway conventional wisdom, they get it most of the time anyway.
A president who comes to Washington as an “outsider” in some fashion or as a “change agent” – a Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton– will pick a National Security Adviser who will build a staff of what one national security scholar has called a “team of academic superstars” who will aid the president in taking control of American foreign policy. Clashes between the White House and the career bureaucracy will be frequent and increasingly vicious, particularly with State, though in the Bush II administration that role was played by the senior managers of the CIA.
Some presidents have a dysfunctional NSC process – a category that includes John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush – where the inmates take over the asylum and free-lancing by deputy assistant secretaries reigns supreme. Both Kennedy and Clinton strongly resisted a formal NSC decision making structure for their administration that would inhibit their ability to “pop in” to offices, chat up whomever and issue snap decisions. While this stance flowed from their desire to keep their options open and remain free of “handling” by their own staffers, it ultimately led to chaos and dangerously amateurish improvising during crisis moments. Reagan and Bush II by contrast had formal structures in place but undermined them overtly ( Reagan in NSDD-2) or covertly ( Bush in letting his Vice-President operate a shadow mini-me NSC of his own). In Reagan’s case, this was aggravated by an unwillingness to fire anyone, no matter how much the rat-bastard deserved it, and a general distaste for confrontation.
Unless a president supports his NSC adviser down the line, the bureaucracies will do as they please to the point of making his administration’s top officials into laughingstocks. While you might not know it from the State Department’s current broken down condition, it was historically amongst the very worst offenders in this regard ( though both the Pentagon and Langley could rise to the occasion), regularly abusing the interagency process and blatantly defying presidential instructions. Give Foggy Bottom strategic planning, USAID or Public Diplomacy and they will let these nascent “competitors” wither on the vine.
The problem largely is that the State Department is filled with bright and talented but fairly insular individuals who imagine themselves more capable and informed and ultimately deserving of authority than the guy actually sitting in the Oval Office who was elected by the American people or any of his appointees. They need a strong hand at SecState and consistent follow-up by the NSC; and if given these conditions, State can perform amazing feats of diplomacy for a president. Absent that, State can create great friction for an administration.
The Obama administration is setting itself up for a very “strong” NSC process. Jones and Chief of Staff Emanuel are a potent combination and Defense, State and the CIA all have been given major political heavyweights as principals. Moreover, Jones appears to be in sync with Robert Gates as to the need for imaginative “new thinking” in national security affairs ( maybe we should send him this). However all the potential on paper in the world, at this stage of the game, means nothing.
It ultimately comes down to the President of the United States. What does he want ?
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Adrian:
February 10th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
"It ultimately comes down to the President of the United States. What does he want ?"And how bad does he want it, compared to his domestic agenda? Will Jones or someone else be left to run the show?
deichmans:
February 10th, 2009 at 6:26 pm
Great post — you nail it with the indictment of Foggy Bottom’s insularity.
While I work for the DoD, and therefore my opinion is suspect and potentially biased :-), I have been professionally involved with three Cabinet departments: DoD, DoS and DoE. Of these, only DoD has a corporate culture that openly welcomes new faces and new ideas.
By contrast, DoE and DoS professionals tend to "grow roots" — I’ve met DoE professionals who, while very bright and capable, do not have the "world view" that is enforced through mandatory rotational assignments. Ever hear of a senior military leader staying in the same job for a decade or longer? (O.K., ADM Rickover is the rare exception….)
Look at the DoS operating model. The Foreign Service Officers are the elite caste (GSers in DoS — the job I turned down after college in order to become a civilian physicist for the Navy in San Diego — are low on totem pole). FSOs aspire to charge d’affairs positions, and ultimately to Ambassadorships. The Ambassadors, however, do not exercise the sovereignty and independence of a DoD Combatant Commander — they are simply appendages plugged back in to Foggy Bottom.
This "star topology" — like any centralized decisionmaking apparatus — creates an environment contrary to innovation and creativity. The hydra has just one head (as opposed to more than a dozen in the Pentagon, which brings a different kind of baggage).
The biggest challenge for Gen(ret) Jones is not just getting State and Defense and the IC in line (DoD will be easy, as will an IC led by Jones’s contemporary Combatant Commander Denny Blair, who had PACOM when Jones led EUCOM). It will be balancing three very different corporate cultures and aligning them for a unified purpose.
Lexington Green:
February 10th, 2009 at 9:50 pm
"What does he want ?"
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I hope he knows what he wants.
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I see little basis for that hope.
zen:
February 11th, 2009 at 4:14 am
Adrian and Lex – I think Obama will keep othes out front on FP for at least the next two years, except for high profile credit moments such as summits, crisis speeches, etc.
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Thanks Shane! I think you have expounded well on the cultural differences – I had not really considered the DoE but they have been low profile but critical national security players long before becoming a Cabinet department, when the NRC grew out of the Manhattan Project and postwar decisions by Truman to remove nuclear bomb building activities from the control of the U.S. military brass.