The Whispering Campaign Against the National Security Adviser

It is not very often that I link to the Huffington Post but Steve Clemons, who is the director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation, had a piece up that outlines a faction inside the White House that is very critical of National Security Adviser General James Jones and would like to see him replaced.

Initially, I was somewhat dismissive in my reaction, but after hearing directly from Steve, and then doing some reflection, I was overly hasty in my judgment. Mr. Clemons is on to something; there is an earnest effort at high levels within the Obama administration to get rid of General Jones. A profoundly bad idea, in my view. Here is Steve’s post in its’ entirety:

Can National Security Adviser James Jones Survive a Second Round of Attacks and “Longer Knives”?

I am here in London where I’m participating in an interesting forum sponsored by the Princeton Project on National Security and the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) Transatlantic Program, I’ve received not just one email — but three — from prominent insider journalists and policy hands that Jim Jones’ tenure as National Security Adviser is highly fragile.

One of these emails reports starkly:

“Knives getting longer”

That’s all my contact said. But other emails have intimated to me a serious tone-deafness by Jones about his role and responsibilities, his relationship with the president, and his relationship with younger, dedicated, hardworking and late-working staff. Jones recently said that National Security Council staff members that stayed longer than 7:30 pm must be disorganized in their work.

I speak to various NSC officials — often at 10:00 or 11:00 pm at night. They are hardworking, racing as fast as they can to manage the many, many, many major initiatives that Barack Obama has decided to simultaneously pursue.

James Jones is considered by his admirers to be a genius when thinking about management structures and decision-making processes. On the other hand, his critics see him as a plodding, slow-moving, out of touch retired general who was better prepared to think about the last era rather than the one we are moving into. His critics think that he’s just too unable to animate nimble, high flex policy decision making products for a White House on a manic dash to get a lot of top tier issues dealt with.

Friends at the National Security Council respect a great deal the way in which NSC Deputy Tom Donilon is managing his brief. Many see him picking up the load that Jones seems unable or unwilling to carry. Donilon is deeply engaged in the broad Middle East and Iran portfolio, the non-proliferation/WMD/arms control portfolio, the China economic and security portfolio, and he has — according to reports — supported and helped cultivate relationship building between State, DoD, the NSC, and other parts of the national security bureaucracy.

Some tell me that James Jones decided to try and remove himself from the “whack-a-mole” crisis reaction style of decision-making that could rob the Obama administration of the chance to define a new course in national security affairs. Tom Donilon, according to reports, wields far more the hand of power when it comes to day to day management and responding to crises that require presidential attention and response.

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