A National Security Act of 2009?

Schmedlap:

Not to worry. Congress will insure <i>nothing</i> in the federal Government and very little in the US is sheltered from partisan politics.

Having the Office and Staff drop protection of the President as a primary mission would be an advantage. An independent Director of Strategic Planning would only partly shelter the office from the influence of elections but a little shelter is better than none.

Excellent thought piece by Colonel Maxwell with some solid suggestions for obtaining some continuity of effort.

That continuity is far more important than is unity of effort -- that latter will after all be more impacted by military personalities, troop rotations, intra departmental turf battles and coalition operational concerns than by any US distractions.

All employees of the US Government, military and civilian take an Oath; This one for Congress is typical, it's been around since 1884:<blockquote>"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God."</blockquote>That for Federal Judges differs a bit and dates to 1789, that for the Armed forces and civilian employees have different origin dates and slightly different wording (precedent says Officers 'are required' to disobey orders that violate the Constitution, Enlisted persons <i>must</i> obey all lawful orders). The point is that the Constitution is the focus of the oath, not the President, not Congress, not even the people of the US -- thus to require all Federal Agencies to adopt national security as a core mission is an excellent idea.

The remaining recommendations are solid, achievable and the only problematic issue is really how much actual power can be granted the Director of Strategic Planning who heads the National Strategic Planning Agency replacing the National Security Council.

That name suggestion can also preclude anyone thinking that the individual is, as Zenpundit says, a co-emperor. That is a very real concern and as the job entails more than national seucurity and will bring coherence to strategic direction, perhaps a less conflict oriented title may be beneficial.

A possibly beneficial side effect, over time, will be to remove that organ, whatever its name, from interfering in day to day operations which is problematic -- in that role, they operate more to protect the President than the national security of the US.

Professor Fishel asks: <i>"Do we really want these roles to be filled by (a) and individual who must face Senate confirmation and (b) will be appointed by one president but serve at least two?"</i> My answer would be yes and I suspect Congress would be receptive. The authors of the Constitution clearly intend for the Executive to have the lead in foreign relations and national security affairs yet our political process dictates change at two and four year intervals and given the voters preference to alternate between two parties it would seem to me the best way to achieve some continuity in these matters would be to have such an essentially apolitical 'referee.'

The issue of a "Co-emperor" is valid but not terribly bothersome -- we have existed for many years with virtually independent FBI Directors and the ability of Presidents to summarily replace people who are theoretically independent with others to do the Presidential bidding is not good. Several Directors of Central Intelligence come to mind. The key to the Constitutionality of the position is the statute that creates it -- if he is essentially an Advisor with decision authority remaining vested in the President, there should be no constitutional problem. The plus aspect is someone who can tell the single Emperor he is naked without fear of a trip to a Gulag while that President will still be the decider....

Professor Fishel also suggests that the President should be able to designate either the Ambassador or the military commander to be in command of all US Agencies involved in a conflict in one nation. I believe that would often result in personality rather than performance being the selection criteria and that is not a good thing. A little tension is not conducive to unity of command but it also is not terribly harmful. Indeed, coalition activities are more likely to affect unity of command than any US peculiar issues. Each of those positions has a disparate field of endeavor and they should devote their attention to that. We effectively placed an Ambassador in overall command in Laos for an extended period in the early 1960s. My recollection is that did not work out well -- nor did shorter tenure of extremely powerful Ambassadors in Viet Nam.

Colonel Maxwell is trying to depoliticize National Security and Mike F is correct, I believe, in assuming that is a good thing. As Congress is the source of much of that politicization, it is unlikely that the recommend solution will effect that desirable change but it should assist in obtaining some continuity. A further assist in that direction would be to incorporate alignment of State Department areas and DoD Combatant Commands as Hank Foresman suggests. That one effort and an acknowledgment by DoD that State has primacy in foreign relations would be a significant improvement. So would, as long as we're into wishful thinking, all Ambassadors being career Foreign Service people, period. That could improve Country Teams -- particularly if State gets decent funding and turns serious about the nitty gritty part of their difficult jobs.

Oh -- and boost USAid's power and purse...

libertariansoldier:

I think you are making more out of this statement than perhaps the author meant:

"There are two places where the Interagency process functions well - at the Country Team and on the ground in conflict areas. The men and women working overseas are getting it done despite a perceived unresponsive and inefficient National Security system. They have learned and adapted yet at the National and Strategic level there has been a lot of energy spent coming up with new ways to try to do old things and it has not helped the men and women on the ground."

The fact is that compared to inside the beltway, the Country Team does perform relatively well (of course like anything else, personality dependent). Second, the PRTs on the ground in conflict areas are getting it done despite being under resourced and in ad hoc organizations that receive little preparatory training. I do not think the author was throwing out a red herring and I think all the reasons you mention why the Country Teams do work well are important and is one of the reasons why the Country Teams need an effective national security structure over them

Good article, the comments also very good. One aspect which Colonel Maxwell did not address and which needs to be addressed, is to have a true interagency process every Executive Department must look at the world through the same lens. The division of countries within the Combatant Commands by the Department of Defense is not the same as the Department of State Division of countries by Region. Until every Executive Department looks at the world through the same lens, we will continue to have a dysfunctional interagency process.

It does not matter whether the Lens developed is the current State Department, Department of Defense, or another division, it just needs to be the same.

Zenpundit,

Good points. Relooking it, I think you and John are probably right on NSA Director equaling FED Chairman.

I was assuming that National Defense should not be political.

Mike

Great artice! Very thought provoking.

Point 3: The Grand strategy process that Col. Maxwell proposes is a superb reform! It's so commonsense that it is amazing that the USG does not do this now ( maybe they do it in the Office of Net Assessment. If so, they're keeping it quiet).

OTOH, the transformation of the APNSA post to one akin to the Fed Chairman is potentially very troubling and possibly unconstitutional. If we thought Kissinger vs. Rogers and Brzezinski vs. Vance was disruptive, imagine a Bush appointee using all their statutory independence to thwart the Obama administration's foreign and defense policies? Or a Carter appointee resisting Reagan? This is like creating a co-Emperor.

We have been down this road once before during Reconstruction, when Radical Republicans tried to take away President Johnson's powers as Commander-in-Chief with the Tenure of Office Act, to put Stanton and Grant beyond Johnson's control. Eventually the law was killed by SCOTUS and that was all to the good. Let's not try to ressurect it.

Maxwell's most interesting (and ofeten mentioned) observation comes at the end of this document. Country teams succeed. Why do country teams succeed at coordination when Washington fails? I argue that their plans are successful because they understand (and generally accept) the constraints they are under and the resources they have to operate with. In Washington boutique functional entities seem to plan in separate vacuums as if their efforts are resource unconstrained, and do so without appropriate regional guidance to integrate efforts. Then in hastily formed crisis like meetings senior policymakers are forced to choose elements from these disparate functional plans and hopefully they peculate up into a coherent strategy. AFPAK seems to be the first attempt in a long time at an ends, ways, means approach. It seems as though AFPAK has all consumed the NSC and chaos reigns for the remainder of our foreign policy.

COL Maxwell,

Sir, great start. From everything that I've read on the issues post-9/11, it seems like you've offered legitimate alternatives, and I do believe that it would take a new NSA to make them work.

IMO, your best recommendation is point 3, the creation of a long-standing, apolitical, national security advisor similar to the FED Chairman. National Security is a non-partisan role, and that expert (civilian or military) would have greater latitude with your recommendation.

I agree with John's advice- we must have unity of command in each contigency. I was simply amazed and confused by the lack of command structure in Iraq back in 2005. Some units worked for MNF-I, some worked for SecDef, and some worked for SecState. IMO, this lack of command and control is the main cause of many of the problems in the early years. The president needs one dude (or dudette) in charge of his war responsible for success or failure.

I'll add two suggestions. First, should we seperate strategic communications from the State Dept (like it used to be prior to 1995? It seems like there is an inherent conflict between the agencies like Voice of America and State. One is talking directly to the locals while the other is talking to the host nation.

Second, I think we should we consider either establishing SOF as a seperate branch within the military equal to Army, Navy, and AirForce OR establishing a department seperate from DoD and create an Irregular Warfare Department combining SOF and the CIA.

Other than that, good stuff.

v/r

Mike