A Campaign Against Bureaucratic Bloat in U.S. Foreign Policy Trump’s national security adviser has a plan of attack for a problem decades in the making. By John Lehman
https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-campaign-against-bureaucratic-bloat-in-u-s-foreign-policy-11581974339?mod=opinion_lead_pos6
The press has been focused recently on Lt. Col Alexander Vindman’s departure from the National Security Council. But less noticed is the substantive overhaul of the council’s staffing practices, announced last fall by national security adviser Robert O’Brien. President Trump’s renovation of the White House’s top advisory body could help streamline American security for years to come.
The problems that plague the NSC trace to before its founding in 1947. The White House has long sought to centralize decision-making to overcome the political jockeying that often takes place within the national-security establishment. I have lived half of my professional life in the policy world of Washington and half in the financial world of New York. The former is much more Hobbesian and bitter than the latter—and always has bee
After securing victory in World War II, for example, federal policy makers were at each other’s throats over whether to share nuclear technology with the Soviet Union through the Baruch Plan. The branches of the armed services feuded over roles, missions and funding. President Truman and congressional leaders nonetheless produced a few lasting achievements, including the Marshall Plan and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
But the bitter postwar years also featured terrible blunders in China and Korea. Truman’s radical strategy to shrink the Navy, while declaring Korea outside America’s vital interest, led almost immediately to the Korean War. Journalist John Osborne told me that during those years he was run ragged between the White House and the Pentagon. Both were leaking classified information aimed at opponents in government.
One good result from that strife was the NSC. Defense Secretary James Forrestal conceived of it as a way to corral the dovish White House advisers around Truman. The NSC was established in the 1947 National Security Act, which named the members of the council: president, vice president and secretaries of state and defense. The function of the council “shall be to advise the president with respect to the integration of domestic, foreign, and military policies relating to the national security.” The law required regular meetings.
Truman resented and opposed the NSC. But when it became law, he made it his own White House staff for national security. The State and Defense departments were thus brought into presidential decision-making.
The council’s power and influence reached its apogee under President Nixon and his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger. Nixon and Mr. Kissinger agreed completely on strategy and intended to run national security from the White House. Predecessors borrowed career staffers from other agencies, but Nixon and Mr. Kissinger recruited a far more diverse and notable policy staff. Candidates were handpicked by Mr. Kissinger and his deputy, Richard Allen.
Mr. Kissinger grew the council to include one deputy, 32 policy professionals and 60 administrators. By my count, alumni of his NSC include two secretaries of state, four national security advisers, a director of national intelligence, a secretary of the Navy, and numerous high-ranking officials in the State, Defense and Treasury departments as well as the Central Intelligence Agency.
But the NSC has only continued to expand. By the end of the Obama administration, 34 policy professionals supported by 60 administrators had exploded to three deputies, more than 400 policy professionals and 1,300 administrators.
The council lost the ability to make fast decisions informed by the best intelligence. The NSC became one more layer in the wedding cake of government agencies. It became difficult to recruit top talent. Mr. Kissinger assembled his 34 from the most elite and prestigious corners of government and industry. The Bush-Obama 400—not so much. It is no coincidence that the NSC declined in usefulness as American foreign policy deteriorated into “endless wars” and so on.
President Trump inherited this system, and it wasn’t functional. It is conceivable that the episodic nature of the administration’s foreign policy is due as much to NSC paralysis, bloat and turnover as to Mr. Trump’s style. The churn of national security advisers hasn’t helped. Michael Flynn, Keith Kellogg (acting), H.R. McMaster, John Bolton, Charles Kupperman (acting) and Mr. O’Brien have all held the job in a little over three years.
But Mr. O’Brien said last fall that he will trim the staff, “making it more effective by reaffirming its mission to coordinate policy and ensure policy implementation. The NSC staff should not, as it has in the past, duplicate the work of military officers, diplomats or intelligence officers.” Since then the policy staff has been reduced by more than 50. There’s more to come.
Since October there have been major improvements in trade, NATO and Mideast policy. There is evidence of a new coherence and direction in White House national security decision-making such as the rapid and effective decision to deal with Iran’s Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani. Perhaps this is a sign of a more nimble and functional security council.
Mr. Lehman served as Navy secretary, 1981-87. His latest book is “Oceans Ventured: Winning the Cold War at Sea.”
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