Can Washington’s National Security Bureaucracy Work?

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American Strategy Program

After introductory remarks by American Strategy Program Director Steve Clemons, James R. Locher III -- President & CEO of the Project on National Security Reform, and lead author of Turning Ideas into Action -- laid out the many issues handicapping the national security bureaucracy. Describing the Departments as strong and the integrating mechanisms chronically weak, Locher portrayed the National Security Adviser as the head of an enormous force with almost no independent power, lacking even the ability to do independent research. With no established system for disseminating strategic guidance -- save the National Security Strategy, a "public relations" document -- the President has traditionally been unable to delegate responsibility, Locher argued. Even when the President has delegated, he finds the results to be near-disastrous, as delegation puts additional power and responsibility in the hands of Departments. Departmental thinking and interests then dominate policymaking; this is part of the reason Defense is so large and the civilian agencies so "starved." Additionally, Locher posited, the Congressional committee jurisdiction approach intensifies bureaucratic politics and rivalries, and President Obama's commitment to reform has been largely rhetorical thus far.

After relating the Project's report process, Locher identified the obstacles to any successful reform: the patience and committed attention to detail that is hard to find in Washington, the overcoming of bureaucratic politics, and the attempt to leap from the 1947 National Security Act to 2009 in one single bound that Locher described as "performing open heart surgery on . . . the most complex, difficult organization in the world." Despite the difficulties, Locher reiterated the need for immediate and viable reform and described several crucial characteristics of any reform efforts. These included an adherence to a national security, rather than departmental, framework, more effective strategic management of all processes, development of better human capital and knowledge institutionalization, and the need for true interagency teams, a "whole of government" approach, that would return the policy process to a unified polity away from the Departments.

Matthew Caris, research intern with the American Strategy Program