Decision makingU.S. national security decision making need to be leaner, more-focused

A leaner, more-focused national security decision-making system can help the United States succeed in a period of tumultuous change, according to a new RAND Corporation report.

Increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of the National Security Council (NSC) is necessary as the country contends with many more state and nonstate actors, around-the-clock public scrutiny, and exploding nontraditional threats, according to the report.

RAND notes that the analysis makes recommendations to help the United States carry out improved national security strategies the nation will need in the twenty-first century.

“The president could force the sclerotic U.S. government to achieve coherence and sustainability in national security policy by breaking organizational stovepipes, reducing bloat at the top of the structures and the agencies, and instructing the government to both improve internal and external messaging as well as become better at looking ahead,” said Charles Ries, lead author of the study and vice president, international, at RAND, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization. “Our institutions need to do less at the top, delegate more and insist on accountability. That will help ensure a focus on what is important, rather than having those issues overwhelmed constantly by the immediate.”

The study recommends that in addition to honing policy priorities, the transition team of the next administration give consideration to national security management reforms.

Among the report’s recommendations is downsizing the staff of the National Security Council. The report recommends that civil-military operations be planned by a new joint office at the State Department with a military general officer as deputy. Lessons-learned efforts would help ensure the system is adaptive and responsive. Better integration of intelligence insights is necessary, as is the assignment of senior officials across agencies to help ensure the quality and coherence of decision making.

“The time and attention of top decision makers is increasingly scarce, the threats and actors diverse, and the focus of media attention shifts ever more quickly from crisis to crisis placing policy coherence at risk,” Ries said. “Public support for an America engaged in global affairs is declining,”

The report examines trends in U.S. national security decision-making structures and processes over seven decades following the Second World War. It finds these structures ill-suited to the conduct of twenty-first century U.S. foreign policy.

Drawing on in-depth interviews with more than twenty-five current and former policymakers and career officials, as well as the growing literature on contemporary foreign policy issues, the report is the fourth in the “Strategic Rethink” series in which RAND researchers explore the elements of a national strategy for the conduct of U.S. foreign policy in a fast-changing world.

— Read more in Charles P. Ries, Improving Decision making in a Turbulent World (RAND, 2016)