Has change come to the National Security Council?

By Peter Feaver

The rest of the commentariat may be chewing over President Obama’s Supreme Court pick — and as Chris Brose reminds us, the nomination has serious implications for issues within Shadow Government’s bailiwick. But my interest was piqued by another news item: the announcement of changes to the organization chart for national security in the White House.

For some time now, National Security Advisor James Jones has been touting the sweeping changes he has made to the interagency process and especially to the White House’s role in it and, as Will Inboden has delicately pointed out, almost all of those "changes" were in fact standard operating procedures not just in the Bush White House but many were even operative during the Clinton years.  Trying to identify bona fide meaningful change in Obama’s National Security Council apparatus was like trying to identify meaningful grievances to justify the Judean People’s Front’s whining about the Romans.

Could it be that this announcement finally represents a big change — that Obama is finally putting a significant personal stamp on the White House’s role in policymaking for national security?

There are four key changes to consider. First, he has subordinated the Homeland Security Council to the National Security Council; the HSC head will now report both to Jones and to the president, perhaps the way that General Lute, the Iraq czar, functions. Second, he has created an NSC directorate for cybersecurity, a response to calls for an empowered "cyber czar." Third, he has created an NSC directorate for pandemic threats. And fourth, he has created a new directorate with the Orwellian title of "Global Engagement Directorate" that apparently will combine communications, foreign aid, diplomacy and "domestic engagement and outreach."

While the news stories are leading with the first change, I suspect only the last one has a chance of being very consequential. The "new" NSC-HSC model seems to be pretty close to the way the Bush NSC was initially structured, and close to the way it was done in the Clinton years. Bush veterans may be skeptical that Jones will be able to exercise effective control over such a large portfolio, but since the senior HSC person, John Brennan, will retain Assistant to the President rank and "principal White House advisor" status, the de facto functioning may not be much different.

Likewise, unless I am misreading the press release, the "new" directorate for cybersecurity appears to be a less-empowered version of what Richard Clarke set up late in the Clinton Administration. And I suspect the new directorate on pandemics just elevates that effort from "director" to "senior director" level — a change, but hardly dramatic (unless you are the person who gets the promotion).

So if there is real change, it is likely to be this new "Global Engagement Directorate" which appears to merge several functions that in previous NSC organization charts were spread across several very different directorates. Of greater potential consequence, it gives the office an equity stake in "comprehensive engagement policies" and "diplomacy." That would seem to include every region and every functional issue that the NSC oversees. In fact, the job description for that office is a serviceable summary of Jones’ own personal to-do list.

I will be very interested to see whether and how that office lives up to this assignment. Will it be a major player on Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, the three most prominent operations that could benefit from a more seamless integration of communications, aid, diplomacy, and domestic outreach?  Or will it merely be a kibbitzer? Is there room for general policy formulation in this area, or is this a quintessentially "operational" matter? If so, will Obama’s NSC become increasingly operational?

I hope no one saddles the Obama team with a "rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic" cliché for this announcement. It is not a fair critique, at least not yet. Making tweaks to the way the White House functions is a sensible use of presidential prerogative, especially early in the administration. It is much less disruptive than similar reorganization efforts in departments and agencies.  Given all of the turmoil wrought by the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security and the Director of National Intelligence, a good case could be made to give major interagency reorganization a rest.  In that case, change in the way the White House operates is cost-effective change on the margins, where real improvements can be found. I am even sympathetic to the trend of gradually strengthening the White House and the NSC’s role in coordinating policy. In my experience, policies improved in direct proportion to the consequential role the NSC staff was able to play on the issue.

The Obama team deserves the benefit of the doubt, in other words, even if I confess to some doubts. To assuage the doubt that nags the most, I hope White House reporters will dig into this Global Engagement Directorate a bit.  If my hunches are correct, that is where the real lasting news will be made in this reorganization.