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HOW TRUMP’S REORGANIZATION OF THE NSC COULD GET FOREIGN POLICY RIGHT
By: Tofer Harrison | February 03, 2017
conservativereview.com
Every president reorganizes the National Security Council, but when President Trump released the outline of his plans, the Democrats' outrage machine went into a fury. Trump’s plan singled out four issues, three of which are much ado about nothing. The fourth, Steve Bannon’s elevation to the NSC, is indeed significant, but it is not the scary development the Democrats would have you believe. Rather, it was a welcome nod to the fact that foreign policy is political by nature.
The first source of hysteria concerned the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General (CJCS) and director of national intelligence (DNI) not being named permanent NSC members. They will only be invited to meetings of the subordinate principal’s committee on a case-by-case basis.
President Obama's National Security Advisor, Susan Rice, called it “stone cold crazy,” and the echo chamber did the predictable.
But there is no scandal here. Trump’s memo notes that, “As statutory advisers to the NSC, [the CJCS and DNI] shall also attend NSC meetings.” Look at President Obama's organizational memo: “The Director of National Intelligence and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as statutory advisers to the NSC, shall attend NSC meetings.” George W. Bush: “The Director of Central Intelligence and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as statutory advisers to the NSC, shall also attend NSC meetings.”
While it is true that Obama mandated attendance of the DNI and CJCS at the subordinate Principal's Committee (PC), it is also true that Trump has reintegrated both the Homeland and National Security Council staff. I do not know about you, but I would find it exceedingly creepy for the military and intelligence community to be present on any number of domestic, homeland security policy issues.
When an issue warrants military input, Trump will seek relevant counsel. This is common sense. There is no change from the prior 16 years, and it needs no explanation.
The third outrage was that Trump's reorganization did not originally name the CIA director as a permanent member of the NSC. I challenge you to search Obama's organizational memo and even find mention of the CIA. You will not.
While the Democrats and the media were busy politicizing Trump's NSC, they also began complaining about the fourth issue: Trump politicizing the NSC. Trump's reorganization placed his political director, Steve Bannon, on the NSC.
On its face, political input on the NSC appears to be a significant change, but it is not. President Reagan's campaign manager, chief of staff, and secretary of treasury, James Baker III, served on the NSC. Baker III he later became President George HW Bush's campaign chairman and then secretary of state, where he served on the NSC once again.
Tucking such a highly political person into the national security fold was a nod to the obvious: National security is a political issue. The American people care. National angst over the Iraq war played a significant role in Obama’s 2008 election, to identify one rather obvious example.
Obama saw that our national security policy was at odds with voters because it had not passed through the prism of public opinion.
Former Bush Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Bolton recently said, “President [Bush] also knew that the signal he wanted to send to the ... public ... is that the decisions I'm making that involve life and death ... will not be tainted by any political decisions.” Bush’s poll numbers reflected it.
Imagine if Karl Rove had been on the NSC to say, “The voters will hate it if you invade Iraq.” Imagine if Obama's political adviser had been there to refocus his “experts’” Syria policy on the crushing refugee crisis bringing Europe and the U.S. to a political standstill?
Casting the nothingburger issues aside, we need a debate over the fact that the orthodoxy in both parties is to exclude political input on national security in lieu of “expert” opinion. It is a practice that has produced spectacularly awful results. We need a national debate about this because relatively few people agree with me — certainly the guild of “experts” do not. Instead the focus is on the non-issues and on Bannon himself, not his position.
But that, too, will quickly pass. No doubt, by the time I hit send on this, the Democrats will have careened to the next outrage. They will find something else to label a racist, fascist threat to the fabric of American democracy, and the American people will have suffered from an ironic case of politics impeding national security. |
