Road Map for National Security: 

Imperative for Change 

The Phase III Report of 

the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century 

The United States Commission on National Security/21st Century 

February 15, 2001 
 ii

U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century1

 

 Gary Hart Warren B. Rudman 

 Co-Chair Co-Chair 

 

Anne Armstrong Norman R. Augustine 

 Commissioner Commissioner 

 John Dancy John R. Galvin 

 Commissioner Commissioner 

 Leslie H. Gelb Newt Gingrich 

Commissioner Commissioner 

Lee H. Hamilton Lionel H. Olmer 

Commissioner Commissioner 

Donald B. Rice James Schlesinger 

Commissioner Commissioner 

Harry D. Train Andrew Young 

Commissioner Commissioner 

 

1

 Disclaimer: This Commission has striven successfully to achieve consensus on all major issues, and each Commissioner 

stands by all the major recommendations made in this report. However, as is to be expected when discussing complex issues, 

not every Commissioner agrees completely with every statement in the text that follows. 
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Contents 

Foreword, Gary Hart and Warren B. Rudman.............................................................iv 

Preface, Charles G. Boyd.......................................................................................v 

 

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.......................................................................................viii 

Introduction: Imperative for Change......................................................................2 

I. Securing the National Homeland ......................................................................10 

A. The Strategic Framework........................................................................11 

B. Organizational Realignment....................................................................14 

C. Executive-Legislative Cooperation............................................................26 

II. Recapitalizing America’s Strengths in Science and Education.................................30 

A. Investing in Innovation..........................................................................31 

B. Education as a National Security Imperative ................................................38 

III. Institutional Redesign............................................... .....................................47 

A. Strategic Planning and Budgeting..............................................................48 

B. The National Security Council..................................................................49 

C. Department of State..............................................................................52 

D. Department of Defense..........................................................................63 

E. Space Policy......................................................................................78 

F. The Intelligence Community....................................................................81 

. 

IV. The Human Requirements for National Security................................................86 

A. A National Campaign for Service to the Nation..............................................88 

B. The Presidential Appointments Process......................................................89 

C. The Foreign Service..............................................................................94 

D. The Civil Service.................................................................................96 

E. Military Personnel...............................................................................102 

V. The Role of Congress..................................................................................110 

A Final Word................................................................................................116 

Index..........................................................................................................118

Appendix 1: The Recommendations.......................................................................124 

Appendix 2: The USCNS/21 Charter......................................................................130 

Appendix 3: Commissioner Biographies and Staff Listing.............................................135 
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Foreword 

merican power and influence have been decisive factors for democracy and security 

throughout the last half-century. However, after more than two years of serious 

effort, this Commission has concluded that without significant reforms, American power and 

influence cannot be sustained. To be of long-term benefit to us and to others, that power and 

influence must be disciplined by strategy, defined as the systematic determination of the proper 

relationship of ends to means in support of American principles, interests, and national purpose. 

This Commission was established to redefine national security in this age and to do so in 

a more comprehensive fashion than any other similar effort since 1947. We have carried out our 

duties in an independent and totally bipartisan spirit. This report is a blueprint for reorganizing 

the U.S. national security structure in order to focus that structure’s attention on the most 

important new and serious problems before the nation, and to produce organizational competence 

capable of addressing those problems creatively. 

The key to our vision is the need for a culture of coordinated strategic planning to 

permeate all U.S. national security institutions. Our challenges are no longer defined for us by a 

single prominent threat. Without creative strategic planning in this new environment, we will 

default in time of crisis to a reactive posture. Such a posture is inadequate to the challenges and 

opportunities before us. 

We have concluded that, despite the end of the Cold War threat, America faces distinctly 

new dangers, particularly to the homeland and to our scientific and educational base. These 

dangers must be addressed forthwith. 

We call upon the new President, the new administration, the new Congress, and the 

country at large to consider and debate our recommendations in the pragmatic spirit that has 

characterized America and its people in each new age. 

 

Gary Hart Warren B. Rudman 

Co-Chair Co-Chair 

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Preface 

he U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century was born more than two years 

ago out of a conviction that the entire range of U.S. national security policies and 

processes required reexamination in light of new circumstances. Those circumstances encompass 

not only the changed geopolitical reality after the Cold War, but also the significant 

technological, social, and intellectual changes that are occurring. 

Prominent among such changes is the information revolution and the accelerating 

discontinuities in a range of scientific and technological areas. Another is the increased 

integration of global finance and commerce, commonly called “globalization.” Yet another is the 

ascendance of democratic governance and free-market economics to unprecedented levels, and 

another still the increasing importance of both multinational and non-governmental actors in 

global affairs. The routines of professional life, too, in business, university, and other domains in 

advanced countries have been affected by the combination of new technologies and new 

management techniques. The internal cultures of organizations have been changing, usually in 

ways that make them more efficient and effective. 

The creators of this Commission believed that unless the U.S. government adapts itself to 

these changes—and to dramatic changes still to come—it will fall out of step with the world of 

the 21st century. Nowhere will the risks of doing so be more manifest than in the realm of national 

security. 

Mindful of the likely scale of change ahead, this Commission’s sponsors urged it to be 

bold and comprehensive in its undertaking. That meant thinking out a quarter century, not just to 

the next election or to the next federal budget cycle. That meant searching out how government 

should work, undeterred by the institutional inertia that today determines how it does work. Not 

least, it meant conceiving national security not as narrowly defined, but as it ought to be 

defined—to include economics, technology, and education for a new age in which novel 

opportunities and challenges coexist uncertainly with familiar ones. 

The fourteen Commissioners involved in this undertaking, one that engaged their 

energies for over two years, have worked hard and they have worked well.2

 Best of all, despite 

diverse experiences and views, they have transcended partisanship to work together in 

recognition of the seriousness of the task: nothing less than to assure the well-being of this 

Republic a quarter century hence. 

This Commission has conducted its work in three phases. Phase I was dedicated to 

understanding how the world will likely evolve over the next 25 years. From that basis in 

prospective reality, Phase II devised a U.S. national security strategy to deal with that world. 

Phase III aims to reform government structures and processes to enable the U.S. government to 

implement that strategy, or, indeed, any strategy that would depart from the embedded routines of 

the last half-century. 

Phase I concluded in September 1999 with the publication of New World Coming: 

American Security in the 21st Century.

3

 Phase II produced the April 2000 publication, Seeking a 

 

2

 See Appendix 3 for Commissioner biographies and a staff listing. 

3

 Publication consisted of two documents: Major Themes and Implications and Supporting Research and 

Analysis. 

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National Strategy: A Concert for Preserving Security and Promoting Freedom. Phase III, 

presented in these pages, is entitled Road Map for National Security: Imperative for Change. This 

report summarizes enough of the Commission’s Phase I and Phase II work to establish an 

intellectual basis for understanding this Phase III report, but it does not repeat the texts of prior 

phases in detail. For those seeking fuller background to this report, the Commission’s earlier 

works should be consulted directly.4

n Road Map for National Security, the Commission has endeavored to complete the 

logic of its three phases of work, moving from analysis to strategy to the redesign of 

the structures and processes of the U.S. national security system. For example, in Phase I the 

Commission stressed that mass-casualty terrorism directed against the U.S. homeland was of 

serious and growing concern. It therefore proposed in Phase II a strategy that prioritizes deterring, 

defending against, and responding effectively to such dangers. Thus, in Phase III, it recommends 

a new National Homeland Security Agency to consolidate and refine the missions of the nearly 

two dozen disparate departments and agencies that have a role in U.S. homeland security today. 

That said, not every Phase I finding and not every Phase II proposal has generated a 

major Phase III recommendation. Not every aspect of U.S. national security organization needs 

an overhaul. Moreover, some challenges are best met, and some opportunities are best achieved, 

by crafting better policies, not by devising new organizational structures or processes. Where 

appropriate, this report notes those occasions and is not reluctant to suggest new policy directions. 

Many of the recommendations made herein require legislation to come into being. Many 

others, however, require only Presidential order or departmental directive. These latter 

recommendations are not necessarily of lesser importance and can be implemented quickly. 

The Commission anticipates that some of its recommendations will win wide support. 

Other recommendations may generate controversy and even opposition, as is to be expected when 

dealing with such serious and complex issues. We trust that the ensuing debate will ultimately 

yield the very best use of this Commission’s work for the benefit of the American people. 

rganizational reform is not a panacea. There is no perfect organizational design, no 

flawless managerial fix. The reason is that organizations are made up of people, and 

people invariably devise informal means of dealing with one another in accord with the accidents 

of personality and temperament. Even excellent organizational structure cannot make impetuous 

or mistaken leaders patient or wise, but poor organizational design can make good leaders less 

effective. 

Sound organization is important. It can ensure that problems reach their proper level of 

decision quickly and efficiently and can balance the conflicting imperatives inherent in any 

national security decision-system—between senior involvement and expert input, between speed 

and the need to consider a variety of views, between tactical flexibility and strategic consistency. 

President Eisenhower summarized it best: “Organization cannot make a genius out of a dunce. 

But it can provide its head with the facts he needs, and help him avoid misinformed mistakes.” 

Most important, good organization helps assure accountability. At every level of 

organization, elected officials—and particularly the President as Commander-in-Chief—must be 

 

4

 All of this Commission’s reports may be found on its web page at www.nssg.gov. 

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able to ascertain quickly and surely who is in charge. But in a government that has expanded 

through serial incremental adjustment rather than according to an overall plan, finding those 

responsible to make things go right, or those responsible when things go wrong, can be a very 

formidable task. This, we may be sure, is not what the Founders had in mind. 

This Commission has done its best to step up to the mandate of its Charter. It is now up to 

others to do their best to bring the benefits of this Commission’s effort into the institutions of 

American government. 

Charles G. Boyd, General, USAF (Ret.) 

Executive Director 
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Executive Summary 

fter our examination of the new strategic environment of the next quarter century 

(Phase I) and of a strategy to address it (Phase II), this Commission concludes that 

significant changes must be made in the structures and processes of the U.S. national security 

apparatus. Our institutional base is in decline and must be rebuilt. Otherwise, the United States 

risks losing its global influence and critical leadership role. 

We offer recommendations for organizational change in five key areas: 

● ensuring the security of the American homeland; 

● recapitalizing America’s strengths in science and education; 

● redesigning key institutions of the Executive Branch; 

● overhauling the U.S. government’s military and civilian personnel systems; and 

● reorganizing Congress’s role in national security affairs. 

We have taken a broad view of national security. In the new era, sharp distinctions 

between “foreign” and “domestic” no longer apply. We do not equate national security with 

“defense.” We do believe in the centrality of strategy, and of seizing opportunities as well as 

confronting dangers. If the structures and processes of the U.S. government stand still amid a 

world of change, the United States will lose its capacity to shape history, and will instead be 

shaped by it. 

Securing the National Homeland 

he combination of unconventional weapons proliferation with the persistence of 

international terrorism will end the relative invulnerability of the U.S. homeland to 

catastrophic attack. A direct attack against American citizens on American soil is likely over the 

next quarter century. The risk is not only death and destruction but also a demoralization that 

could undermine U.S. global leadership. In the face of this threat, our nation has no coherent or 

integrated governmental structures. 

We therefore recommend the creation of an independent National Homeland Security 

Agency (NHSA) with responsibility for planning, coordinating, and integrating various U.S. 

government activities involved in homeland security. NHSA would be built upon the Federal 

Emergency Management Agency, with the three organizations currently on the front line of 

border security—the Coast Guard, the Customs Service, and the Border Patrol—transferred to it. 

NHSA would not only protect American lives, but also assume responsibility for overseeing the 

protection of the nation’s critical infrastructure, including information technology. 

The NHSA Director would have Cabinet status and would be a statutory advisor to the 

National Security Council. The legal foundation for the National Homeland Security Agency 

would rest firmly within the array of Constitutional guarantees for civil liberties. The observance 

of these guarantees in the event of a national security emergency would be safeguarded by 

NHSA’s interagency coordinating activities—which would include the Department of Justice—as 

well as by its conduct of advance exercises. 

The potentially catastrophic nature of homeland attacks necessitates our being prepared 

to use the extensive resources of the Department of Defense (DoD). Therefore, the department 

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needs to pay far more attention to this mission in the future. We recommend that a new office of 

Assistant Secretary for Homeland Security be created to oversee DoD activities in this domain 

and to ensure that the necessary resources are made available. 

New priorities also need to be set for the U.S. armed forces in light of the threat to the 

homeland. We urge, in particular, that the National Guard be given homeland security as a 

primary mission, as the U.S. Constitution itself ordains. The National Guard should be 

reorganized, trained, and equipped to undertake that mission. 

Finally, we recommend that Congress reorganize itself to accommodate this Executive 

Branch realignment, and that it also form a special select committee for homeland security to 

provide Congressional support and oversight in this critical area. 

Recapitalizing America’s Strengths in Science and Education 

mericans are living off the economic and security benefits of the last three 

generations’ investment in science and education, but we are now consuming capital. 

Our systems of basic scientific research and education are in serious crisis, while other countries 

are redoubling their efforts. In the next quarter century, we will likely see ourselves surpassed, 

and in relative decline, unless we make a conscious national commitment to maintain our edge. 

We also face unprecedented opportunity. The world is entering an era of dramatic 

progress in bioscience and materials science as well as information technology and scientific 

instrumentation. Brought together and accelerated by nanoscience, these rapidly developing 

research fields will transform our understanding of the world and our capacity to manipulate it. 

The United States can remain the world’s technological leader if it makes the commitment to do 

so. But the U.S. government has seriously underfunded basic scientific research in recent years. 

The quality of the U.S. education system, too, has fallen behind those of scores of other nations. 

This has occurred at a time when vastly more Americans will have to understand and work 

competently with science and math on a daily basis. 

In this Commission’s view, the inadequacies of our systems of research and education 

pose a greater threat to U.S. national security over the next quarter century than any potential 

conventional war that we might imagine. American national leadership must understand these 

deficiencies as threats to national security. If we do not invest heavily and wisely in rebuilding 

these two core strengths, America will be incapable of maintaining its global position long into 

the 21st century. 

We therefore recommend doubling the federal research and development budget by 

2010, and instituting a more competitive environment for the allotment of those funds. 

We recommend further that the role of the President’s Science Advisor be elevated to 

oversee these and other critical tasks, such as the resuscitation of the national laboratory 

system and the institution of better inventory stewardship over the nation’s science and 

technology assets. 

We also recommend a new National Security Science and Technology Education Act to 

fund a comprehensive program to produce the needed numbers of science and engineering 

professionals as well as qualified teachers in science and math. This Act should provide loan 

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forgiveness incentives to attract those who have graduated and scholarships for those still in 

school and should provide these incentives in exchange for a period of K-12 teaching in science 

and math, or of military or government service. Additional measures should provide resources to 

modernize laboratories in science education, and expand existing programs aimed at helping 

economically-depressed school districts. 

Institutional Redesign 

he dramatic changes in the world since the end of the Cold War have not been 

accompanied by any major institutional changes in the Executive Branch of the U.S. 

government. Serious deficiencies exist that only a significant organizational redesign can remedy. 

Most troublesome is the lack of an overarching strategic framework guiding U.S. national 

security policymaking and resource allocation. Clear goals and priorities are rarely set. Budgets 

are prepared and appropriated as they were during the Cold War. 

The Department of State, in particular, is a crippled institution, starved for resources by 

Congress because of its inadequacies, and thereby weakened further. Only if the State 

Department’s internal weaknesses are cured will it become an effective leader in the making and 

implementation of the nation’s foreign policy. Only then can it credibly seek significant funding 

increases from Congress. The department suffers in particular from an ineffective organizational 

structure in which regional and functional policies do not serve integrated goals, and in which 

sound management, accountability, and leadership are lacking. 

For this and other reasons, the power to determine national security policy has steadily 

migrated toward the National Security Council (NSC) staff. The staff now assumes policymaking 

roles that many observers have warned against. Yet the NSC staff’s role as policy coordinator is 

more urgently needed than ever, given the imperative of integrating the many diverse strands of 

policymaking. 

Meanwhile, the U.S. intelligence community is adjusting only slowly to the changed 

circumstances of the post-Cold War era. While the economic and political components of 

statecraft have assumed greater prominence, military imperatives still largely drive the collection 

and analysis of intelligence. Neither has America’s overseas presence been properly adapted to 

the new economic, social, political, and security realities of the 21st century. 

Finally, the Department of Defense needs to be overhauled. The growth in staff and staff 

activities has created mounting confusion and delay. The failure to outsource or privatize many 

defense support activities wastes huge sums of money. The programming and budgeting process 

is not guided by effective strategic planning. The weapons acquisition process is so hobbled by 

excessive laws, regulations, and oversight strictures that it can neither recognize nor seize 

opportunities for major innovation, and its procurement bureaucracy weakens a defense industry 

that is already in a state of financial crisis. 

n light of such serious and interwoven deficiencies, the Commission’s initial 

recommendation is that strategy should once again drive the design and 

implementation of U.S. national security policies. That means that the President should 

personally guide a top-down strategic planning process and that process should be linked to the 

allocation of resources throughout the government. When submitting his budgets for the various 

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national security departments, the President should also present an overall national security 

budget, focused on the nation’s most critical strategic goals. Homeland security, counterterrorism, and science and technology should be included. 

We recommend further that the President’s National Security Advisor and NSC staff 

return to their traditional role of coordinating national security activities and resist the 

temptation to become policymakers or operators. The NSC Advisor should also keep a low 

public profile. Legislative, press communications, and speech-writing functions should reside in 

the White House staff, not separately in the NSC staff as they do today. The higher the profile 

of the National Security Advisor the greater will be the pressures from Congress to compel 

testimony and force Senate confirmation of the position. 

To reflect how central economics has become in U.S. national security policy, we 

recommend that the Secretary of Treasury be named a statutory member of the National 

Security Council. Responsibility for international economic policy should return to the National 

Security Council. The President should abolish the National Economic Council, distributing its 

domestic economic policy responsibilities to the Domestic Policy Council. 

ritical to the future success of U.S. national security policies is a fundamental 

restructuring of the State Department. Reform must ensure that responsibility and 

accountability are clearly established, regional and functional activities are closely integrated, 

foreign assistance programs are centrally planned and implemented, and strategic planning is 

emphasized and linked to the allocation of resources. 

We recommend that this be accomplished through the creation of five Under 

Secretaries with responsibility for overseeing the regions of Africa, Asia, Europe, InterAmerica, and Near East/South Asia, and a redefinition of the responsibilities of the Under 

Secretary for Global Affairs. The restructuring we propose would position the State Department 

to play a leadership role in the making and implementation of U.S. foreign policy, as well as to 

harness the department’s organizational culture to the benefit of the U.S. government as a whole. 

Perhaps most important, the Secretary of State would be free to focus on the most important 

policies and negotiations, having delegated responsibility for integrating regional and functional 

issues to the Under Secretaries. 

Accountability would be matched with responsibility in senior policymakers, who in 

serving the Secretary would be able to speak for the State Department both within the interagency 

process and before Congress. No longer would competing regional and functional perspectives 

immobilize the department. At the same time, functional perspectives, whether they be human 

rights, arms control, or the environment, will not disappear. The Under Secretaries would be 

clearly accountable to the Secretary of State, the President, and the Congress for ensuring that the 

appropriate priority was given to these concerns. Someone would actually be in charge. 

We further recommend that the activities of the U.S. Agency for International 

Development be fully integrated into this new State Department organization. Development aid 

is not an end in itself, nor can it be successful if pursued independently of other U.S. programs 

and diplomatic activities. Only a coordinated diplomatic and assistance effort will advance the 

nation’s goals abroad, whether they be economic growth, democracy, or human rights. 

The Secretary of State should give greater emphasis to strategic planning in the State 

Department and link it directly to the allocation of resources through the establishment of a 

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Strategic Planning, Assistance, and Budget Office. Rather than multiple Congressional 

appropriations, the State Department should also be funded in a single integrated Foreign 

Operations budget, which would include all foreign assistance programs and activities as well as 

the expenses for all related personnel and operations. Also, all U.S. Ambassadors, including the 

Permanent Representative to the United Nations, should report directly to the Secretary of State, 

and a major effort needs to be undertaken to “right-size” the U.S. overseas presence.

The Commission believes that the resulting improvements in the effectiveness and 

competency of the State Department and its overseas activities would provide the basis for the 

significant increase in resources necessary to carry out the nation’s foreign policy in the 21st

century. 

s for the Department of Defense, resource issues are also very much at stake in 

reform efforts. The key to success will be direct, sustained involvement and 

commitment to defense reform on the part of the President, Secretary of Defense, and 

Congressional leadership. We urge first and foremost that the new Secretary of Defense reduce 

by ten to fifteen percent the staffs of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the 

military services, and the regional commands. This would not only save money but also achieve 

the decision speed and encourage the decentralization necessary for any organization to succeed 

in the 21st century. 

Just as critical, the Secretary of Defense should establish a ten-year goal of reducing 

infrastructure costs by 20-25 percent through steps to consolidate, restructure, outsource, and 

privatize as many DoD support agencies and activities as possible. Only through savings in 

infrastructure costs, which now take up nearly half of DoD’s budget, will the department find the 

funds necessary for modernization and for combat personnel in the long-term. 

The processes by which the Defense Department develops its programs and budgets as 

well as acquires its weapons also need fundamental reform. The most critical first step is for the 

Secretary of Defense to produce defense policy and planning guidance that defines specific 

goals and establishes relative priorities. 

Together with the Congress, the Secretary of Defense should move the Quadrennial 

Defense Review (QDR) to the second year of a Presidential term. The current requirement, that 

it be done in an administration’s first year, spites the purpose of the activity. Such a deadline does 

not allow the time or the means for an incoming administration to influence the QDR outcome, 

and therefore for it to gain a stake in its conclusions. 

We recommend a second change in the QDR, as well; namely that the Secretary of 

Defense introduce a new process that requires the Services and defense agencies to compete 

for the allocation of some resources within the overall defense budget. This, we believe, would 

give the Secretary a vehicle to identify low priority programs and begin the process of 

reallocating funds to more promising areas during subsequent budget cycles. 

As for acquisition reform, the Commission is deeply concerned with the downward spiral 

that has emerged in recent decades in relations between the Pentagon as customer and the defense 

industrial base as supplier of the nation’s major weapons systems. Many innovative high-tech 

firms are simply unable or unwilling to work with the Defense Department under the weight of its 

auditing, contracting, profitability, investment, and inspection regulations. These regulations also 

impair the Defense Department’s ability to function with the speed it needs to keep abreast of 

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today’s rapid pace of technological innovation. Weapons development cycles average nine years

in an environment where technology now changes every twelve to eighteen months in Silicon 

Valley—and the gap between private sector and defense industry innovation continues to widen. 

In place of a specialized “defense industrial base,” we believe that the nation needs a 

national industrial base for defense composed of a broad cross-section of commercial firms as 

well as the more traditional defense firms. “New economy” sectors must be attracted to work with 

the government on sound business and professional grounds; the more traditional defense 

suppliers, which fill important needs unavailable in the commercial sector, must be given 

incentives to innovate and operate efficiently. We therefore recommend these major steps: 

● Establish and employ a two-track acquisition system, one for major acquisitions and 

a “fast track” for a modest number of potential breakthrough systems, especially those 

in the area of command and control.

● Return to the pattern of increased prototyping and testing of selected weapons and 

support systems to foster innovation. We should use testing procedures to gain 

knowledge and not to demonstrate a program’s ability to survive budgetary scrutiny.

● Implement two-year defense budgeting solely for the modernization element 

(R&D/procurement) of the defense budget and expand the use of multi-year 

procurement.

● Modernize auditing and oversight requirements (by rewriting relevant sections of 

U.S. Code, Title 10, and the Federal Acquisition Regulations) with a goal of reducing 

the number of auditors and inspectors in the acquisition system to a level 

commensurate with the budget they oversee.

Beyond other process reforms for the Defense Department, the Commission offers its 

suggestions on the force structure process. We conclude that the concept of two major, coincident 

wars is a remote possibility supported neither by actual intelligence estimates nor by this 

Commission’s view of the likely future. It should be replaced by a new approach that accelerates 

the transformation of capabilities and forces better suited to the security environment that 

predominantly exists today. The Secretary of Defense should direct the DoD to shift from the 

threat-based, force sizing process to one which measures requirements against recent 

operational activity trends, actual intelligence estimates of potential adversaries’ capabilities, 

and national security objectives as defined in the new administration's national security 

strategy. 

The Commission furthermore recommends that the Secretary of Defense revise the 

current categories of Major Force Programs (MFPs) used in the Defense Program Review to 

correspond to focus on providing a different mix of military capabilities.

Ultimately, the transformation process will blur the distinction between expeditionary 

and conventional forces, as both types of capabilities will eventually possess enhanced mobility.

For the near term, however, those we call expeditionary capabilities require the most emphasis. 

Consequently, we recommend that the Defense Department devote its highest priority to 

improving and further developing its expeditionary capabilities.

here is no more critical dimension of defense policy than to guarantee U.S. Tcommercial and military access to outer space. The U.S. economy and military are 
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vitally dependent on communications that rely on space. The clear imperative for the new era is a 

comprehensive national policy toward space and a coherent governmental machinery to carry it 

out. We therefore recommend the establishment of an Interagency Working Group on Space 

(IWGS). 

The members of this interagency working group would include not only the relevant parts 

of the intelligence community and the State and Defense Departments, but also the National 

Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric 

Administration (NOAA), the Department of Commerce, and other Executive Branch agencies as 

necessary. 

Meanwhile, the global presence and responsibilities of the United States have brought 

new requirements for protecting U.S. space and communications infrastructures, but no 

comprehensive national space architecture has been developed. We recommend that such 

responsibility be given to the new interagency space working group and that the existing 

National Security Space Architect be transferred from the Defense Department to the NSC 

staff to take the lead in this effort.

he Commission has concluded that the basic structure of the intelligence community 

does not require change. Our focus is on those steps that will enable the full 

implementation of recommendations found elsewhere within this report. 

First in this regard, we recommend that the President order the setting of national 

intelligence priorities through National Security Council guidance to the Director of Central 

Intelligence. 

Second, the intelligence community should emphasize the recruitment of human 

intelligence sources on terrorism as one of its highest priorities, and ensure that existing 

operational guidelines support this policy. 

Third, the community should place new emphasis on collection and analysis of 

economic and science/technology security concerns, and incorporate more open source 

intelligence into its analytical products. To facilitate this effort, Congress should increase 

significantly the National Foreign Intelligence Program (NFIP) budget for collection and analysis. 

The Human Requirements for National Security 

s it enters the 21st century, the United States finds itself on the brink of an 

unprecedented crisis of competence in government. The declining orientation toward 

government service as a prestigious career is deeply troubling. Both civilian and military 

institutions face growing challenges, albeit of different forms and degrees, in recruiting and 

retaining America’s most promising talent. This problem derives from multiple sources—ample 

private sector opportunities with good pay and fewer bureaucratic frustrations, rigid governmental 

personnel procedures, the absence of a single overarching threat like the Cold War to entice 

service, cynicism about the worthiness of government service, and perceptions of government as 

a plodding bureaucracy falling behind in a technological age of speed and accuracy. 

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These factors are adversely affecting recruitment and retention in the Civil and Foreign 

Services and particularly throughout the military, where deficiencies are both widening the gap 

between those who serve and the rest of American society and putting in jeopardy the leadership 

and professionalism necessary for an effective military. If we allow the human resources of 

government to continue to decay, none of the reforms proposed by this or any other national 

security commission will produce their intended results. 

We recommend, first of all, a national campaign to reinvigorate and enhance the 

prestige of service to the nation. The key step in such a campaign must be to revive a positive 

attitude toward public service. This will require strong and consistent Presidential commitment, 

Congressional legislation, and innovative departmental actions throughout the federal 

government. It is the duty of all political leaders to repair the damage that has been done, in a 

high-profile and fully bipartisan manner. 

Beyond changes in rhetoric, the campaign must undertake several actions. First, this 

Commission recommends the most urgent possible streamlining of the process by which we 

attract senior government officials. The ordeal that Presidential nominees are subjected to is now 

so great as to make it prohibitive for many individuals of talent and experience to accept public 

service. The confirmation process is characterized by vast amounts of paperwork and many 

delays. Conflict of interest and financial disclosure requirements have become a prohibitive 

obstacle to the recruitment of honest men and women to public service. Post-employment 

restrictions confront potential new recruits with the prospect of having to forsake not only income 

but work itself in the very fields in which they have demonstrated talent and found success. 

Meanwhile, a pervasive atmosphere of distrust and cynicism about government service is 

reinforced by the encrustation of complex rules based on the assumption that all officials, and 

especially those with experience in or contact with the private sector, are criminals waiting to be 

unmasked. 

We therefore recommend the following: 

● That the President act to shorten and make more efficient the Presidential appointee 

process by confirming the national security team first, standardizing paperwork 

requirements, and reducing the number of nominees subject to full FBI background 

checks.

● That the President reduce the number of Senate-confirmed and non-career SES 

positions by 25 percent to reduce the layering of senior positions in departments that 

has developed over time. 

● That the President and Congressional leaders instruct their top aides to report within 

90 days of January 20, 2001 on specific steps to revise government ethics laws and 

regulations. This should entail a comprehensive review of regulations that might exceed 

statutory requirements and making blind trusts, discretionary waivers, and recusals more 

easily available as alternatives to complete divestiture of financial and business holdings 

of concern. 

Beyond the appointments process, there are problems with government personnel 

systems specific to the Foreign Service, the Civil Service, and to the military services. But for all 

three, there is one step we urge: Expand the National Security Education Act of 1991 (NSEA) to 

include broad support for social sciences, humanities, and foreign languages in exchange for 

civilian government and military service. 
 xvi

This expanded Act is the complement to the National Security Science and Technology 

Education Act (NSSTEA) and would provide college scholarship and loan forgiveness benefits 

for government service. Recipients could fulfill this service in a variety of ways: in the active 

duty military; in National Guard or Reserve units; in national security departments of the Civil 

Service; or in the Foreign Service. The expanded NSEA thus would provide an important means 

of recruiting high-quality people into military and civilian government service. 

An effective and motivated Foreign Service is critical to the success of the Commission’s 

restructuring proposal for the State Department, yet 25 percent fewer people are now taking the 

entrance exam compared to the mid-1980s. Those who do enter complain of poor management 

and inadequate professional education. We therefore recommend that the Foreign Service 

system be improved by making leadership a core value of the State Department, revamping the 

examination process, and dramatically improving the level of on-going professional education.

The Civil Service faces a range of problems from the aging of the federal workforce to 

institutional challenges in bringing new workers into government service to critical gaps in 

recruiting and retaining information technology professionals. To address these problems, the

Commission recommends eliminating recruitment hurdles, making the hiring process faster 

and easier, and designing professional education and retention programs worthy of full 

funding by Congress. Retaining talented information technology workers, too, will require 

greater incentives and the outsourcing of some IT support functions. 

The national security component of the Civil Service calls for professionals with breadth 

of experience in the interagency process and with depth of knowledge about policy issues. To 

develop these, we recommend the establishment of a National Security Service Corps (NSSC) 

to broaden the experience base of senior departmental managers and develop leaders who seek 

integrative solutions to national security policy problems. Participating departments would 

include Defense, State, Treasury, Commerce, Justice, Energy, and the new National Homeland 

Security Agency—the departments essential to interagency policymaking on key national security 

issues. While participating departments would retain control over their personnel, an interagency 

advisory group would design and monitor the rotational assignments and professional education 

that will be key to the Corps’ success. 

With respect to military personnel, reform is needed in the recruitment, promotion, 

compensation, and retirement systems. Otherwise, the military will continue to lose its most 

talented personnel, and the armed services will be left with a cadre unable to handle the 

technological and managerial tasks necessary for a world-class 21st century force. 

Beyond the significant expansion of scholarships and debt relief programs recommended 

in both the modified National Security Education Act and the newly created National Security 

Science and Technology Education Act, we recommend substantial enhancements to the 

Montgomery GI Bill and strengthening recently passed and pending legislation that supports 

enhanced benefits—including transition, medical, and homeownership—for qualified 

veterans. The GI Bill should be restored as a pure entitlement, be transferable to dependents if 

desired by career service members, and should equal, at the very least, the median tuition cost of 

four-year U.S. colleges. Payments should be accelerated to coincide with school term periods and 

be indexed to keep pace with college cost increases. In addition, Title 38 authority for veterans 

benefits should be modified to restore and substantially improve medical, dental, and VA home 

ownership benefits for all who qualify, but especially for career and retired service members. 
 xvii

Taken as a package, such changes will help bring the best people into the armed service and 

persuade quality personnel to serve longer in order to secure greater rewards for their service. 

While these enhancements are critical they will not, by themselves, resolve the quality 

recruitment and retention problems of the Services. We therefore recommend significant 

modifications to military personnel legislation governing officer and enlisted career 

management, retirement, and compensation—giving Service Secretaries more authority and 

flexibility to adapt their personnel systems and career management to meet 21st century 

requirements. This should include flexible compensation and retirement plans, exemption from 

“up-or-out” mandates, and reform of personnel systems to facilitate fluid movement of personnel. 

If we do not decentralize and modernize the governing personnel legislation, no military reform 

or transformation is possible. We also call for an Executive-Legislative working group to 

monitor, evaluate and share information about the testing and implementation of these 

recommendations. With bipartisan cooperation, our military will remain one of this nation’s most 

treasured institutions and our safeguard in the changing world ahead. 

The Role of Congress 

hile Congress has mandated many changes to a host of Executive Branch 

departments and agencies over the years, it has not fundamentally reviewed its own 

role in national security policy. Moreover, it has not reformed its own structure since 1949. At 

present, for example, every major defense program must be voted upon no fewer than eighteen 

times each year by an array of committees and subcommittees. This represents a very poor use of 

time for busy members of the Executive and Legislative Branches. 

To address these deficiencies, the Commission first recommends that the Congressional 

leadership conduct a thorough bicameral, bipartisan review of the Legislative Branch’s 

relationship to national security and foreign policy. The House Speaker, Majority, and Minority 

leaders and the Senate Majority and Minority leaders must work with the President and his top 

aides to bring proposed reforms to this Congress by the beginning of its second session. 

From that basis, Congressional and Executive Branch leaders must build programs to 

encourage members to acquire knowledge and experience in national security. These programs 

should include ongoing education, greater opportunities for serious overseas travel, more 

legislature-to-legislature exchanges, and greater participation in wargames. 

Greater fluency in national security matters must be matched by structural reforms. A

comprehensive review of the Congressional committee structure is needed to ensure that it 

reflects the complexity of 21st century security challenges and of U.S. national security priorities. 

Specifically we recommend merging appropriations subcommittees with their respective 

authorizing committees so that the new merged committees will authorize and appropriate 

within the same bill. This should decrease the bureaucratic redundancy of the budget process and 

allow more time to be devoted to the oversight of national security policy. 

An effective Congressional role in national security also requires ongoing ExecutiveLegislative consultation and coordination. The Executive Branch must ensure a sustained effort in 

consultation and devote resources to it. For its part, Congress must make consultation a higher 

priority, in part by forming a permanent consultative group composed of the Congressional 

leadership and the Chairpersons and Ranking Members of the main committees involved in 

W
 xviii

national security. This will form the basis for sustained dialogue and greater support in times of 

crisis. 

he Commission notes, in conclusion, that some of its recommendations will save 

money, while others call for more expenditure. We have not tried to “balance the 

books” among our recommendations, nor have we held financial implications foremost in mind 

during our work. We consider any money that may be saved a second-order benefit. We consider 

the provision of additional resources to national security, where necessary, to be investments, not 

costs, in first-order national priorities. 

Finally, we strongly urge the new President and the Congressional leadership to 

establish some mechanism to oversee the implementation of the recommendations proffered 

here. Once some mechanism is chosen, the President must ensure that responsibility for 

implementing the recommendations of this Commission be given explicitly to senior personnel in 

both the Executive and Legislative Branches of government. The press of daily obligations is 

such that unless such delegation is made, and those given responsibility for implementation are 

held accountable for their tasks, the necessary reforms will not occur. The stakes are high. We of 

this Commission believe that many thousands of American lives, U.S. leadership among the 

community of nations, and the fate of U.S. national security itself are at risk unless the President 

and the Congress join together to implement the recommendations set forth in this report. 

T
 2

Introduction: Imperative for Change 

he U.S. Commission on National Security/ 21st Century was chartered to be the most 

comprehensive examination of the structures and processes of the U.S. national 

security apparatus since the core legislation governing it was passed in 1947. The Commission’s 

Charter enjoins the Commissioners to “propose measures to adapt existing national security 

structures” to new circumstances, and, if necessary, “to create new structures where none exist.” 

The Commission is also charged with providing “cost and time estimates to complete these 

improvements,” as appropriate, for what is to be, in sum, “an institutional road map for the early 

part of the 21st century.”5

 

This Phase III report provides such a road map. But Phase III rests on the first two phases 

of the Commission’s work: Phase I’s examination of how the world may evolve over the next 

quarter century, and Phase II’s strategy to deal effectively with that world on behalf of American 

interests and values. 

In its Phase I effort, this Commission stressed that global trends in scientifictechnological, economic, socio-political, and military-security domains—as they mutually 

interact over the next 25 years—will produce fundamental qualitative changes in the U.S. 

national security environment. We arrived at these fourteen conclusions: 

● The United States will become increasingly vulnerable to hostile attack on the 

American homeland, and U.S. military superiority will not entirely protect us. 

● Rapid advances in information and biotechnologies will create new vulnerabilities for 

U.S. security. 

● New technologies will divide the world as well as draw it together. 

● The national security of all advanced states will be increasingly affected by the 

vulnerabilities of the evolving global economic infrastructure. 

● Energy supplies will continue to have major strategic significance. 

● All borders will be more porous; some will bend and some will break. 

● The sovereignty of states will come under pressure, but will endure as the main 

principle of international political organization. 

● The fragmentation and failure of some states will occur, with destabilizing effects on 

entire regions. 

 

● Foreign crises will be replete with atrocities and the deliberate terrorizing of civilian 

populations. 

● Space will become a critical and competitive military environment. 

● The essence of war will not change. 

 

5

 See Appendix 2 for the full text of the Charter. 

T
 3

● U.S. intelligence will face more challenging adversaries, and even excellent 

intelligence will not prevent all surprises. 

● The United States will be called upon frequently to intervene militarily in a time of 

uncertain alliances, and with the prospect of fewer forward-deployed forces. 

● The emerging security environment in the next quarter century will require different 

U.S. military and other national capabilities. 

The Commission’s stress on communicating the scale and pace of change has been borne 

out by extraordinary developments in science and technology in just the eighteen-month period 

since the Phase I report appeared. The mapping of the human genome was completed. A 

functioning quantum computing device was invented. Organic and inorganic material was mated 

at the molecular level for the first time. Basic mechanisms of the aging process have been 

understood at the genetic level. Any one of these developments would have qualified as a 

“breakthrough of the decade” a quarter century ago, but they all happened within the past year 

and a half. 

This suggests the possible advent of a period of change the scale of which will often 

astound us. The key factor driving change in America’s national security environment over the 

next 25 years will be the acceleration of scientific discovery and its technological applications, 

and the uneven human social and psychological capacity to harness them. Synergistic 

developments in information technology, materials science, biotechnology, and nanotechnology 

will almost certainly transform human tools more dramatically and rapidly than at any time in 

human history. 

While it is easy to underestimate the social implications of change on such a scale, the 

need for human intellectual and social adaptation imposes limits to the pace of change. These 

limits are healthy, for they allow and encourage the application of the human moral sense to 

choices of major import. We will surely have our hands full with such choices over the next 

quarter century. In that time we may witness the development of a capacity to guide or control 

evolution by manipulating human DNA. The ability to join organic and inorganic material forms 

suggests that humans may co-evolve literally with their own machines. Such prospects are both 

sobering and contentious. Some look to the future with great hope for the prospect of curing 

disease, repairing broken bodies, ending poverty, and preserving the biosphere. But others worry 

that curiosity and vanity will outrun the human moral sense, thus turning hope into disaster. The 

truth is that we do not know where the rapidly expanding domain of scientific-technological 

innovation will bring us. Nor do we know the extent to which we can summon the collective 

moral fortitude to control its outcome. 

hat we do know is that some societies, and some people within societies, will be at 

the forefront of future scientific-technological developments and others will be 

marginal to them. This means more polarization between those with wealth and power and those 

without—both among and within societies. It suggests, as well, that many engrained social 

patterns will become unstable, for scientific-technological innovation has profound, if generally 

unintended, effects on economic organization, social values, and political life. 

In the Internet age, for example, information technologies may be used to empower 

communities and advance freedoms, but they can also empower political movements led by 

W
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charismatic leaders with irrational premises. Such men and women in the 21st century will be less 

bound than those of the 20th by the limits of the state, and less obliged to gain large industrial 

capabilities in order to wreck havoc. For example, a few people with as little as a $50,000 

investment may manage to produce and spread a genetically-altered pathogen with the potential 

to kill millions of people in a matter of months. Clearly, the threshold for small groups or even 

individuals to inflict massive damage on those they take to be their enemies is falling 

dramatically. 

As for political life, it is clear that the rapidity of change is already overwhelming many 

states in what used to be called the Third World. Overlaid on the enduring plagues of corruption 

and sheer bad government is a new pattern: information technology has widened the awareness of 

democracy and market-driven prosperity, and has led to increasing symbolic and material 

demands on government. These demands often exceed existing organizational capacities to meet 

them. One result is that many national armies do not respond to government control. Another is 

that mercenaries, criminals, terrorists, and drug cartel operators roam widely and freely. 

Meanwhile, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) along with global financial institutions 

sometimes function as proxy service and regulatory bureaucracies to do for states that which they 

cannot do for themselves—further diminishing governmental control and political accountability. 

As a result of the growing porosity of borders, and of the widening scope of functional 

economic integration, significant political developments can no longer be managed solely through 

the vehicle of bilateral diplomatic relations. A seemingly internal crisis in Sierra Leone, carefully 

observed, implicates most of West Africa. A problem involving drug cultivation and political 

rebellion in Colombia cannot be addressed without involving Panama, Venezuela, Bolivia, 

Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, and Mexico. Financial problems in Thailand tumble willy-nilly onto 

Russia, Brazil, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the United States. 

 Demography is another major driver of global political change. Population growth tends 

to moderate with increased literacy, urbanization, and especially changes in traditional values that 

attend the movement of women into the workplace. Thanks to these trends, the world’s rate of 

population increase is slowing somewhat, but the absolute increases over the next quarter century 

will be enormous and coping with them will be a major challenge throughout much of the world. 

In some countries, however, the problem will be too few births. In Japan and Germany, for 

example, social security and private pension systems may face enormous strain because too few 

young workers will be available to support retirees living ever-longer lives. The use of foreign 

workers may be the only recourse for such societies, but that raises other political and social 

difficulties. 

Yet another driver of change may be sustained economic growth in particular parts of the 

world. Asia may well be the most economically dynamic region on earth by 2025. Much depends 

on China’s ability to reform further the structure of its economy and on India’s ability to unleash 

its vast economic potential. But if these two very large countries achieve sustained economic 

growth—and if the economies of Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, 

Thailand, and Vietnam also grow—the focus of world power will shift away from the dominant 

Western centers of the past five centuries. While America is itself increasingly diverse, it still 

shares more philosophically and historically with Europe than with Asia. The challenge for the 

United States, then, may rest not only in a geostrategic shift, but in a shift in the cultural fabric of 

international politics itself. 
 5

n Phase II the Commission moved from describing objective conditions to prescribing 

a strategy for dealing with them. Subtitled A Concert for Preserving Security and 

Promoting Freedom, the Commission stressed that America cannot secure and advance its own 

interests in isolation. The nations of the world must work together—and the United States must 

learn to work with others in new ways—if the more cooperative order emerging from the Cold 

War epoch is to be sustained and strengthened. 

Nonetheless, this Commission takes as its premise that America must play a special 

international role well into the future. By dint of its power and its wealth, its interests and its 

values, the United States has a responsibility to itself and to others to reinforce international 

order. Only the United States can provide the ballast of global stability, and usually the United 

States is the only country in a position to organize collective responses to common challenges. 

We believe that American strategy must compose a balance between two key aims. The 

first is to reap the benefits of a more integrated world in order to expand freedom, security, and 

prosperity for Americans and for others. But second, American strategy must also strive to 

dampen the forces of global instability so that those benefits can endure and spread. 

On the positive side, this means that the United States should pursue, within the limits of 

what is prudent and realistic, the worldwide expansion of material abundance and the eradication 

of poverty. It should also promote political pluralism, freedom of thought and speech, and 

individual liberty. Not only do such aims inhere in American principles, they are practical goals, 

as well. There are no guarantees against violence and evil in the world. We believe, nonetheless, 

that the expansion of human rights and basic material well-being constitutes a sturdy bulwark 

against them. On the negative side, these goals require concerted protection against four related 

dangers: the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; international terrorism; major interstate 

aggression; and the collapse of states into internal violence, with the associated regional 

destabilization that often accompanies it. 

These goals compose the lodestone of a U.S. strategy to expand freedom and maintain 

underlying stability, but, as we have said, the United States cannot achieve them by itself. 

American leadership must be prepared to act unilaterally if necessary, not least because the will to 

act alone is sometimes required to gain the cooperation of others. But U.S. policy should join its 

efforts with allies and multilateral institutions wherever possible; the United States is wise to 

strengthen its partners and in turn will derive strength from them. 

The United States, therefore, as the prime keeper of the international security commons, 

must speak and act in ways that lead others, by dint of their own interests, to ally with American 

goals. If it is too arrogant and self-possessed, American behavior will invariably stimulate the rise 

of opposing coalitions. The United States will thereby drive away many of its partners and 

weaken those that remain. Tone matters. 

o carry out this strategy and achieve these goals, the Commission defined six key 

objectives for U.S. foreign and national security policy: 

First, the preeminent objective is “to defend the United States and ensure that it is safe 

from the dangers of a new era.” The combination of unconventional weapons proliferation with 

the persistence of international terrorism will end the relative invulnerability of the U.S. 

homeland to catastrophic attack. To deter attack against the homeland in the 21st century, the 

I

T
 6

United States requires a new triad of prevention, protection, and response. Failure to prevent 

mass-casualty attacks against the American homeland will jeopardize not only American lives but 

U.S. foreign policy writ large. It would undermine support for U.S. international leadership and 

for many of our personal freedoms, as well. Indeed, the abrupt undermining of U.S. power and 

prestige is the worst thing that could happen to the structure of global peace in the next quarter 

century, and nothing is more likely to produce it than devastating attacks on American soil. 

Achieving this goal, and the nation’s other critical national security goals, also requires 

the U.S. government, as a second key objective, to “maintain America’s social cohesion, 

economic competitiveness, technological ingenuity, and military strength.” That means a larger 

investment in and better management of science and technology in government and in society, 

and a substantially better educational system, particularly for the teaching of science and 

mathematics. 

The United States must also take better advantage of the opportunities that the present 

period of relative international stability and American power enable. A third key objective, 

therefore, is “to assist the integration of key major powers, especially China, Russia, and India, 

into the mainstream of the emerging international system.” Moreover, since globalization’s 

opportunities are rooted in economic and political progress, the Commission’s fourth key U.S. 

objective is “to promote, with others, the dynamism of the new global economy and improve the 

effectiveness of international institutions and international law.” 

A fifth key objective also follows, which is “to adapt U.S. alliances and other regional 

mechanisms to a new era in which America’s partners seek greater autonomy and responsibility.” 

A sixth and final key objective inheres in an effort “to help the international community tame the 

disintegrative forces spawned by an era of change.” While the prospect of major war is low, much 

of the planet will experience conflict and violence. Unless the United States, in concert with 

others, can find a way to limit that conflict and violence, it will not be able to construct a foreign 

policy agenda focussed on opportunities. 

Achieving all of these objectives will require a basic shift in orientation: to focus on 

preventing rather than simply responding to dangers and crises. The United States must redirect 

its energies, adjust its diplomacy, and redesign its military capabilities to ward off cross-border 

aggression, assist states before they fail, and avert systemic international financial crises. To 

succeed over the long run with a preventive focus, the United States needs to institutionalize its 

efforts to grasp the opportunities the international environment now offers. 

An opportunity-based strategy also has the merit of being more economical than a 

reactive one. Preventing a financial crisis, even if it involves well-timed bailouts, is cheaper than 

recuperating from stock market crashes and regional recessions. Preventing a violent conflict 

costs less than responsive peacekeeping operations and nation-building activities. And certainly, 

preventing mass-casualty attacks on the American homeland will be far less expensive than 

recovering from them. 

hese six objectives, and the Commission’s strategy itself, rest on a premise so basic 

that it often goes unstated: democracy conduces generally to domestic and 

international peace, and peace conduces to, or at least allows, democratic politics. While this 

premise is not a “law,” and while scholars continue to study and debate these matters, we believe 

they are strong tendencies, and that they can be strengthened further by a consistent and 

determined national policy. We know, that a world characterized by the spread of genuine 

T
 7

democracy would not be flawless, nor signal “the end of history.” But it is the best of all possible 

worlds that we can conceive, and that we can achieve. 

In Phase I, this Commission presented four “Worlds in Prospect,” agglomerations of 

basic trends that, we believed, might describe the world in 2025. The Democratic Peace was one. 

Nationalism and Protectionism was a second, Division and Mayhem a third, and Globalism 

Triumphant the fourth. We, and presumably most observers, see the Democratic Peace as a 

positive future, Nationalism and Protectionism as a step in the wrong direction, Division and 

Mayhem as full-fledged tragedy. But the Globalism Triumphant scenario divides opinion, partly 

because it is the hardest to envision, and partly because it functions as a template for the 

projection of conflicting political views. 

Some observers, for example, believe that the end of the nation-state is upon us, and that 

this is a good thing, for, in this view, nationalism is the root of racism and militarism. The eclipse 

of the national territorial state is at any rate, some argue, an inevitable development given the 

very nature of an increasingly integrated world. 

We demur. To the extent that a more integrated world economically is the best way to 

raise people out of poverty and disease, we applaud it. We also recognize the need for 

unprecedented international cooperation on a range of transnational problems. But the state is the 

only venue discovered so far in which democratic principles and processes can play out reliably, 

and not all forms of nationalism have been or need be illiberal. We therefore affirm the value of 

American sovereignty as well as the political and cultural diversity ensured by the present state 

system. Within that system the United States must live by and be ready to share its political 

values—but it must remember that those values include tolerance for those who hold different 

views. 

 broader and deeper Democratic Peace is, and ought to be, America’s aspiration, but 

there are obstacles to achieving it. Indeed, despite the likely progress ahead on many 

fronts, the United States may face not only episodic problems but also genuine crises. If the 

United States mismanages its current global position, it could generate resentments and jealousies 

that leave us more isolated than isolationist. Major wars involving weapons of mass destruction 

are possible, and the general security environment may deteriorate faster than the United States, 

even with allied aid, can redress it. Environmental, economic, and political unraveling in much of 

the world could occur on a scale so large as to make current levels of prosperity unsustainable, let 

alone expandable. Certain technologies—biotechnology, for example—may also undermine 

social and political stability among and within advanced countries, including the United States. 

Indeed, all these crises may occur, and each could reinforce and deepen the others. 

The challenge for the United States is to seize the new century’s many opportunities and 

avoid its many dangers. The problem is that the current structures and processes of U.S. national 

security policymaking are incapable of such management. That is because, just below the 

enormous power and prestige of the United States today, is a neglected and, in some cases, a 

decaying institutional base. 

The U.S. government is not well organized, for example, to ensure homeland security. No 

adequate coordination mechanism exists among federal, state, and local government efforts, as 

well as those of dozens of agencies at the federal level. If present trends continue in elementary 

and secondary school science and mathematics education, to take another example, the United 

States may lose its lead in many, if not most, major areas of critical scientific-technological 

A
 8

competence within 25 years. We are also losing, and are finding ourselves unable to replace, the 

most critical asset we have: talented and dedicated personnel throughout government. 

Strategic planning is absent in the U.S. government and its budget processes are so 

inflexible that few resources are available for preventive policies or for responding to crises, nor 

can resources be reallocated efficiently to reflect changes in policy priorities. The economic 

component of U.S. national security policy is poorly integrated with the military and diplomatic 

components. The State Department is demoralized and dysfunctional. The Defense Department 

appears incapable of generating a strategic posture very different from that of the Cold War, and 

its weapons acquisition process is slow, inefficient, and burdened by excess regulation. National 

policy in the increasingly critical environment of space is adrift, and the intelligence community 

is only slowly reorienting itself to a world of more diffuse and differently shaped threats. The 

Executive Branch, with the aid of the Congress, needs to initiate change in many areas by taking 

bold new steps, and by speeding up positive change where it is languishing. 

he very mention of changing the engrained routines and structures of government is 

usually enough to evoke cynicism even in a born optimist. But the American case is 

surprisingly positive, especially in relatively recent times. The reorganizations occasioned by 

World War II were vast and innovative, and the 1947 National Security Act was bold in 

advancing and institutionalizing them. Major revisions of the 1947 Act were passed subsequently 

by Congress in 1949, 1953, and 1958. Major internal Defense Department reforms were 

promulgated as well, one in 1961 and another, the Department of Defense Reorganization Act 

(Goldwater-Nichols) in 1986. The essence of the American genius is that we know better than 

most societies how to reinvent ourselves to meet the times. This Commission, we believe, is true 

to that estimable tradition. 

 Despite this relatively good record, resistance will arise to changing U.S. national 

security structures and processes, both within agencies of government and in the Congress. What 

is needed, therefore, is for the new administration, together with the new Congress, to exert real 

leadership. Our comprehensive recommendations to guide that leadership follow. 

First, we must prepare ourselves better to defend the national homeland. We take this up 

in Section I, Securing the National Homeland. We put this first because it addresses the most 

dangerous and the most novel threat to American national security in the years ahead. 

Second, we must rebuild our strengths in the generation and management of science and 

technology and in education. We have made Recapitalizing America’s Strengths in Science and 

Education the second section of this report despite the fact that science management and education 

issues are rarely ranked as paramount national security priorities. We do so to emphasize their crucial 

and growing importance. 

Third, we must ensure coherence and effectiveness in the institutions of the Executive 

Branch of government. Section III, Institutional Redesign, proposes change throughout the 

national security apparatus. 

Fourth, we must ensure the highest caliber human capital in public service. U.S. national 

security depends on the quality of the people, both civilian and military, serving within the ranks 

of government. If we are unsuccessful in meeting the crisis of competence before us, none of the 

other reforms proposed in this report will succeed. Section IV, The Human Requirements for 

National Security, examines government personnel issues in detail. 

T
 9

Fifth, the Congress is part of the problem before us, and therefore must become part of 

the solution. Not only must the Congress support the Executive Branch reforms promulgated 

here, but it must bring its own organization in line with the 21st century. Section V, The Role of 

Congress, examines this critical facet of government reform. 

 Each section of this report carries an introduction explaining why the subject is 

important, identifies the major problems requiring solution, and then states this Commission’s 

recommendations. All major recommendations are boxed and in bold-face type.6

 Related but 

subordinate recommendations are italicized and in bold-face type in the text. 

As appropriate throughout the report, we outline what Congressional, Presidential, and 

Executive department actions would be required to implement the Commission’s 

recommendations. Also as appropriate, we provide general guidance as to the budgetary 

implications of our recommendations but, lest details of such consideration confuse and 

complicate the text, we will provide suggested implementation plans for selected areas in a 

separately issued addendum. A last word urges the President to devise an implementing 

mechanism for the recommendations put forth here. 

Finally, we observe that some of our recommendations will save money, while others call 

for more expenditure. We have not tried to “balance the books” among our recommendations, nor 

have we held financial implications foremost in mind during our work. Wherever money may be 

saved, we consider it a second-order benefit. Provision of additional resources to national 

security, where necessary, are investments, not costs, and a first-order national priority. 

 

6

 The recommendations are listed together in Appendix 1, pp. 124-129. 
 10

I. Securing the National Homeland 

ne of this Commission’s most important conclusions in its Phase I report was that 

attacks against American citizens on American soil, possibly causing heavy 

casualties, are likely over the next quarter century.7

 This is because both the technical means for 

such attacks, and the array of actors who might use such means, are proliferating despite the best 

efforts of American diplomacy. 

These attacks may involve weapons of mass destruction and weapons of mass disruption. 

As porous as U.S. physical borders are in an age of burgeoning trade and travel, its “cyber 

borders” are even more porous—and the critical infrastructure upon which so much of the U.S. 

economy depends can now be targeted by non-state and state actors alike. America’s present 

global predominance does not render it immune from these dangers. To the contrary, U.S. 

preeminence makes the American homeland more appealing as a target, while America’s 

openness and freedoms make it more vulnerable. 

Notwithstanding a growing consensus on the seriousness of the threat to the homeland 

posed by weapons of mass destruction and disruption, the U.S. government has not adopted 

homeland security as a primary national security mission. Its structures and strategies are 

fragmented and inadequate. The President must therefore both develop a comprehensive strategy 

and propose new organizational structures to prevent and protect against attacks on the homeland, 

and to respond to such attacks if prevention and protection should fail. 

Any reorganization must be mindful of the scale of the scenarios we envision and the 

enormity of their consequences. We need orders-of-magnitude improvements in planning, 

coordination, and exercise. The government must also be prepared to use effectively—albeit with 

all proper safeguards—the extensive resources of the Department of Defense. This will 

necessitate new priorities for the U.S. armed forces and particularly, in our view, for the National 

Guard.

he United States is today very poorly organized to design and implement any 

comprehensive strategy to protect the homeland. The assets and organizations that 

now exist for homeland security are scattered across more than two dozen departments and 

agencies, and all fifty states. The Executive Branch, with the full participation of Congress, needs 

to realign, refine, and rationalize these assets into a coherent whole, or even the best strategy will 

lack an adequate vehicle for implementation. 

This Commission believes that the security of the American homeland from the threats of 

the new century should be the primary national security mission of the U.S. government. While 

the Executive Branch must take the lead in dealing with the many policy and structural issues 

involved, Congress is a partner of critical importance in this effort. It must find ways to address 

homeland security issues that bridge current gaps in organization, oversight, and authority, and 

that resolve conflicting claims to jurisdiction within both the Senate and the House of 

Representatives and also between them. 

 

7

 See New World Coming, p. 4, and the Report of the National Defense Panel, Transforming Defense: 

National Security in the 21st Century (Washington, DC: December 1997), p. 17. 

O

T
 11

Congress is crucial, as well, for guaranteeing that homeland security is achieved within a 

framework of law that protects the civil liberties and privacy of American citizens. We are 

confident that the U.S. government can enhance national security without compromising 

established Constitutional principles. But in order to guarantee this, we must plan ahead. In a 

major attack involving contagious biological agents, for example, citizen cooperation with 

government authorities will depend on public confidence that those authorities can manage the 

emergency. If that confidence is lacking, panic and disorder could lead to insistent demands for 

the temporary suspension of some civil liberties. That is why preparing for the worst is essential

to protecting individual freedoms during a national crisis. 

Legislative guidance for planning among federal agencies and state and local authorities 

must take particular cognizance of the role of the Defense Department. Its subordination to civil 

authority needs to be clearly defined in advance. 

In short, advances in technology have created new dimensions to our nation's economic 

and physical security. While some new threats can be met with traditional responses, others 

cannot. More needs to be done in three areas to prevent the territory and infrastructure of the 

United States from becoming easy and tempting targets: in strategy, in organizational 

realignment, and in Executive-Legislative cooperation. We take these areas in turn. 

A. THE STRATEGIC FRAMEWORK

homeland security strategy to minimize the threat of intimidation and loss of life is 

an essential support for an international leadership role for the United States. 

Homeland security is not peripheral to U.S. national security strategy but central to it. At this 

point, national leaders have not agreed on a clear strategy for homeland security, a condition this 

Commission finds dangerous and intolerable. We therefore recommend the following: 

 

● 1: The President should develop a comprehensive strategy to heighten America’s ability 

to prevent and protect against all forms of attack on the homeland, and to respond 

to such attacks if prevention and protection fail.

 

In our view, the President should: 

● Give new priority in his overall national security strategy to homeland security, and 

make it a central concern for incoming officials in all Executive Branch departments, 

particularly the intelligence and law enforcement communities; 

● Calmly prepare the American people for prospective threats, and increase their 

awareness of what federal and state governments are doing to prevent attacks and to 

protect them if prevention fails;

● Put in place new government organizations and processes, eliminating where possible 

staff duplication and mission overlap; and 

● Encourage Congress to establish new mechanisms to facilitate closer cooperation 

between the Executive and Legislative Branches of government on this vital issue. 

A
 12

We believe that homeland security can best be assured through a strategy of layered 

defense that focuses first on prevention, second on protection, and third on response. 

Prevention: Preventing a potential attack comes first. Since the occurrence of even one 

event that causes catastrophic loss of life would represent an unacceptable failure of policy, U.S. 

strategy should therefore act as far forward as possible to prevent attacks on the homeland. This 

strategy has at its disposal three essential instruments. 

Most broadly, the first instrument is U.S. diplomacy. U.S. foreign policy should strive to 

shape an international system in which just grievances can be addressed without violence. 

Diplomatic efforts to develop friendly and trusting relations with foreign governments and their 

people can significantly multiply America's chances of gaining early warning of potential attack 

and of doing something about impending threats. Intelligence-sharing with foreign governments 

is crucial to help identify individuals and groups who might be considering attacks on the United 

States or its allies. Cooperative foreign law enforcement agencies can detain, arrest, and prosecute 

terrorists on their own soil. Diplomatic success in resolving overseas conflicts that spawn terrorist 

activities will help in the long run. 

Meanwhile, verifiable arms control and nonproliferation efforts must remain a top 

priority. These policies can help persuade states and terrorists to abjure weapons of mass 

destruction and to prevent the export of fissile materials and dangerous dual-use technologies. But 

such measures cannot by themselves prevent proliferation. So other measures are needed, 

including the possibility of punitive measures and defenses. The United States should take a lead 

role in strengthening multilateral organizations such as the International Atomic Energy Agency. 

In addition, increased vigilance against international crime syndicates is also important 

because many terrorist organizations gain resources and other assets through criminal activity that 

they then use to mount terrorist operations. Dealing with international organized crime requires 

not only better cooperation with other countries, but also among agencies of the federal 

government. While progress has been made on this front in recent years, more remains to be 

done.8

The second instrument of homeland security consists of the U.S. diplomatic, intelligence, 

and military presence overseas. Knowing the who, where, and how of a potential physical or 

cyber attack is the key to stopping a strike before it can be delivered. Diplomatic, intelligence, 

and military agencies overseas, as well as law enforcement agencies working abroad, are 

America’s primary eyes and ears on the ground. But increased public-private efforts to enhance 

security processes within the international transportation and logistics networks that bring people 

and goods to America are also of critical and growing importance. 

Vigilant systems of border security and surveillance are a third instrument that can 

prevent those agents of attack who are not detected and stopped overseas from actually entering 

the United States. Agencies such as the U.S. Customs Service and U.S. Coast Guard have a 

critical prevention role to play. Terrorists and criminals are finding that the difficulty of policing 

the rising daily volume and velocities of people and goods that cross U.S. borders makes it easier 

for them to smuggle weapons and contraband, and to move their operatives into and out of the 

United States. Improving the capacity of border control agencies to identify and intercept 

potential threats without creating barriers to efficient trade and travel requires a sub-strategy also 

with three elements. 

 

8

 See International Crime Threat Assessment (Washington, DC: The White House, December 2000). 
 13

First is the development of new transportation security procedures and practices designed 

to reduce the risk that importers, exporters, freight forwarders, and transportation carriers will 

serve as unwitting conduits for criminal or terrorist activities. Second is bolstering the intelligence 

gathering, data management, and information sharing capabilities of border control agencies to 

improve their ability to target high-risk goods and people for inspection. Third is strengthening 

the capabilities of border control agencies to arrest terrorists or interdict dangerous shipments 

before they arrive on U.S. soil. 

These three measures, which place a premium on public-private partnerships, will pay for 

themselves in short order. They will allow for the more efficient allocation of limited 

enforcement resources along U.S. borders. There will be fewer disruptive inspections at ports of 

entry for legitimate businesses and travelers. They will lead to reduced theft and insurance costs, 

as well. Most important, the underlying philosophy of this approach is one that balances 

prudence, on the one hand, with American values of openness and free trade on the other. 9 To 

shield America from the world out of fear of terrorism is, in large part, to do the terrorists’ work 

for them. To continue business as usual, however, is irresponsible. 

The same may be said for our growing cyber problems. Protecting our nation’s critical 

infrastructure depends on greater public awareness and improvements in our tools to detect and 

diagnose intrusions. This will require better information sharing among all federal, state, and 

local governments as well as with private sector owners and operators. The federal government 

has these specific tasks: 

● To serve as a model for the private sector by improving its own security practices; 

● To address known government security problems on a system-wide basis; 

● To identify and map network interdependencies so that harmful cascading effects 

among systems can be prevented; 

● To sponsor vulnerability assessments within both the federal government and the 

private sector; and 

● To design and carry out simulations and exercises that test information system security 

across the nation’s entire infrastructure. 

Preventing attacks on the American homeland also requires that the United States 

maintain long-range strike capabilities. The United States must bolster deterrence by making 

clear its determination to use military force in a preemptive fashion if necessary. Even the most 

hostile state sponsors of terrorism, or terrorists themselves, will think twice about harming 

Americans and American allies and interests if they fear direct and severe U.S. attack after—or 

before—the fact. Such capabilities will strengthen deterrence even if they never have to be used. 

Protection: The Defense Department undertakes many different activities that serve to 

protect the American homeland, and these should be integrated into an overall surveillance 

system, buttressed with additional resources. A ballistic missile defense system would be a useful 

addition and should be developed to the extent technically feasible, fiscally prudent, and 

 

9

 Note in this regard Stephen E. Flynn, “Beyond Border Control,” Foreign Affairs (November/December 

2000). 
 14

politically sustainable. Defenses should also be pursued against cruise missiles and other 

sophisticated atmospheric weapon technologies as they become more widely deployed. While 

both active duty and reserve forces are involved in these activities, the Commission believes that 

more can and should be done by the National Guard, as is discussed in more detail below. 

Protecting the nation’s critical infrastructure and providing cyber-security must also 

include: 

● Advanced indication, warning, and attack assessments; 

● A warning system that includes voluntary, immediate private-sector reporting of 

potential attacks to enable other private-sector targets (and the U.S. government) better to 

take protective action; and 

● Advanced systems for halting attacks, establishing backups, and restoring service. 

Response: Managing the consequences of a catastrophic attack on the U.S. homeland 

would be a complex and difficult process. The first priority should be to build up and augment 

state and local response capabilities. Adequate equipment must be available to first responders in 

local communities. Procedures and guidelines need to be defined and disseminated and then 

practiced through simulations and exercises. Interoperable, robust, and redundant 

communications capabilities are a must in recovering from any disaster. Continuity of 

government and critical services must be ensured as well. Demonstrating effective responses to 

natural and manmade disasters will also help to build mutual confidence and relationships among 

those with roles in dealing with a major terrorist attack. 

All of this puts a premium on making sure that the disparate organizations involved with 

homeland security—on various levels of government and in the private sector—can work 

together effectively. We are frankly skeptical that the U.S. government, as it exists today, can 

respond effectively to the scale of danger and damage that may come upon us during the next 

quarter century. This leads us, then, to our second task: that of organizational realignment. 

B. ORGANIZATIONAL REALIGNMENT

esponsibility for homeland security resides at all levels of the U.S. government—

local, state, and federal. Within the federal government, almost every agency and 

department is involved in some aspect of homeland security. None have been organized to focus 

on the scale of the contemporary threat to the homeland, however. This Commission urges an 

organizational realignment that: 

● Designates a single person, accountable to the President, to be responsible for 

coordinating and overseeing various U.S. government activities related to homeland 

security;

● Consolidates certain homeland security activities to improve their effectiveness and 

coherence;

● Establishes planning mechanisms to define clearly specific responses to specific types 

of threats; and 

R
 15

● Ensures that the appropriate resources and capabilities are available. 

Therefore, this Commission strongly recommends the following:

● 2: The President should propose, and Congress should agree to create, a National 

Homeland Security Agency (NHSA) with responsibility for planning, coordinating, 

and integrating various U.S. government activities involved in homeland security. 

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) should be a key building 

block in this effort. 

Given the multiplicity of agencies and activities involved in these homeland security 

tasks, someone needs to be responsible and accountable to the President not only to coordinate 

the making of policy, but also to oversee its implementation. This argues against assigning the 

role to a senior person on the National Security Council (NSC) staff and for the creation of a 

separate agency. This agency would give priority to overall planning while relying primarily on 

others to carry out those plans. To give this agency sufficient stature within the government, its 

director would be a member of the Cabinet and a statutory advisor to the National Security 

Council. The position would require Senate confirmation. 

Notwithstanding NHSA’s responsibilities, the National Security Council would still play 

a strategic role in planning and coordinating all homeland security activities. This would include 

those of NHSA as well as those that remain separate, whether they involve other NSC members 

or other agencies, such as the Centers for Disease Control within the Department of Health and 

Human Services. 

We propose building the National Homeland Security Agency upon the capabilities of the 

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), an existing federal agency that has performed 

well in recent years, especially in responding to natural disasters. NHSA would be legislatively 

chartered to provide a focal point for all natural and manmade crisis and emergency planning 

scenarios. It would retain and strengthen FEMA’s ten existing regional offices as a core element 

of its organizational structure. 

hile FEMA is the necessary core of the National Homeland Security Agency, it is 

not sufficient to do what NHSA needs to do. In particular, patrolling U.S. borders, 

and policing the flows of peoples and goods through the hundreds of ports of entry, must receive 

higher priority. These activities need to be better integrated, but efforts toward that end are 

hindered by the fact that the three organizations on the front line of border security are spread 

across three different U.S. Cabinet departments. The Coast Guard works under the Secretary of 

Transportation, the Customs Service is located in the Department of the Treasury, and the 

Immigration and Naturalization Service oversees the Border Patrol in the Department of Justice. 

In each case, the border defense agency is far from the mainstream of its parent department’s 

agenda and consequently receives limited attention from the department’s senior officials. We 

therefore recommend the following: 

● 3: The President should propose to Congress the transfer of the Customs Service, the 

Border Patrol, and Coast Guard to the National Homeland Security Agency, while 

preserving them as distinct entities. 

W
 16

Bringing these organizations together under one agency will create important synergies. 

Their individual capabilities will be molded into a stronger and more effective system, and this 

realignment will help ensure that sufficient resources are devoted to tasks crucial to both public 

safety and U.S. trade and economic interests. Consolidating overhead, training programs, and 

maintenance of the aircraft, boats, and helicopters that these three agencies employ will save 

money, and further efficiencies could be realized with regard to other resources such as 

information technology, communications equipment, and dedicated sensors. Bringing these 

separate, but complementary, activities together will also facilitate more effective Executive and 

Legislative oversight, and help rationalize the process of budget preparation, analysis, and 

presentation. 

Steps must be also taken to strengthen these three individual organizations themselves. 

The Customs Service, the Border Patrol, and the Coast Guard are all on the verge of being 

overwhelmed by the mismatch between their growing duties and their mostly static resources. 

The Customs Service, for example, is charged with preventing contraband from entering 

the United States. It is also responsible for preventing terrorists from using the commercial or 

private transportation venues of international trade for smuggling explosives or weapons of mass 

destruction into or out of the United States. The Customs Service, however, retains only a modest 

air, land, and marine interdiction force, and its investigative component, supported by its own 

intelligence branch, is similarly modest. The high volume of conveyances, cargo, and passengers 

arriving in the United States each year already overwhelms the Customs Service’s capabilities. 

Over $8.8 billion worth of goods, over 1.3 million people, over 340,000 vehicles, and over 58,000 

shipments are processed daily at entry points. Of this volume, Customs can inspect only one to 

two percent of all inbound shipments. The volume of U.S. international trade, measured in terms 

of dollars and containers, has doubled since 1995, and it may well double again between now and 

2005. 

 

Therefore, this Commission believes that an improved computer information capability 

and tracking system—as well as upgraded equipment that can detect both conventional and 

nuclear explosives, and chemical and biological agents—would be a wise short-term investment 

with important long-term benefits. It would also raise the risk for criminals seeking to target or 

exploit importers and cargo carriers for illicit gains.10

The Border Patrol is the uniformed arm of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. 

Its mission is the detection and prevention of illegal entry into the United States. It works 

primarily between ports of entry and patrols the borders by various means. There has been a 

debate for many years about whether the dual functions of the Immigration and Naturalization 

Service—border control and enforcement on the one side, and immigration facilitation on the 

other—should be joined under the same roof. The U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform 

concluded that they should not be joined.11 We agree: the Border Patrol should become part of the 

NHSA. 

The U.S. Coast Guard is a highly disciplined force with multiple missions and a natural 

role to play in homeland security. It performs maritime search and rescue missions, manages 

vessel traffic, enforces U.S. environmental and fishery laws, and interdicts and searches vessels 

 

10 See the Report of the Interagency Commission on Crime and Security in U.S. Seaports (Washington, DC: 

Fall 2000). 

11 See the Report of the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform (Washington, DC: 1997). 
 17

suspected of carrying illegal aliens, drugs, and other contraband. In a time of war, it also works 

with the Navy to protect U.S. ports from attack. 

Indeed, in many respects, the Coast Guard is a model homeland security agency given its 

unique blend of law enforcement, regulatory, and military authorities that allow it to operate 

within, across, and beyond U.S. borders. It accomplishes its many missions by routinely working 

with numerous local, regional, national, and international agencies, and by forging and 

maintaining constructive relationships with a diverse group of private, non-governmental, and 

public marine-related organizations. As the fifth armed service, in peace and war, it has national 

defense missions that include port security, overseeing the defense of coastal waters, and 

supporting and integrating its forces with those of the Navy and the other services. 

The case for preserving and enhancing the Coast Guard’s multi-mission capabilities is 

compelling. But its crucial role in protecting national interests close to home has not been 

adequately appreciated, and this has resulted in serious and growing readiness concerns. U.S. 

Coast Guard ships and aircraft are aging and technologically obsolete; indeed, the Coast Guard 

cutter fleet is older than 39 of the world's 41 major naval fleets. As a result, the Coast Guard fleet 

generates excessive operating and maintenance costs, and lacks essential capabilities in speed, 

sensors, and interoperability. To fulfill all of its missions, the Coast Guard requires updated 

platforms with the staying power, in hazardous weather, to remain offshore and fully operational 

throughout U.S. maritime economic zones.12

 

The Commission recommends strongly that Congress recapitalize the Customs Service, 

the Border Patrol, and the Coast Guard so that they can confidently perform key homeland 

security roles. 

HSA’s planning, coordinating, and overseeing activities would be undertaken 

through three staff Directorates. The Directorate of Prevention would oversee and 

coordinate the various border security activities, as discussed above. A Directorate of Critical 

Infrastructure Protection (CIP) would handle the growing cyber threat. FEMA’s emergency 

preparedness and response activities would be strengthened in a third directorate to cover both 

natural and manmade disasters. A Science and Technology office would advise the NHSA 

Director on research and development efforts and priorities for all three directorates. 

Relatively small permanent staffs would man the directorates. NHSA will employ 

FEMA’s principle of working effectively with state and local governments, as well as with other 

federal organizations, stressing interagency coordination. Much of NHSA’s daily work will take 

place directly supporting state officials in its regional offices around the country. Its 

organizational infrastructure will not be heavily centered in the Washington, DC area. 

NHSA would also house a National Crisis Action Center (NCAC), which would become 

the nation’s focal point for monitoring emergencies and for coordinating federal support in a 

crisis to state and local governments, as well as to the private sector. We envision the center to be 

an interagency operation, directed by a two-star National Guard general, with full-time 

representation from the other federal agencies involved in homeland security (See Figure 1). 

 

12 See Report of the Interagency Task Force on U.S. Coast Guard Roles and Missions, A Coast Guard for 

the Twenty First-Century (Washington, DC: December 1999). 

N
 18

Figure 1: National Homeland Security Agency 

NHSA will require a particularly close working relationship with the Department of 

Defense. It will need also to create and maintain strong mechanisms for the sharing of 

information and intelligence with U.S. domestic and international intelligence entities. We 

suggest that NHSA have liaison officers in the counter-terrorism centers of both the FBI and the 

CIA. Additionally, the sharing of information with business and industry on threats to critical 

infrastructures requires further expansion. 

HSA will also assume responsibility for overseeing the protection of the nation’s 

critical infrastructure. Considerable progress has been made in implementing the 

recommendations of the President’s Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection (PCCIP) 

and Presidential Decision Directive 63 (PDD-63). But more needs to be done, for the United 

States has real and growing problems in this area. 

U.S. dependence on increasingly sophisticated and more concentrated critical 

infrastructures has increased dramatically over the past decade. Electrical utilities, water and 

sewage systems, transportation networks, and communications and energy systems now depend 

on computers to provide safe, efficient, and reliable service. The banking and finance sector, too, 

keeps track of millions of transactions through increasingly robust computer capabilities. 

The overwhelming majority of these computer systems are privately owned, and many 

operate at or very near capacity with little or no provision for manual back-ups in an emergency. 

N

National Homeland

Security Agency

Directorates 

Prevention

Critical Infrastructure Protection

Emergency Preparedness & Response

National Crisis

Action Center

Customs Service Border Patrol Coast Guard

Regional

 Offices

Regional

 Offices
 19

Moreover, the computerized information networks that link systems together are themselves 

vulnerable to unwanted intrusion and disruption. An attack on any one of several highly 

interdependent networks can cause collateral damage to other networks and the systems they 

connect. Some forms of disruption will lead merely to nuisance and economic loss, but other 

forms will jeopardize lives. One need only note the dependence of hospitals, air-traffic control 

systems, and the food processing industry on computer controls to appreciate the point. 

The bulk of unclassified military communications, too, relies on systems almost entirely 

owned and operated by the private sector. Yet little has been done to assure the security and 

reliability of those communications in crisis. Current efforts to prevent attacks, protect against 

their most damaging effects, and prepare for prompt response are uneven at best, and this is 

dangerous because a determined adversary is most likely to employ a weapon of mass disruption 

during a homeland security or foreign policy crisis.

As noted above, a Directorate for Critical Infrastructure Protection would be an integral 

part of the National Homeland Security Agency. This directorate would have two vital 

responsibilities. First would be to oversee the physical assets and information networks that make 

up the U.S. critical infrastructure. It should ensure the maintenance of a nucleus of cyber security 

expertise within the government, as well. There is now an alarming shortage of government cyber 

security experts due in large part to the financial attraction of private-sector employment that the 

government cannot match under present personnel procedures.13 The director’s second 

responsibility would be as the Critical Information Technology, Assurance, and Security Office 

(CITASO). This office would coordinate efforts to address the nation’s vulnerability to electronic 

or physical attacks on critical infrastructure. 

Several critical activities that are currently spread among various government agencies 

and the private sector should be brought together for this purpose. These include: 

● Information Sharing and Analysis Centers (ISACs), which are government-sponsored 

committees of private-sector participants who work to share information, plans, and 

procedures for information security in their fields; 

● The Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office (CIAO), currently housed in the 

Commerce Department, which develops outreach and awareness programs with the 

private sector; 

● The National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC), currently housed in the FBI, 

which gathers information and provides warnings of cyber attacks; and 

● The Institute for Information Infrastructure Protection (I3P), also in the Commerce 

Department, which is designed to coordinate and support research and development 

projects on cyber security. 

In partnership with the private sector where most cyber assets are developed and owned, 

the Critical Infrastructure Protection Directorate would be responsible for enhancing information 

sharing on cyber and physical security, tracking vulnerabilities and proposing improved risk 

management policies, and delineating the roles of various government agencies in preventing, 

defending, and recovering from attacks. To do this, the government needs to institutionalize better 

its private-sector liaison across the board—with the owners and operators of critical 

 

13 We return to this problem below in Section IV. 
 20

infrastructures, hardware and software developers, server/service providers, 

manufacturers/producers, and applied technology developers. 

The Critical Infrastructure Protection Directorate’s work with the private sector must 

include a strong advocacy of greater government and corporate investment in information 

assurance and security. The CITASO would be the focal point for coordinating with the Federal 

Communications Commission (FCC) in helping to establish cyber policy, standards, and 

enforcement mechanisms. Working closely with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) 

and its Chief Information Officer Council (CIO Council), the CITASO needs to speak for those 

interests in government councils.14 The CITASO must also provide incentives for private-sector 

participation in Information Sharing and Analysis Centers to share information on threats, 

vulnerabilities, and individual incidents, to identify interdependencies, and to map the potential 

cascading effects of outages in various sectors. 

The directorate also needs to help coordinate cyber security issues internationally. At 

present, the FCC handles international cyber issues for the U.S. government through the 

International Telecommunications Union. As this is one of many related international issues, it 

would be unwise to remove this responsibility from the FCC. Nevertheless, the CIP Directorate 

should work closely with the FCC on cyber issues in international bodies. 

he mission of the NHSA must include specific planning and operational tasks to be 

staffed through the Directorate for Emergency Preparedness and Response. These 

include: 

● Setting training and equipment standards, providing resource grants, and encouraging 

intelligence and information sharing among state emergency management officials, local 

first responders, the Defense Department, and the FBI; 

● Integrating the various activities of the Defense Department, the National Guard, and 

other federal agencies into the Federal Response Plan; and 

● Pulling together private sector activities, including those of the medical community, on 

recovery, consequence management, and planning for continuity of services. 

Working with state officials, the emergency management community, and the law 

enforcement community, the job of NHSA’s third directorate will be to rationalize and refine the 

nation’s incident response system. The current distinction between crisis management and 

consequence management is neither sustainable nor wise. The duplicative command 

arrangements that have been fostered by this division are prone to confusion and delay. NHSA 

should develop and manage a single response system for national incidents, in close coordination 

with the Department of Justice (DoJ) and the FBI. This would require that the current policy, 

which specifies initial DoJ control in terrorist incidents on U.S. territory, be amended once 

Congress creates NHSA. We believe that this arrangement would in no way contradict or 

diminish the FBI’s traditional role with respect to law enforcement. 

 

14 The Chief Information Officer Council is a government organization consisting of all the statutory Chief 

Information Officers in the government. It is located within OMB under the Deputy Director for 

Management. 

T
 21

The Emergency Preparedness and Response Directorate should also assume a major 

resource and budget role. With the help of the Office of Management and Budget, the 

directorate’s first task will be to figure out what is being spent on homeland security in the 

various departments and agencies. Only with such an overview can the nation identify the 

shortfalls between capabilities and requirements. Such a mission budget should be included in the 

President’s overall budget submission to Congress. The Emergency Preparedness and Response 

Directorate will also maintain federal asset databases and encourage and support up-to-date state 

and local databases. 

EMA has adapted well to new circumstances over the past few years and has gained a 

well-deserved reputation for responsiveness to both natural and manmade disasters. 

While taking on homeland security responsibilities, the proposed NHSA would strengthen 

FEMA’s ability to respond to such disasters. It would streamline the federal apparatus and 

provide greater support to the state and local officials who, as the nation’s first responders, 

possess enormous expertise. To the greatest extent possible, federal programs should build upon 

the expertise and existing programs of state emergency preparedness systems and help promote 

regional compacts to share resources and capabilities. 

To help simplify federal support mechanisms, we recommend transferring the National 

Domestic Preparedness Office (NDPO), currently housed at the FBI, to the National 

Homeland Security Agency. The Commission believes that this transfer to FEMA should be 

done at first opportunity, even before NHSA is up and running. 

The NDPO would be tasked with organizing the training of local responders and 

providing local and state authorities with equipment for detection, protection, and 

decontamination in a WMD emergency. NHSA would develop the policies, requirements, and 

priorities as part of its planning tasks as well as oversee the various federal, state, and local 

training and exercise programs. In this way, a single staff would provide federal assistance for 

any emergency, whether it is caused by flood, earthquake, hurricane, disease, or terrorist bomb. 

 A WMD incident on American soil is likely to overwhelm local fire and rescue squads, 

medical facilities, and government services. Attacks may contaminate water, food, and air; largescale evacuations may be necessary and casualties could be extensive. Since getting prompt help 

to those who need it would be a complex and massive operation requiring federal support, such 

operations must be extensively planned in advance. Responsibilities need to be assigned and 

procedures put in place for these responsibilities to evolve if the situation worsens. 

 As we envision it, state officials will take the initial lead in responding to a crisis. NHSA 

will normally use its Regional Directors to coordinate federal assistance, while the National Crisis 

Action Center will monitor ongoing operations and requirements. Should a crisis overwhelm 

local assets, state officials will turn to NHSA for additional federal assistance. In major crises, 

upon the recommendation of the civilian Director of NHSA, the President will designate a senior 

figure—a Federal Coordinating Officer—to assume direction of all federal activities on the scene. 

If the situation warrants, a state governor can ask that active military forces reinforce National 

Guard units already on the scene. Once the President federalizes National Guard forces, or if he 

decides to use Reserve forces, the Joint Forces Command will assume responsibility for all 

military operations, acting through designated task force commanders. At the same time, the 

Secretary of Defense would appoint a Defense Coordinating Officer to provide civilian oversight 

and ensure prompt civil support. This person would work for the Federal Coordinating Officer. 

This response mechanism is displayed in Figure 2. 

F
 22

NHSA

Director

National

Crisis Action

Center

USJFCOM

JTF

Civil

Support

State/Local Officials

(incl. National Guard)

 Federal Coordinating

Officer

Defense

Coordinating

Officer Other Federal

Support: (EPA,

H&HS, DOE,

DOJ, etc.)

Secretary of

Defense

CJCS

ASD

HLS Regional

Directors

Local Response

Federal Response

Figure 2: Emergency Response Mechanisms

 To be capable of carrying out its responsibilities under extreme circumstances, NHSA 

will need to undertake robust exercise programs and regular training to gain experience and to 

establish effective command and control procedures. It will be essential to update regularly the 

Federal Response Plan. It will be especially critical for NHSA officials to undertake detailed 

planning and exercises for the full range of potential contingencies, including ones that require 

the substantial involvement of military assets in support. 

HSA will provide the overarching structure for homeland security, but other 

government agencies will retain specific homeland security tasks. We take the 

necessary obligations of the major ones in turn. 

Intelligence Community. Good intelligence is the key to preventing attacks on the 

homeland and homeland security should become one of the intelligence community’s most 

important missions.15 Better human intelligence must supplement technical intelligence, 

especially on terrorist groups covertly supported by states. As noted above, fuller cooperation and 

more extensive information-sharing with friendly governments will also improve the chances that 

would-be perpetrators will be detained, arrested, and prosecuted before they ever reach U.S. 

borders. 

 

15 We return to this issue in our discussion of the Intelligence Community in Section III.F., particularly in 

recommendation 37. 

N
 23

The intelligence community also needs to embrace cyber threats as a legitimate mission 

and to incorporate intelligence gathering on potential strategic threats from abroad into its 

activities. 

To advance these ends, we offer the following recommendation: 

● 4: The President should ensure that the National Intelligence Council: include homeland 

security and asymmetric threats as an area of analysis; assign that portfolio to a 

National Intelligence Officer; and produce National Intelligence Estimates on these 

threats. 

Department of State. U.S. embassies overseas are the American people’s first line of 

defense. U.S. Ambassadors must make homeland security a top priority for all embassy staff, and 

Ambassadors need the requisite authority to ensure that information is shared in a way that 

maximizes advance warning overseas of direct threats to the United States. 

Ambassadors should also ensure that the gathering of information, and particularly from 

open sources, takes full advantage of all U.S. government resources abroad, including diplomats, 

consular officers, military officers, and representatives of the various other departments and 

agencies. The State Department should also strengthen its efforts to acquire information from 

Americans living or travelling abroad in private capacities. 

The State Department has made good progress in its overseas efforts to reduce terrorism, 

but we now need to extend this effort into the Information Age. Working with NHSA’s CIP 

Directorate, the State Department should expand cooperation on critical infrastructure protection 

with other states and international organizations. Private sector initiatives, particularly in the 

banking community, provide examples of international cooperation on legal issues, standards, and 

practices. Working with the CIP Directorate and the FCC, the State Department should also 

encourage other governments to criminalize hacking and electronic intrusions and to help track 

hackers, computer virus proliferators, and cyber terrorists. 

Department of Defense. The Defense Department, which has placed its highest priority 

on preparing for major theater war, should pay far more attention to the homeland security 

mission. Organizationally, DoD responses are widely dispersed. An Assistant to the Secretary of 

Defense for Civil Support has responsibility for WMD incidents, while the Department of the 

Army’s Director of Military Support is responsible for non-WMD contingencies. Such an 

arrangement does not provide clear lines of authority and responsibility or ensure political 

accountability. The Commission therefore recommends the following: 

● 5: The President should propose to Congress the establishment of an Assistant Secretary 

of Defense for Homeland Security within the Office of the Secretary of Defense, 

reporting directly to the Secretary. 

A new Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Security would provide policy 

oversight for the various DoD activities within the homeland security mission and ensure that 

mechanisms are in place for coordinating military support in major emergencies. He or she would 

work to integrate homeland security into Defense Department planning, and ensure that adequate 
 24

resources are forthcoming. This Assistant Secretary would also represent the Secretary in the 

NSC interagency process on homeland security issues. 

Along similar lines and for similar reasons, we also recommend that the Defense 

Department broaden and strengthen the existing Joint Forces Command/Joint Task ForceCivil Support (JTF-CS) to coordinate military planning, doctrine, and command and control 

for military support for all hazards and disasters. 

This task force should be directed by a senior National Guard general with additional 

headquarters personnel. JTF-CS should contain several rapid reaction task forces, composed 

largely of rapidly mobilizable National Guard units. The task force should have command and 

control capabilities for multiple incidents. Joint Forces Command should work with the Assistant 

Secretary of Defense for Homeland Security to ensure the provision of adequate resources and 

appropriate force allocations, training, and equipment for civil support. 

On the prevention side, maintaining strong nuclear and conventional forces is as high a 

priority for homeland security as it is for other missions. Shaping a peaceful international 

environment and deterring hostile military actors remain sound military goals. But deterrent 

forces may have little effect on non-state groups secretly supported by states, or on individuals 

with grievances real or imagined. In cases of clear and imminent danger, the military must be able 

to take preemptive action overseas in circumstances where local authorities are unable or 

unwilling to act. For this purpose, as noted above, the United States needs to be prepared to use 

its rapid, long-range precision strike capabilities. A decision to act would obviously rest in 

civilian hands, and would depend on intelligence information and assessments of diplomatic 

consequences. But even if a decision to strike preemptively is never taken or needed, the 

capability should be available nonetheless, for knowledge of it can contribute to deterrence. 

We also suggest that the Defense Department broaden its mission of protecting air, sea, 

and land approaches to the United States, consistent with emerging threats such as the potential 

proliferation of cruise missiles. The department should examine alternative means of monitoring 

approaches to the territorial United States. Modern information technology and sophisticated 

sensors can help monitor the high volumes of traffic to and from the United States. Given the 

volume of legitimate activities near and on the border, even modern information technology and 

remote sensors cannot filter the good from the bad as a matter of routine. It is neither wise nor 

possible to create a surveillance umbrella over the United States. But Defense Department assets 

can be used to support detection, monitoring, and even interception operations when intelligence 

indicates a specific threat. 

Finally, a better division of labor and understanding of responsibilities is essential in 

dealing with the connectivity and interdependence of U.S. critical infrastructure systems. This 

includes addressing the nature of a national transportation network or cyber emergency and the 

Defense Department’s role in prevention, detection, or protection of the national critical 

infrastructure. The department’s sealift and airlift plans are premised on largely unquestioned 

assumptions that domestic transportation systems will be fully available to support mobilization 

requirements. The department also is paying insufficient attention to the vulnerability of its 

information networks. Currently, the department's computer network defense task force (JTFComputer Network Defense) is underfunded and understaffed for the task of managing an actual 

strategic information warfare attack. It should be given the resources to carry out its current 

mission and is a logical source of advice to the proposed NHSA Critical Information Technology, 

Assurance, and Security Office. 
 25

National Guard. The National Guard, whose origins are to be found in the state militias 

authorized by the U.S. Constitution, should play a central role in the response component of a 

layered defense strategy for homeland security. We therefore recommend the following: 

● 6: The Secretary of Defense, at the President’s direction, should make homeland security 

a primary mission of the National Guard, and the Guard should be organized, 

properly trained, and adequately equipped to undertake that mission. 

At present, the Army National Guard is primarily organized and equipped to conduct 

sustained combat overseas. In this the Guard fulfills a strategic reserve role, augmenting the 

active military during overseas contingencies. At the same time, the Guard carries out many statelevel missions for disaster and humanitarian relief, as well as consequence management. For 

these, it relies upon the discipline, equipment, and leadership of its combat forces. The National 

Guard should redistribute resources currently allocated predominantly to preparing for 

conventional wars overseas to provide greater support to civil authorities in preparing for and 

responding to disasters, especially emergencies involving weapons of mass destruction. 

Such a redistribution should flow from a detailed assessment of force requirements for 

both theater war and homeland security contingencies. The Department of Defense should 

conduct such an assessment, with the participation of the state governors and the NHSA Director. 

In setting requirements, the department should minimize forces with dual missions or reliance on 

active forces detailed for major theater war. This is because the United States will need to 

maintain a heightened deterrent and defensive posture against homeland attacks during regional 

contingencies abroad. The most likely timing of a major terrorist incident will be while the United 

States is involved in a conflict overseas.16 

The National Guard is designated as the primary Department of Defense agency for 

disaster relief. In many cases, the National Guard will respond as a state asset under the control of 

state governors. While it is appropriate for the National Guard to play the lead military role in 

managing the consequences of a WMD attack, its capabilities to do so are uneven and in some 

cases its forces are not adequately structured or equipped. Twenty-two WMD Civil Support 

Teams, made up of trained and equipped full-time National Guard personnel, will be ready to 

deploy rapidly, assist local first responders, provide technical advice, and pave the way for 

additional military help. These teams fill a vital need, but more effort is required. 

This Commission recommends that the National Guard be directed to fulfill its historic 

and Constitutional mission of homeland security. It should provide a mobilization base with 

strong local ties and support. It is already “forward deployed” to achieve this mission and should: 

● Participate in and initiate, where necessary, state, local, and regional planning for 

responding to a WMD incident; 

● Train and help organize local first responders; 

● Maintain up-to-date inventories of military resources and equipment available in the 

area on short notice; 

 

16 See the Report of the National Defense University Quadrennial Defense Review 2001 Working Group

(Washington, DC: Institute for National Strategic Studies, November 2000), p. 60. 
 26

● Plan for rapid inter-state support and reinforcement; and 

● Develop an overseas capability for international humanitarian assistance and disaster 

relief. 

In this way, the National Guard will become a critical asset for homeland security. 

Medical Community. The medical community has critical roles to play in homeland 

security. Catastrophic acts of terrorism or violence could cause casualties far beyond any 

imagined heretofore. Most of the American medical system is privately owned and now operates 

at close to capacity. An incident involving WMD will quickly overwhelm the capacities of local 

hospitals and emergency management professionals. 

In response, the National Security Council, FEMA, and the Department of Health and 

Human Services have already begun a reassessment of their programs. Research to develop better 

diagnostic equipment and immune-enhancing drugs is underway, and resources to reinvigorate 

U.S. epidemiological surveillance capacity have been allocated. Programs to amass and 

regionally distribute inventories of antibiotics and vaccines have started, and arrangements for 

mass production of selected pharmaceuticals have been made. The Centers for Disease Control 

has rapid-response investigative units prepared to deploy and respond to incidents. 

These programs will enhance the capacities of the medical community, but the 

momentum and resources for this effort must be extended. We recommend that the NHSA 

Directorate for Emergency Preparedness and Response assess local and federal medical 

resources to deal with a WMD emergency. It should then specify those medical programs 

needed to deal with a major national emergency beyond the means of the private sector, and 

Congress should fund those needs. 

C. EXECUTIVE-LEGISLATIVE COOPERATION

olving the homeland security challenge is not just an Executive Branch problem. 

Congress should be an active participant in the development of homeland security 

programs, as well. Its hearings can help develop the best ideas and solutions. Individual members 

should develop expertise in homeland security policy and its implementation so that they can fill 

in policy gaps and provide needed oversight and advice in times of crisis. Most important, using 

its power of the purse, Congress should ensure that government agencies have sufficient 

resources and that their programs are coordinated, efficient, and effective. 

Congress has already taken important steps. A bipartisan Congressional initiative 

produced the U.S. effort to deal with the possibility that weapons of mass destruction could 

“leak” out of a disintegrating Soviet Union.17 It was also a Congressional initiative that 

established the Domestic Preparedness Program and launched a 120-city program to enhance the 

capability of federal, state, and local first responders to react effectively in a WMD emergency.18

Members of Congress from both parties have pushed the Executive Branch to identify and 

 

17 Sponsored by Senators Sam Nunn and Richard Lugar. 

18 Public Law 104-201, National Defense Authorization Act for FY 1997: Defense Against Weapons of 

Mass Destruction. This legislation, known as the Nunn-Lugar-Domenici Amendment, was passed in July 

1996. 

S
 27

manage the problem more effectively. Congress has also proposed and funded studies and 

commissions on various aspects of the homeland security problem.19 But it must do more. 

A sound homeland security strategy requires the overhaul of much of the legislative 

framework for preparedness, response, and national defense programs. Congress designed many 

of the authorities that support national security and emergency preparedness programs principally 

for a Cold War environment. The new threat environment—from biological and terrorist attacks 

to cyber attacks on critical systems—poses vastly different challenges. We therefore recommend 

that Congress refurbish the legal foundation for homeland security in response to the new 

threat environment. 

In particular, Congress should amend, as necessary, key legislative authorities such as the 

Defense Production Act of 1950 and the Communications Act of 1934, which facilitate homeland 

security functions and activities.20 Congress should also encourage the sharing of threat, 

vulnerability, and incident data between the public and private sectors—including federal 

agencies, state governments, first responders, and industry.21 In addition, Congress should 

monitor and support current efforts to update the international legal framework for 

communications security issues.22

Beyond that, Congress has some organizational work of its own to do. As things stand 

today, so many federal agencies are involved with homeland security that it is exceedingly 

difficult to present federal programs and their resource requirements to the Congress in a coherent 

 

19 We note: the Rumsfeld Commission [Report of the Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to 

the United States (Washington, DC: July 15, 1998)]; the Deutch Commission [Combating Proliferation of 

Weapons of Mass Destruction (Washington, DC: July 14, 1999)]; Judge William Webster’s Commission 

[Report on the Advancement of Federal Law Enforcement (Washington, DC: January 2000)]; the Bremer 

Commission [Report of the National Commission on Terrorism, Countering the Changing Threat of 

International Terrorism (Washington, DC: June 2000)]; and an advisory panel led Virginia Governor 

James Gilmore [First Annual Report to the President and the Congress of the Advisory Panel to Assess 

Domestic Response Capabilities for Terrorism Involving Weapons of Mass Destruction (Washington, DC: 

December 15, 1999)]. 

20 The Defense Production Act was developed during the Korean War when shortages of critical natural 

resources such as coal, oil, and gas were prioritized for national defense purposes. [See Defense Production 

Act of 1950, codified at 50 USC App. § 2061 et seq. Title I includes delegations to prioritize and allocate 

goods and services based on national defense needs.] Executive Order 12919, National Defense Industrial 

Resources Preparedness, June 6, 1994, implements Title I of the Defense Production Act. Congressional 

review should focus on the applicability of the Defense Production Act to homeland security needs, ranging 

from prevention to restoration activities. Section 706 of the Communications Act of 1934 also needs 

revision so that it includes the electronic media that have developed in the past two decades. [See 48 Stat. 

1104, 47 USC § 606, as amended.] Executive Order 12472, Assignment of National Security and 

Emergency Preparedness Telecommunications Functions, April 3, 1984, followed the breakup of AT&T 

and attempted to specify anew the prerogatives of the Executive Branch in accordance with the 1934 Act in 

directing national communications media during a national security emergency. It came before the Internet, 

however, and does not clearly apply to it. 

21 For more than four years, multiple institutions have called on national leadership to support laws and 

policies promoting security cooperation through public-private partnerships. See, for example, the

President’s Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection, Critical Foundations, Protecting America’s 

Infrastructures (Washington, DC: October 1997), pp. 86-88 and Report of the Defense Science Board Task 

Force on Information Warfare (Washington, DC: November 1996). 22 This includes substantial efforts in multiple forums, such as the Council of Europe and the G8, to fight 

transnational organized crime. See Communiqué on principles to fight transnational organized crime, 

Meeting of the Justice and Interior Ministers of the Eight, December 9-10, 1997. 
 28

way. It is largely because the budget is broken up into so many pieces, for example, that counterterrorism and information security issues involve nearly two dozen Congressional committees and 

subcommittees. The creation of the National Security Homeland Agency will redress this 

problem to some extent, but because of its growing urgency and complexity, homeland security 

will still require a stronger working relationship between the Executive and Legislative Branches. 

Congress should therefore find ways to address homeland security issues that bridge current 

jurisdictional boundaries and that create more innovative oversight mechanisms. 

There are several ways of achieving this. The Senate’s Arms Control Observer Group and 

its more recent NATO Enlargement Group were two successful examples of more informal 

Executive-Legislative cooperation on key multi-dimensional issues. Specifically, in the near term, 

this Commission recommends the following: 

 

● 7: Congress should establish a special body to deal with homeland security issues, as has 

been done effectively with intelligence oversight. Members should be chosen for 

their expertise in foreign policy, defense, intelligence, law enforcement, and 

appropriations. This body should also include members of all relevant 

Congressional committees as well as ex-officio members from the leadership of both 

Houses of Congress.

This body should develop a comprehensive understanding of the problem of homeland 

security, exchange information and viewpoints with the Executive Branch on effective policies 

and plans, and work with standing committees to develop integrated legislative responses and 

guidance. Meetings would often be held in closed session so that Members could have access to 

interagency deliberations and diverging viewpoints, as well as to classified assessments. Such a 

body would have neither a legislative nor an oversight mandate, and it would not eclipse the 

authority of any standing committee. 

At the same time, Congress needs to systematically review and restructure its committee 

system, as will be proposed in recommendation 48. A single, select committee in each house of 

Congress should be given authorization, appropriations, and oversight responsibility for all 

homeland security activities. When established, these committees would replace the function of 

the oversight body described in recommendation 7. 

 

n sum, the federal government must address the challenge of homeland security with 

greater urgency. The United States is not immune to threats posed by weapons of mass 

destruction or disruption, but neither is it entirely defenseless against them. Much has been done 

to prevent and defend against such attacks, but these efforts must be incorporated into the nation’s 

overall security strategy, and clear direction must be provided to all departments and agencies. 

Non-traditional national security agencies that now have greater relevance than they did in the 

past must be reinvigorated. Accountability, authority, and responsibility must be more closely 

aligned within government agencies. An Executive-Legislative consensus is required, as well, to 

convert strategy and resources into programs and capabilities, and to do so in a way that preserves 

fundamental freedoms and individual rights. 

Most of all, however, the government must reorganize itself for the challenges of this 

new era, and make the necessary investments to allow an improved organizational structure to 

work. Through the Commission’s proposal for a National Homeland Security Agency, the U.S. 

government will be able to improve the planning and coordination of federal support to state and 

I
 29

local agencies, to rationalize the allocation of resources, to enhance readiness in order to prevent 

attacks, and to facilitate recovery if prevention fails. Most important, this proposal integrates the 

problem of homeland security within the broader framework of U.S. national security strategy. In 

this respect, it differs significantly from issue-specific approaches to the problem, which tend to 

isolate homeland security away from the larger strategic perspective of which it must be a part. 

We are mindful that erecting the operational side of this strategy will take time to 

achieve. Meanwhile, the threat grows ever more serious. That is all the more reason to start right 

away on implementing the recommendations put forth here.
 30

II. Recapitalizing America’s Strengths in Science 

and Education 

he scale and nature of the ongoing revolution in science and technology, and what 

this implies for the quality of human capital in the 21st century, pose critical national 

security challenges for the United States. Second only to a weapon of mass destruction detonating 

in an American city, we can think of nothing more dangerous than a failure to manage properly 

science, technology, and education for the common good over the next quarter century. 

Current institutional arrangements among government, higher education, and business 

have served the nation well over the past five decades, but the world is changing. Today, private 

proprietary expenditure on technology development far outdistances public spending. The 

internationalization of both scientific research and its commercial development is having a 

significant effect on the capacity of the U.S. government to harness science in the service of 

national security and to attract qualified scientific and technical personnel. These changes are 

transforming most facets of the American economy, from health care to banking to retail 

business, as well as the defense industrial base. 

The harsh fact is that the U.S. need for the highest quality human capital in science, 

mathematics, and engineering is not being met. One reason for this is clear: American students 

know that professional careers in basic science and mathematics require considerable preparation 

and effort, while salaries are often more lucrative in areas requiring less demanding training. 

Non-U.S. nationals, however, do find these professions attractive and, thanks to science, math, 

and technical preparation superior to that of many Americans, they increasingly fill American 

university graduate studies seats and job slots in these areas. Another reason for the growing 

deficit in high-quality human capital is that the American kindergarten through 12th grade (K-12) 

education system is not performing as well as it should. As a result too few American students are 

qualified to take these slots, even were they so inclined. 

This is an ironic predicament, since America’s strength has always been tied to the spirit 

and entrepreneurial energies of its people. America remains today the model of creativity and 

experimentation, and its success has inspired other nations to recognize the true sources of power 

and wealth in science, technology, and higher education. America’s international reputation, and 

therefore a significant aspect of its global influence, depends on its reputation for excellence in 

these areas. U.S. performance is not keeping up with its reputation. Other countries are striving 

hard, and with discipline they will outstrip us. 

This is not a matter merely of national pride or international image. It is an issue of 

fundamental importance to national security. In a knowledge-based future, only an America that 

remains at the cutting edge of science and technology will sustain its current world leadership. In 

such a future, only a well-trained and educated population can thrive economically, and from 

national prosperity provide the foundation for national cohesion. Complacency with our current 

achievement of national wealth and international power will put all of this at risk. 

 

T
 31

A. INVESTING IN INNOVATION 

any nations in the world have the intellectual assets to compete with those of the 

United States. However, as many leaders abroad recognize, their social, political, 

and economic systems often prevent them from capitalizing on these intellectual assets. The 

creative release of individual energies for the public good is not possible without a political, 

social, and economic system that frees talent and nurtures innovation.23 

We have before us the negative example of the former Soviet Union. Its state scientific 

establishment was the largest in the world and very talented, yet the attitudes and institutions 

required to nurture and disseminate innovation in a broad sense were missing, and it never 

fulfilled its potential. Today, many national leaders around the world are determined not to repeat 

the Soviet failure. They are studying the American business and innovation environment in hopes 

of extracting its secrets. Lessons are being learned and adopted throughout the world. As a result, 

global competition is growing significantly and will continue to do so. 

Meanwhile, however, many critical changes are occurring within the United States: 

● While basic research remains primarily a government-funded activity, private and 

proprietary technology development in the United States is increasing relatively and 

absolutely compared to that of the government. 

● The internationalization of basic science and technology (S&T) activities, assets, and 

capabilities is accelerating, and current U.S. advantages in many critical fields are 

shrinking and may be eclipsed in the years ahead. 

● New classes of defense-relevant technologies are developing in which the major U.S. 

defense companies and national labs have scant experience. There are far fewer 

institutional linkages between government scientists and those innovative businesses 

generating and adapting cutting-edge technologies (e.g., genetic engineering, materials 

science, nanotechnology, and robotics). 

uring the 1980s, America recognized the need to change business models that had 

roots in the Industrial Age. It embarked on a path of deregulation and 

experimentation that has led to the networked economy that is still taking shape today. While 

U.S. reform at the microeconomic level has been primarily a private sector achievement, 

government has played an important role. It is also clear the government and the private sector 

will have to continue to work in concert to fill many critical needs: e.g., telecommunication and 

cyber-infrastructure policies; information assurance and protection; and policies to preserve the 

defense industrial base. This nation must increase its public research and development budget in 

order to remain a world leader. But opportunity and resources will not come together by 

themselves. Wise public policies are needed to enhance creative investment and promote intense 

experimentation. 

 

 

23 This is why it is not possible to establish a direct correlation between educational achievement and either 

productivity or economic growth indices. For the last two decades, for example, U.S. educational 

achievements have lagged behind those of many other countries even as U.S. productivity and growth 

measures have outdistanced them. 

M

D
 32

In particular, we need to fund more basic research and technology development. As is 

clear to all, private sector R&D investments in the United States have increased vastly in recent 

years. That is good, but private R&D tends to be more development-oriented than researchoriented. It is from investment in basic science, however, that the most valuable long-run 

dividends are realized. The government has a critical role to play in this regard, as the “spinoff” 

achievements of the space program over the years illustrate. That role remains not least because 

our basic and applied research efforts in areas of critical national interest will not be pursued by a 

civil sector that emphasizes short- to mid-term return on investment. 

If the United States does not invest significantly more in public research and 

development, it will be eclipsed by others. Recent failures in this regard may return to haunt us. 

The decision not to invest in a large nuclear accelerator, the Superconducting Super Collider, 

already means that the most significant breakthroughs in theoretical physics at least over the next 

decade will occur in Europe and not in the United States. The reduction of U.S. research and 

development in basic electronics engineering has ensured that the next generation of chip 

processors and manufacturing technology will come from an international consortium (U.S.-

German-Dutch) rather than from the United States alone. 

We must not let such examples proliferate in the future, nor should we squander the 

enormous opportunities before us. We stand on the cusp of major discoveries in several 

interlocking fields, and we stand to benefit, as well, from major strides in scientific 

instrumentation. As a result, the way is clear to design large-scale scientific and technological 

experiments in key fields—not unlike the effort of the International Geophysical Year in 1958, 

the early space program, or the project to decode the human genome. In the judgment of this 

Commission, the U.S. government has not taken a broad, systematic approach to investing in 

science and technology R&D, and thus will not be able to sustain projects of such scale and 

boldness. We therefore recommend the following: 

● 8: The President should propose, and the Congress should support, doubling the U.S. 

government’s investment in science and technology research and development by 

2010. 

 

Building up an adequate level of effort for major, long-term research for the public good 

will require an increased investment on the order of 100 percent over the next decade. In other 

words, a government-wide R&D budget of about $160 billion by fiscal year 2010 would be 

prudent and appropriate. 

t would not be prudent or appropriate, however, to combine the government’s science 

and technology capabilities into a single agency, as some have suggested doing, or to 

entirely centralize the government’s research and development budget. But we do need to infuse 

within the U.S. national R&D program a sense of responsible stewardship and vision. The 

government has to better coordinate its own public research and development efforts among the 

more than two dozen government departments and agencies that play major roles in the field.24 

 

24 The President’s FY2001 budget allocates U.S. government research monies to its major players as 

follows: 43 percent NIH, 12 percent NASA, 12 percent DoE, 11 percent DoD, 8 percent NSF, 4 percent 

USDA, 10 percent all others. See AAAS Report XXV, Research and Development FY2001 (Washington, 

DC: American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2000), p. 35. These are research budget 

figures only, not total R&D accounts. 

I
 33

The coordinating body for that purpose, the White House Office of Science and 

Technology Policy (OSTP), which houses within it the National Science and Technology Council 

(NSTC). The White House OSTP has three main functions: to help design the public R&D budget 

in conjunction with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB); to facilitate interagency 

efforts involving science and technology and research and development; and to win support for 

the administration’s science and technology initiatives in Congress. 

The National Science and Technology Council, which includes virtually every cabinet 

official and Executive Branch agency head, has a committee structure designed to facilitate 

interagency cooperation. Committees are headed by OSTP personnel, but the participants from 

other departments and agencies have other, usually more pressing duties. Hence, with the 

exception of their chairmen, NSTC committees are populated by part-timers. 

The President may also use the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and 

Technology (PCAST), composed of non-governmental experts, to help him decide science and 

technology policy. Its use, as with the use of the NSTC, is largely dependent on the interests and 

inclinations of the President. The relationships among the OSTP, the NSTC, and the PCAST vary 

from administration to administration. 

While these coordinating and advisory bodies do exist, they are inadequately staffed, 

funded, and utilized to carry out their significant functions. The current OSTP is not small by 

White House standards, but it will increasingly be unable to keep up with its mandate as science 

and technology issues become more important to the national welfare. The NSTC permanent 

administrative staff is too small to support its committee work, and it has no permanent science 

and technology professional staff at all. The NSTC itself meets relatively rarely and only 

episodically takes on specific subjects of interest; e.g., more fuel-efficient automobiles or 

nanotechnology research. 25

One main reason to improve these organizations, in this Commission’s view, is to enable 

the Executive Branch to strengthen its grip on the R&D process. Three changes are required: 

● The R&D budget has to be rationalized, and in order to do that a much better effort at 

physical and human/intellectual inventory stewardship is required. 

● Those organizations responsible for rationalizing and managing the R&D process 

should more systematically review and redesign, as necessary, the science and 

technology personnel profile of Executive Branch agencies. 

● The R&D budget has to be allocated through a more creative and competitive process 

than is the case today. 

We take these issues in turn. 

he ability of the White House Office for Science and Technology Policy, together 

with OMB and other relevant agencies, to rationalize R&D investment presupposes 

 

25 There is, in addition, a Federally-Funded Research and Development Center mandated by Congress—the 

Critical Technologies Institute located within RAND—that acts as a think-tank for the OSTP. It plays a 

useful role and should be preserved, but it cannot substitute for a more capable OSTP itself. 

T
 34

the ability to identify the best, generative opportunities for the investment of government R&D 

monies. Unfortunately, this is not the case. 

Rationalizing the way that public R&D money is spent must include better accounting of 

both human and physical capital. It is not possible to spend $80 billion wisely each year, let alone 

twice that much, unless we know where research bottlenecks and opportunities exist. There is no 

one place in the U.S. government where such inventory stewardship is performed. Rather, 

elements are dispersed in the National Science Foundation, in the Commerce Department (the 

Patent and Trademark Office, the National Technical Information Service, and the National 

Institute of Standards and Technology), in the Departments of Defense, Energy, Agriculture, 

Health and Human Services, and in parts of the intelligence community. We believe that collating 

and analyzing this information in one place, and using the conclusions of that analysis to inform 

the R&D budget process, is the sine qua non of a more effective public R&D effort. 

Moreover, without such a basic inventory of the nation’s science and technology 

“property,” the United States could lose critical knowledge-based assets to competitors and 

adversaries without ever knowing it, and without understanding the implications of their loss. In 

an age when private, proprietary technology development outpaces publicly-funded R&D, highend science and technology espionage is a growth industry in which both foreign corporations 

and governments participate. The United States therefore needs to take seriously the protection of 

such assets to the extent possible and practical—but it cannot protect what it cannot even 

identify.26

To achieve effective inventory stewardship for science and technology, we recommend 

that OSTP, in conjunction with the National Science Foundation—and with the counsel of the 

National Academies of Science27—design a system for the ongoing basic inventory stewardship of 

the nation’s capital knowledge assets. The job of inventory stewardship could be vouchsafed to 

the National Science Board, the governing body of the National Science Foundation, were it to be 

provided staff for this purpose. 

n addition, this Commission urges a more systematic effort at functional budgeting for 

R&D so that we know how we are spending the public’s money in this area. More 

effective R&D portfolio management for research is needed with emphasis on critical R&D areas 

with high potential long-term benefits. We therefore recommend the following: 

● 9: The President should empower his Science Advisor to establish non-military R&D 

objectives that meet changing national needs, and to be responsible for coordinating 

budget development within the relevant departments and agencies. 

This budget, we believe, should emphasize research over development, and it should aim at largescale experimental projects that can make best use of new synergies between theoretical advances 

and progress in scientific instrumentation. 

 

26 We believe that the creation of a counterintelligence “czar,” announced by the out-going Clinton 

Administration on January 4, 2001, is a step in the right direction for this purpose. But proper inventory 

stewardship is a precondition for such a “czar” to be effective. 27 Founded in 1863 by Abraham Lincoln, the National Academy of Sciences today consists of four parts: 

the National Academy of Science, the National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine, and the 

National Research Council. The NAS advises the government, but it is not a government organization. 

I
 35

We also believe that the President, in tandem with strengthening the White House Office 

of Science and Technology Policy, should raise the profile of its head—the Science Advisor to 

the President. The Science Advisor needs to be empowered as a more significant figure within the 

government, and we believe the budget function we have recommended for him will be 

instrumental for this purpose. 

here is yet another task that a strengthened OSTP should adopt. As things stand 

today, more than two dozen U.S. government agencies have science and technology 

responsibilities, meaning that they have personnel slots for science and engineering professionals 

and budget categories to support what those professionals do. (Of the several thousand such 

personnel in government, some 80 of these slots are for senior scientists and engineers who must 

be appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate.) 

Despite the significant numbers of science and technology (S&T) personnel and their 

obvious criticality, there is no place in the U.S. government where S&T personnel assets as a 

whole are assessed against changing needs. In the past two decades, the Congressional Research 

Service, the General Accounting Office, and the now-defunct Office of Technology Assessment 

have all explored this issue. The Office of Management and Budget, too, has looked regularly at 

individual departments and agencies, but not at the government’s S&T personnel structure as 

such. It appears, then, that no one above the departmental level examines the appropriateness of 

the fit between missions and personnel in this area as a whole. 

Dealing with government S&T personnel issues in a disaggregated manner is no longer 

adequate. It is hard for senior department and agency managers—and for the Office of Personnel 

Management (OPM) or the OMB staff—who are themselves not scientists or engineers, to know 

if they are operating with the right numbers and kinds of science and technology professionals. 

Hence, the Commission recommends that the President, with aid from his Science Advisor 

directing NSF’s National Science Board, should reassess and realign, as necessary, government 

needs for science and technology personnel for the next quarter century. 

Indeed, such a review ought to be made routine. The Science Advisor with the National 

Science Board and OPM, in consultation with the National Academies of Science, should 

periodically reevaluate Executive Branch needs for science and technology personnel. They 

should also suggest means to ensure the recruitment and retention of the highest quality scientists, 

engineers, and technologists for government service—a general subject we have noted above, and 

to which we return below in Section IV in the context of recommendation 42. 

t present, as we have said, the U.S. government spends more than $80 billion each 

year in publicly funded R&D, of which about half is defense related. Much of the 

budgeting, however, still reflects legacies of the Cold War and the Industrial Age. We do not 

suggest that this money is being wasted in any direct sense, but its benefits are not being 

maximized. For example, we believe that defense-related R&D should go back to funding more 

basic research, for in recent years it has tilted too much toward the “D” over the “R” in R&D.28 

 

28 Research accounts for approximately ten percent of DoD’s $38 billion R&D budget for fiscal year 2001. 

See AAAS Report XXV, Research and Development FY 2001, p. 71. 

T

A
 36

More important, we could derive more benefit from our investment in non-defense R&D 

if the context for it were a more competitive one. The Commission holds competition to be an 

important ingredient for the creative use of new ideas. Though we believe centralization of 

budget development is unnecessary, tailoring the various R&D budgets to meet overall national 

objectives would be beneficial. Different organizations address different needs and bring different 

perspectives, as do those working in different scientific disciplines. We therefore recommend 

that the President’s Science Advisor, beyond his proposed budget coordination role, should 

lead an effort to revise government R&D practices and budget allocations to make the process 

more competitive. 

One barrier to a more competitive, opportunity-based environment for R&D is 

institutional inertia. The current structure of public R&D funding is partly a result of inherited 

arrangements. We do not suggest disrupting important relationships between particular 

government agencies and, say, the Lincoln Laboratory at M.I.T., for the turbulence created would 

not be worth the advantages. But if innovation is to be encouraged, we need greater competition 

for government R&D funds. Hence, we propose that the government foster a “creative market” 

for a greater number of research institutions to bid on government research funds. 

To create a more competitive market means narrowing the gap between the two tiers of 

research institutions that currently exist: the relatively small number of high-prestige major 

schools with ample endowments, and the larger number of less capable institutions. There are 

several ways to do this. One is through direct federal investment in or subsidization of second-tier 

institutions. Another is to encourage second-tier institutions to concentrate effort on new fields of 

inquiry in which older, more established institutions do not have comparative advantages. We see 

no reason, as well, to prevent amateurs from competing, because the history of science and 

technology is laden with the genius of the professionally uninitiated. 

In addition, we recommend that a strengthened and more active National Science and 

Technology Council preside over an on-going effort to multiply creative, targeted R&D 

programs within government. The Council’s enlarged professional staff should identify areas of 

priority research that the private sector is unlikely to pursue, and challenge those government 

agencies with R&D capabilities to form coalitions to bid on R&D monies set aside for such 

purposes. To meet such challenges, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the 

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency might combine talents, in league with their 

associates outside of government, to bid against a Department of Energy-NSF team. The national 

laboratory system should also be involved in such competitions—a topic to which we now turn. 

he U.S. national laboratory system is badly in need of redefinition and new 

investment. The national laboratories, though vestiges of the Cold War, remain a 

national R&D treasure. Unfortunately, they are a treasure in danger of being squandered. 

Without any compelling force analogous to that of the Cold War to drive government 

funding and the direction of R&D, the labs have been left to drift. Nuclear research has given way 

mostly to maintenance of the nation’s nuclear arsenal and efforts to dismantle nuclear weapons 

and manage their radioactive wastes. But however important, these are tasks that a single major 

laboratory can handle. Many of the other large and small laboratories within the system no longer 

have the sense of purpose and shared vision that drove the tremendous scientific 

accomplishments that advanced national security during the Cold War. 

T
 37

Compounding the labs’ identity problem is the fact that the highest rewards and most 

interesting scientific and technical work now take place in the private sector. The Commission 

found broad consensus that the labs are no longer competitive in attracting and keeping new 

scientific talent. The physical circumstances in which lab professionals work have also 

deteriorated, in many instances, to unacceptable levels.29 The security breaches and the 

subsequent series of investigations in recent years have produced a serious morale problem—and 

made recruitment and retention problems even more acute. If this cycle is not broken, our 

national advantage in S&T will suffer further. 

The labs remain critical in fulfilling America’s S&T national security needs and in 

addressing S&T issues pertinent to the public good. Each major laboratory needs a clearly 

defined mission area. The smaller labs, among the several hundred that exist, need to be better 

connected to one another so that their staffs share a sense of common purpose; in some cases, 

smaller labs may benefit from consolidation. The Commission therefore recommends the 

following: 

● 10: The President should propose, and the Congress should fund, the reorganization of 

the national laboratories, providing individual laboratories with new mission goals 

that minimize overlap.

The President’s Science Advisor, aided and advised by the OSTP, the NSTC, the 

PCAST, and the National Academy of Science, should lead this effort. For example, one lab 

could focus on nuclear weapons maintenance, while others could specialize in such fields as 

energy and environmental research, biotechnology, and nanotechnology. Whatever goals are 

determined, more resources are clearly needed to ensure that the national laboratories remain 

world class research institutions, with facilities, resources, and salaries to fulfill their missions. 

inally, the potential for good and ill stemming from many of the recent developments 

in the scientific and technical domain is at least as great, if not greater, than that of 

atomic energy in 1945-46. As this Commission stressed in its Phase I report, new scientific 

discovery and innovation in information technologies, nanotechnology, and biotechnologies will 

have a major impact on social, economic, and political life in the United States and elsewhere. 

It is not in the public or the national interest to allow these impacts to be determined 

exclusively by the private sector. The United States prides itself on having a system of 

government that does not smother or try to shape the social or moral life of the nation. But we 

have always granted government a role in managing science and technology under special or 

extreme circumstances—as for example in the creation of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission 

after World War II. As was the case then, a public-trust institution is needed to gather knowledge 

and to develop informed judgment as the basis for public policy. We especially need a permanent 

framework that brings public sector, private sector, and higher education together to examine the 

implications of today’s technological revolution. 

Now as then, there is a pointed national security dimension to this requirement. As was 

the case in the late 1940s, if the United States does not maintain leadership in this area, the 

country will forefeit its ability to protect itself from those countries that do. 

 

29 About 43 percent of the labs’ physical facilities is more than forty years old, and 73 percent is more than 

twenty years old. 

F
 38

At present, there is a National Bioethics Advisory Commission to study the moral 

implications of bioscience. This commission is composed of distinguished and committed 

members. But the composition of that commission is narrow, consisting only of bioethicists. It 

meets only episodically, operates on a small budget, has no permanent professional staff aside 

from its executive director, works on a limited mandate, and is soon scheduled to go out of 

existence. In practice, this commission cannot influence or communicate as an equal with the 

National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Agriculture, 

or other government bodies that play major roles in monitoring and regulating the products of 

bioscience. Nor can it spend time anticipating issues when its meetings and reports are consumed 

almost entirely with responding to concerns that have already been raised. In short, the vehicle we 

now have to deal with the social, ethical, and public safety dimensions of biotechnology is 

inadequate for the task. 

We need an institution that provides a forum for the articulation of all responsible 

interests in the implications of new biotechnology and other new technologies. Without such a 

forum, it is doubtful whether public confidence in the progression of bioscience can be sustained 

amid all the controversies it will surely provoke over the next 25 years. We need a place where 

government officials, scholars, theologians, and corporate executives can meet regularly to 

discuss issues of concern. We need an institution that can deal effectively with the other 

governmental agencies regularly involved in these issues; otherwise its findings will remain 

peripheral to the actual processes of decision. We therefore recommend that Congress transform 

the current National Bioethics Advisory Commission into a much strengthened National 

Advisory Commission on Bioscience (NACB). 

The NACB should focus on the intersection of bioscience with information science and 

nanotechnology for, as we have said, it is this intersection that will form the pivot of major 

transformation. Such change will affect a wide range of public policy issues, including health, 

social security, privacy, and education. Nor should the NACB’s mandate be limited to ethical 

questions. It should concern itself, as well, with the social and public safety implications of 

bioscience. 

For now, we envision no regulatory authority for such a strengthened commission such as 

that possessed by the Atomic Energy Commission. However, should the Executive and 

Legislative Branches together come to believe that an institution along such lines is needed for 

biotechnology, this strengthened commission could serve as a basis for it. 

B. EDUCATION AS A NATIONAL SECURITY IMPERATIVE

he capacity of America’s educational system to create a 21st century workforce 

second to none in the world is a national security issue of the first order. As things 

stand, this country is forfeiting that capacity. The facts are stark: 

● The American educational system needs to produce significantly more scientists and 

engineers, including four times the current number of computer scientists, to meet 

anticipated demand.

30

 

30 National Commission on Mathematics and Science Teaching for the 21st Century, Before It’s Too Late

(Washington, DC: September 27, 2000), p. 12. 

T
 39

● To do this, more than 240,000 new and qualified science and mathematics teachers are 

needed in our K-12 classrooms over the next decade (out of a total need for an estimated 

2.2 million new teachers).31

● However, some 34 percent of public school mathematics teachers and nearly forty 

percent of science teachers lack even an academic minor in their primary teaching 

fields.32

● In 1997, Asia alone accounted for more than 43 percent of all science and engineering 

degrees granted worldwide, Europe 34 percent, and North America 23 percent. In that 

same year, China produced 148,800 engineers, the United States only 63,000.33

Education is the foundation of America’s future. Quality education in the humanities and 

social sciences is essential in a world made increasingly “smaller” by advances in communication 

and in global commerce. But education in science, mathematics, and engineering has special 

relevance for the future of U.S. national security, for America’s ability to lead depends 

particularly on the depth and breadth of its scientific and technical communities. 

At the base of American national security, clearly, is the strength of the American 

economy. High-quality preparation of Americans for the working world is more important than 

ever. The technology-driven economy will add twenty million jobs in the next decade, many of 

them requiring significant technical expertise. The United States will need sharply growing 

numbers of competent knowledge workers, many of them in information sciences, an area in 

which there are already significant shortages.34 But it is misleading to equate “information 

science” with “science” itself. It was basic science and engineering excellence that brought about 

the information revolution in the first place and, over the next quarter century, the interplay of 

bioscience, nanotechnology, and information science will combine to reshape most existing 

technologies. The health of the U.S. economy, therefore, will depend not only on professionals 

that can produce and direct innovation in a few key areas, but also on a populace that can 

effectively assimilate a wide range of new tools and technologies. This is critical not just for the 

U.S. economy in general, but specifically for the defense industry, which must simultaneously 

develop and defend against these same technologies. 

he American educational system does not appear to be ready for such challenges and 

is confronted by two distinct yet inter-related problems. First, there will not be 

enough qualified American citizens to perform the new jobs being created today—including 

technical jobs crucial to the maintenance of national security. Already the United States must 

search abroad for experts and technicians to fill positions in the U.S. domestic economy, and 

Congress has often increased category limits for special visas (H-1B) for that purpose. If current 

trends are not stanched and reversed, large numbers of specialized foreign technicians in critical 

positions in the U.S. economy could pose security risks. More important, however, while the 

United States should take pride in educating, hosting, and benefiting from foreign scientific and 

 

31 Ibid., p. 21. 32 U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 1993-1994 Schools and Staffing 

Survey (Teacher Questionnaire) (Washington, DC: 1997), p. 26. 33 National Science Board, Science and Engineering Indicators—1998 (Arlington, VA: National Science 

Foundation, 1998), p. A-36. 

34 We discuss these shortages and their implications for government below in Section IV. 

T
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technical expertise, it should take even more pride in being able to educate American citizens to 

operate their own economy at its highest level of technical and intellectual capacity. 

Our ability to meet these needs is threatened by a second problem—that we do not now 

have, and will not have with current trends, nearly enough qualified teachers in our K-12 

classrooms, particularly in science and mathematics. The United States will need roughly 2.2 

million new teachers within the next decade.35 A continued shortage in the quantity and quality of 

teachers in science and math means that we will increasingly fail to produce sufficient numbers 

of high-caliber American students to advance to college and post-graduate levels in these areas. 

Therefore we will lack not only the homegrown science, technology, and engineering 

professionals necessary to ensure national prosperity and security, but also the next generation of 

teachers of science and math at the K-12 level. 

A chronic shortage of teachers presages severe consequences in all fields, but is 

especially hurtful in science. Too few teachers means teaching loads and class sizes that exceed 

optimum levels. Having too many classes and too many students invariably translates into 

insufficient time to prepare, which is a critical variable in effective teaching—especially so in 

hands-on science classrooms. It also means the necessity to press into service teachers who are 

not adequately prepared for classroom rigors. 

The broad effect of the shortages in science and math teachers, and of other deficits in 

curricula and method, is already evident. Mathematics and science exam scores for U.S. students 

have been rising, but not fast enough to keep up with a large number of other countries. The lag is 

particularly significant for the nation’s high school students. Americans have performed relatively 

well in both mathematics and science at the 4th grade level, and slightly above the international 

average at the 8th grade level, but show a sharp relative decline in the high school years.36 The 

most recent test shows a relative decline at the 8th grade level as well.37 This, as former Secretary 

of Education William Bennett has pointed out, creates the impression that the longer students 

remain in the American education system, the poorer their relative performance becomes. 

Another major concern is that not all American citizens have the benefits of an adequate 

education. Wide economic disparity persists among K-12 public school districts. Fully 34 percent 

of the total public school student population (seventeen million children) is being educated in 

economically-depressed school districts that face the greatest shortages of teachers. Many 

teachers in these districts are not qualified by a degree in the field they teach, and many lack 

teaching certification as well. The disparity in the availability of qualified science and math 

teachers between regular and economically-depressed school districts is particularly alarming. 

 

35 This is because the majority of public school teachers are currently in their forties, with the normal 

retirement age being around 65 years old. U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education 

Statistics, “Schools and Staffing Survey.” 

36 In 1995, the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) ranked the performance of 

American 12th graders in general mathematics and science knowledge among the lowest of all participating 

countries. Americans placed 19th out of 21 in general mathematics and 17th out of 21 in general science. In 

advanced mathematics and physics knowledge, American 12th graders placed 15th out of 16 in mathematics 

and dead last in physics. In all content areas of physics and advanced mathematics, the American students’ 

performance was among the lowest of all the nations participating in the TIMSS. Some observers question 

the utility of these tests on the grounds that in many other countries only the brightest students take the test 

because children are separated into vocational and college tracks at an early age. Most believe, however, 

that the test results are instructive of general trends. 

37 See Diana Jean Schemo, “Students in U.S. Do Not Keep Up in Global Tests,” The New York Times, 

December 6, 2000, pp. A1, A18. 
 41

n short, our problems in this area are becoming cumulative. The nation is on the verge 

of a downward spiral in which current shortages will beget even more acute future 

shortages of high-quality professionals and competent teachers. The word “crisis” is much 

overused, but it is entirely appropriate here. If the United States does not stop and reverse 

negative educational trends—the general teacher shortage, and the downward spiral in science 

and math education and performance—it will be unable to maintain its position of global 

leadership over the next quarter century. 

Resolving these cumulative problems will require a multi-faceted set of solutions. 

Educational incentive programs are needed to encourage students to pursue careers in science and 

technology, and particularly as K-12 teachers in these fields. Yet such incentives alone will not be 

adequate to avert the looming teacher shortage. Therefore, a set of additional actions must be 

taken to restore the professional status of educators and to entice those with science and math 

backgrounds into teaching. Only by addressing the systemic need to increase the number of 

science and math teachers will we ensure the supply of qualified science and technology 

professionals throughout our economy and in our national security institutions, both 

governmental and military. 

As a major first step, we therefore recommend the following: 

● 11: The President should propose, and Congress should pass, a National Security Science 

and Technology Education Act (NSSTEA) with four sections: reduced-interest loans 

and scholarships for students to pursue degrees in science, mathematics, and 

engineering; loan forgiveness and scholarships for those in these fields entering 

government or military service; a National Security Teaching Program to foster 

science and math teaching at the K-12 level; and increased funding for professional 

development for science and math teachers. 

Section one of the National Security Science and Technology Education Act should 

provide incentives for students at all levels—high school, undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate—to pursue degrees in the fields of science, mathematics, and engineering. 

 

Section two should provide substantial incentives to bring talented scientists, 

mathematicians, and engineers into government service—both civil and military. [The social 

science complement to this section is discussed in recommendation 39.] 

 

Section three should address the need to recruit quality science and math teachers at the 

K-12 level. To accomplish this goal, Congress should create a National Security Teaching 

Program through which graduates and experienced professionals in the fields of science, math, 

and engineering will commit to teach in America’s public schools for three to five years. In 

return, NSTP Fellows will receive fellowships to an accredited education certification program, a 

loan repayment or cancellation option, and a signing bonus to supplement entry-level salaries. A 

national roster of districts in need of qualified teachers should be compiled and matched with the 

roster of NSTP Fellows. 

The National Security Teaching Program will place teachers in the classroom who have 

both a teaching certification and a degree in their field. It will also encourage experienced 

professionals to teach, bringing deep subject matter expertise and a wealth of experience into 

I
 42

America’s classrooms.38 These lateral entrants might be Ph.Ds who have not found other suitable 

professional niches and “young” retired people, such as those who leave the military in their 

forties and fifties.39 Enabling this latter group to teach will also require further changes in tax 

laws so that those receiving retirement and pension benefits are not penalized unduly for taking 

on a second educational career.

Section four must emphasize professional development focused on the needs of science 

and mathematics teachers. On-going professional development for science teachers is particularly 

important, as they must prepare their students to contend with the rapidly evolving pace of 

scientific innovation and discovery. The Eisenhower Program run by the Department of 

Education to meet the professional development needs of science and math teachers is a good 

example of a program that works.40 It should be expanded and resourced accordingly. 

Professional development that involves a substantial number of contact hours over a long 

period has a stronger impact on teaching practice than professional development of limited 

duration. Today, however, more than half of all science teachers in the United States report 

receiving no more than two days of professional development per year.41 For this reason, we 

believe the emphasis of the National Commission on Mathematics and Science Teaching for the 

21st Century (the Glenn Commission) on continuing professional education is right on the mark. 

The Glenn Commission emphasized Summer Institutes as well as Inquiry Groups and distance 

learning through a dedicated Internet portal for on-going professional education.42

Congress should also establish and fund a National Math & Science Project to provide 

additional support for continuing professional development. Such a program can be modeled 

after the National Writing Project, an outstanding example of university/district collaboration. Its 

goal has been to improve student writing and learning in K-12 and university classrooms by 

providing schools, colleges, and universities with an effective professional development model.

The National Writing Project also suggests itself as a model because it has been both costeffective and has focused significant resources on traditionally-neglected impoverished areas.43

All fifty states should also fund professional enrichment sabbaticals of various durations 

for science teachers, and should do so wherever possible in concert with local universities, 

science museums, and other research institutions. The federal government should strongly 

 

38 The National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council, through its Center for Science, 

Mathematics, and Engineering Education, has completed the Defense Reinvestment Initiative (DRI) funded 

by the Department of Defense. The program worked with the Los Angeles Unified School District to build 

a model for the transition of professional scientists, mathematicians, and engineers from military duty, 

defense-related and aerospace industries, and national laboratories into careers teaching secondary school 

science and mathematics. See the Final Report to the U.S. Department of Defense on the Defense 

Reinvestment Initiative, Defense Reinvestment Initiative Advisory Board, National Research Council, 

1999. http://www.nap.edu. 39 As recommended by the National Academy of Science in Attracting Science and Mathematics Ph.Ds to 

Secondary School Education (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 2000). 40 The Eisenhower Professional Development Program (Title II of the Elementary and Secondary 

Education Act, as amended by the Improving America’s Schools Act of 1994) focuses on the professional 

development of mathematics and science teachers. See U.S. Department of Education, Office of the Under 

Secretary, Planning and Evaluation Service, Designing Effective Professional Development: Lessons from 

the Eisenhower Program, Executive Summary (Washington, DC: 1999). 41 “ETS Report Discusses Teacher Quality,” NSTA Reports, Dec. 2000-Jan. 2001, p. 11. 42 Before It’s Too Late, pp. 19, 26-30. 43 National Writing Project, 1999 Annual Report. 
 43

encourage and support the states in such endeavors. A more widespread sabbatical system for 

science educators would also improve liaison between secondary school teachers of science and 

math and university faculties adept in such subjects. Some metropolitan areas in the United States 

have developed excellent working relationships between high school teachers and both university 

and science museum faculties, and we encourage Education Department officials to carefully 

study and model these success stories. 

We recognize that the widespread institution of enrichment sabbaticals for science 

teachers would be expensive, for it would require a personnel “float” to compensate for teachers 

who are on sabbatical. But this should be a long-term goal for science educators in at least grades 

7-12, which should come to resemble professional standards at universities to the extent possible. 

hile the National Security Science and Technology Education Act would provide 

educational benefits and ongoing professional development opportunities for those 

who choose to teach, a range of additional actions are needed to improve both teacher recruitment 

and retention and the overall strength of school districts. 

The anticipated shortage of quality teachers is a challenge, but it also offers tremendous 

opportunity. As we renew our pool of teachers, we can produce and train the best teachers with 

the best curricula, the best texts, and the best teaching methods. It is clear, too, that if the general 

national teacher shortage problem is not addressed, efforts to address deficiencies in the science 

and mathematics arena will not be met either. One cannot significantly improve the quality of 

science and math education without improving education in general. After all, science and math 

are taught in the same buildings, working under the same systems and budgets, and in the same 

general environment as that in which all other subjects are taught. That is why ensuring a superior 

scientific and technical community, one that satisfies both national economic and security needs, 

must start with reforming the educational system as a whole. 

In this light, the Commission recognizes the need to take immediate steps, beyond the 

National Security Teaching Program, to attract much greater numbers of qualified graduates into 

the teaching profession, and to raise the quality of professional achievement across the board. We 

therefore recommend: 

● 12: The President should direct the Department of Education to work with the states to 

devise a comprehensive plan to avert a looming shortage of quality teachers. This 

plan should emphasize raising teacher compensation, improving infrastructure 

support, reforming the certification process, and expanding existing programs 

targeted at districts with especially acute problems. 

First, we must raise salaries for teachers, science and mathematics teachers in particular, 

to or near commercial levels.44 As long as sharp salary inequities exist between what science and 

math teachers are paid and what equivalently-educated professionals make in the private sector, 

the nation’s schools will lack the best qualified teachers in science and mathematics. Given the 

exigencies of the market, we see no reason why science and math teachers should not earn more 

than other teachers even in the same school system. 

 

44 In lieu of or in addition to raising salaries, which may be restricted in some places by issues of interjurisdictional equity and union complications, signing bonuses can be used to attract people to teaching.

W
 44

While increased funding from the federal and state governments is needed to achieve this, 

public-private and community-wide partnerships that link universities and businesses with local 

school districts could help fulfill both faculty and student needs through endowments and other 

programs.45 Endowments are a proven means for enhancing professional competitiveness. 

Beyond their contribution to funding higher teacher salaries, they involve corporate and private 

philanthropy more effectively in improving American education. K-12 education should develop 

a resource base similar to that of higher education with which to meet educational needs. The 

federal government—through the Department of Education, the National Science Foundation, and 

the National Research Council—can also help by standing ready to provide supplementary or 

matching funds for communities that take bold local initiatives to recruit and retain quality 

teachers. National, state, and local leaders should encourage corporate and private philanthropists 

to match disbursed endowment money, and Congress should work to ensure enhanced corporate 

tax benefits for monies provided for NSSTEA science/math education purposes of all sorts. 

Endowment and other partnership programs could be used in several important ways, in 

addition to raising teacher salaries. They can provide the up-to-date laboratory facilities that are 

essential to effective discovery-based learning, and that are usually more expensive than most 

local school districts choose to bear. Without investment by the federal government and through 

these partnership programs in the modernization of high school laboratory facilities, even the 

highest quality science teachers will be unable to maximize their talents. Funds could also be used 

to develop innovative uses for technology such as up-to-date modular texts in science that can be 

conveyed nationwide through the Internet. 

Finally, these programs can provide student incentives to choose science and math 

careers. This may be through summer co-op programs—somewhat analogous to co-op programs 

on the university level—where students take summer jobs or internships related to their interests 

at companies and foundations that help endow the schools. Alternatively endowments might be 

used to pay students at the high school level for taking courses in science and math beyond 

minimal requirements. Some believe that it is foolish to let students work at fast food chains, for 

example, when they could be induced for similar rewards to study physics and calculus. In lieu 

of, or in addition to, direct payment, students may be offered scholarship money to be set aside 

for university tuition. 

Second, we must improve infrastructure support. Other knowledge-workers in the 

general economy are the beneficiaries, on average, of ten times the basic infrastructure 

investment than that afforded to teachers. This is a national disgrace. Beyond the laboratory 

facilities already mentioned, administrative support and resources are needed to ensure a 

disciplined and safe environment, and to provide such seemingly basic services as desk space, 

telephones, and copying facilities. This will not only help provide a better educational 

environment but, along with salary increases, will also help restore full professional status to the 

teaching profession. This will go a long way toward attracting and retaining high-quality teachers. 

 

45 We note the successful example of the Long Beach Unified School District. Over the past five years, it 

has partnered with California State University Long Beach (CSULB), and Long Beach City College, in 

collaboration with additional local, regional, and national partners, to developed a seamless (preK-18) 

approach that has aligned content standards, learning methodology, and assessment from pre-school 

through the masters level. The aim is to ensure coherent exit and entry expectations among the three 

institutions. They have collaborated to address curriculum, preparation, and professional development 

issues as well. 
 45

Third, we must create more flexible certification procedures to attract lateral entrants into 

education. We have already discussed the benefits of encouraging experienced professionals to 

become K-12 educators and certification procedures should reflect these benefits. In general they 

should be changed to emphasize teacher mastery of substance over matters of pedagogy at least at 

the grade 7-12 level. 

Fourth, we should supplement these measures by expanding existing specially-targeted 

federal programs for geographical and socio-economic zones with especially acute problems. 

Through the National Security Teaching Program, we should strengthen federal loan repayment 

and cancellation options for recent college graduates engaged in these programs and increase 

their salary and housing benefits. Supplementary teacher training and certification programs 

should be provided, as well, in exchange for an additional commitment to teaching in selected 

public school systems. At the same time, we recommend the following: 

● 13: The President and Congress should devise a targeted program to strengthen the 

historically black colleges and universities in our country, and should particularly 

support those that emphasize science, mathematics, and engineering. 

Clearly, serious educational improvement will cost money. It will also require changes in 

attitudes toward education professionals. But if the American people want quality education and a 

truly professional environment in schools that is conducive to educational success, they will have 

to demand it, pay for it, and show greater respect to those professionals who deliver it. 

We believe, however, that while more money for is a necessary condition for major 

improvement in the education system, it is not a sufficient condition. Despite significant 

investments in special programs, much professional attention, and significant expenditure of 

resources, many results of the educational system are still disappointing. New and creative 

approaches are needed, including approaches that harness the power of competition. As 

important, local communities must be empowered and involved more fully in education, for 

nothing tracks more directly with high student performance as parental involvement in their 

children’s education. 

n addition to the previous recommendations, this Commission believes that core 

secondary school curricula should be heavier in science and mathematics, and should 

require higher levels of proficiency for all high school students. Many specialists believe that 

tracking math and science students sometimes leads to a sharp deterioration of expectations, and 

hence discipline, in the lower tracks. According to nearly all professional evaluations, such a 

deterioration of expectations is lethal to the attitudes necessary to make the classroom experience 

work.46 Given the exigencies of advanced 21st century economies, it is not good enough that we 

produce a sufficient elite corps of science, math, and engineering professionals. We must raise 

levels of math, science, and technology literacy throughout our society. Among other things, that 

means changing enduring perceptions that taking four years of science and math in high school is 

only for the “brainy” elite. This is a perception that, ultimately, could cause an economic disaster 

in this country. 

 

46 “New Study Examines Why Minnesota Eighth Graders Scored High in TIMMS,” NSTA Reports, Dec. 

2000-Jan. 2001, p. 23. 

I
 46

Finally in this regard, as with nearly every other commission and professional study that 

has looked at this problem, we favor more rigorous achievement goals for both American 

teachers and students in science and math, and we favor making both accountable for 

improvements. We also believe that science curricula, in particular, must be better designed to 

teach science for what it is: a way of thinking and not just a body of facts. In our judgment, too 

much high school science curricula is still distorted by inappropriate evaluation methods. If 

testing and evaluation methods for science education better reflect the reality of science as a 

discovery-based rather than as a fact-based activity, it would be easier to reform curricula in an 

appropriate fashion as well. 

ne related matter must be addressed. As noted earlier, increasing numbers of the 

qualified engineers and scientists educated in the United States are coming from 

outside U.S. borders. Far from being negative, the cycle of their coming and going to and from 

the United States helps sustains U.S. needs. However, should they stop coming, or further 

accelerate their return home, the American population alone may not be able to sustain the needs 

of the U.S. economy over the next decade. 

Fully 37 percent of doctorates in natural science, 50 percent of doctorates in mathematics 

and computer science, and 53 percent of doctorates in engineering at U.S. universities—the best 

in the world—are awarded to non-U.S. citizens.47 However, the percentage of science and 

engineering doctoral recipients with firm plans to stay in the United States is declining.48 The 

growing emphasis on science and technology in many foreign countries is enticing many U.Strained foreign students to return to their countries of origin, or to go to other parts of the world. 

They are doing so in increasing numbers. 

Given the uncertainty as to whether U.S. nationals alone can fill U.S. economic needs, 

Congress should adjust the appropriate immigration legislation to make it easier for those nonU.S. citizens with critical educational and professional competencies to remain in the United 

States, and to become American citizens should they so desire. The White House Office of 

Science and Technology Policy, along with the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the 

appropriate Congressional committees, is the proper place to design such adjustments. 

e believe strongly that America’s future depends upon the ability of its educational 

system to produce students who constantly challenge current levels of innovation 

and push the limits of technology and discovery. They are the seed corn of our future. Presidential 

leadership will be critical in addressing the initiatives in education addressed by this Commission. 

That is why the Commission is heartened to learn that the new administration has declared 

education to be its first priority. It is the right choice.

 

47 National Science Board, Science & Engineering Indicators 2000, National Science Foundation, 2000 

(NSB-00-1). 

48 Ibid. According to the best estimates available, the numbers are 47.9 percent for China, 27.5 percent for 

Taiwan, 22.6 percent for Korea, 54.7 percent for India, 52.6 percent for the United Kingdom, and 40.5 

percent for Germany. 

O

W
 47

III. Institutional Redesign 

eyond the pressing matter of organizing homeland security, and of recapitalizing core 

U.S. domestic strengths in science and education, this Commissions recommends 

significant organizational redesign for the Executive Branch. This redesign has been conceived 

with one overriding purpose in mind: to permit the U.S. government to integrate more effectively 

the many diverse strands of policy that underpin U.S. national security in a new era—not only the 

traditional agenda of defense, diplomacy, and intelligence, but also economics, counter-terrorism, 

combating organized crime, protecting the environment, fighting pandemic diseases, and 

promoting human rights worldwide. 

The key component of any Executive Branch organizational design is the President. As 

one of only two elected members of the Executive Branch, the President is responsible for 

ensuring that U.S. strategies are designed to seize opportunities and not just to respond to crises. 

He must find ways to obtain significantly more resources for foreign affairs, and in particular 

those resources needed for anticipating threats and preventing the emergence of dangers. Without 

a major increase in resources, the United States will not be able to conduct its national security 

policies effectively in the 21st century. 

To that end, the nation must redesign not just individual departments and agencies but its 

national security apparatus as a whole. Serious deficiencies exist that cannot be solved by a 

piecemeal approach. 

● Most critically, no overarching strategic framework guides U.S. national security 

policymaking or resource allocation. Budgets are still prepared and appropriated as they 

were during the Cold War. 

● The power to determine national security policy has migrated toward the National 

Security Council (NSC) staff. The staff now assumes policymaking and operational roles, 

with the result that its ability to act as an honest broker and policy coordinator has 

suffered. 

● Difficulties persist in ensuring that international political and security perspectives are 

considered in the making of global economic policy, and that economic goals are given 

proper attention in national security policymaking. 

● The Department of State is a crippled institution that is starved for resources by 

Congress because of its inadequacies and is thereby weakened further. The department 

suffers in particular from an ineffective organizational structure in which regional and 

functional goals compete, and in which sound management, accountability, and 

leadership are lacking. 

● America’s overseas presence has not been adjusted to the new economic, social, 

political, and security realities of the 21st century. The broad statutory authority of U.S. 

Ambassadors is undermined in practice by their lack of control over resources and 

personnel. 

● The Department of Defense has serious organizational deficiencies. The growth in staff 

and staff activities creates confusion and delay. The failure to outsource or privatize 

many defense support activities wastes huge sums of money. The programming and 

B
 48

budgeting process is not guided by effective strategic planning. The weapons acquisition 

process is so hobbled by excessive laws, regulations, and oversight strictures that it can 

neither recognize nor seize opportunities for major innovation, and it stifles a defense 

industry already in financial crisis. Finally, the force structure development process is not 

currently aligned with the needs of today’s global security environment. 

● National security policymaking does not manage space policy in a serious and 

integrated way. 

● The U.S. intelligence community is adjusting only slowly to the changed circumstances 

of the post-Cold War era. While the economic and political components of statecraft have 

assumed greater prominence, military imperatives still largely drive the collection and 

analysis of intelligence. 

We offer recommendations in several areas: strategic planning and budgeting; the 

National Security Council; the Department of State; the Department of Defense; space policy; 

and the intelligence community. We take these areas in turn. 

A. STRATEGIC PLANNING AND BUDGETING

trategic planning is largely absent within the U.S. government. The planning that does 

occur is ad hoc and specific to Executive departments and agencies. No overarching 

strategic framework guides U.S. national security policy or the allocation of resources. 

Each national security department and agency currently prepares its own budget. No 

effort is made to define an overall national security budget or to show how the allocation of 

resources in the individual budgets serves the nation’s overall national security goals. The Office 

of Management and Budget (OMB) does on occasion consider tradeoffs in the allocation of 

resources among the various national security departments and agencies, but this is not done 

systematically. Nor are department budgets presented in a way that Congress can make these 

tradeoffs as it fulfills its responsibilities in the budgeting process. 

There is an increasing awareness of this deficiency throughout the national security 

community but, so far, only very preliminary steps have been taken to produce crosscutting 

budgets. These preliminary steps have been limited to special transnational issues such as 

counter-terrorism. At present, therefore, neither the Congress nor the American people can assess 

the relative value of various national security programs over the full range of Executive Branch 

activities in this area. 

To remedy these problems, the Commission’s initial recommendation is that strategy 

should once again drive the design and implementation of U.S. national security policies: 

● 14: The President should personally guide a top-down strategic planning process and 

delegate authority to the National Security Advisor to coordinate that process. 

Such a top-down process is critical to designing a coherent and effective U.S. national 

security policy. In carrying out his strategic planning responsibilities on the President’s behalf, 

the National Security Advisor must enlist the active participation of the members and advisors of 

the National Security Council. This group should translate the President’s overall vision into a set 

S
 49

of strategic goals and priorities, and then provide specific guidance on the most important 

national security policies. Their product would become the basis for the writing of the annual, 

legislatively-mandated U.S. National Security Strategy. 

Carrying out this guidance would rest with the senior-level deputies in the departments 

and agencies, facilitated by the NSC staff. They would be specifically responsible for designing 

preventive strategies, overseeing how the departments carry forward the President’s strategic 

goals, and reviewing contingency planning for critical military and humanitarian operations. 

The Commission believes that overall strategic goals and priorities should also guide the 

allocation of national security resources, and therefore recommends the following: 

● 15: The President should prepare and present to the Congress an overall national security 

budget to serve the critical goals that emerge from the NSC strategic planning 

process. Separately, the President should continue to submit budgets for the 

individual national security departments and agencies for Congressional review and 

appropriation. 

The OMB, with the support of the NSC staff, should undertake the task of formulating 

this national security budget. Initially, it should focus on a few of the nation’s most critical 

strategic goals, involving only some programs in the departmental budgets. Over time, however, 

it could evolve into a more comprehensive document. Homeland security, counter-terrorism, 

nonproliferation, nuclear threat reduction, and science and technology should be included in the 

initial national security budget. This process should also serve as a basis for defining the funds to 

be allocated for preventive strategies. 

Such goal-oriented budgets would help both the administration and Congress identify the 

total level of government effort as well as its composition. Gaps and duplication could be more 

readily identified. Such budgets would also enable the Congress to prioritize the most critical 

national security goals when they appropriate funds to departments and agencies. 

To modernize the nation’s strategic planning and budgeting process, greater coordination 

and connectivity is required among all executive departments and agencies. For this purpose, the 

President should call for the creation of a national security affairs network analogous to the 

Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNET) of the Department of Defense.

The President would be able to implement these recommendations on his own authority 

as they involve White House staff activities. As far as the budgetary implications go, this reform 

would not cost money but, by rationalizing the strategy and budgeting process, go far toward 

assuring that money is spent more efficiently and wisely. 

B. THE NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL

n exercising his Constitutional power, the President’s personal style and managerial 

preferences will be critical in how he relates to his Cabinet secretaries and in how he 

structures his White House staff. But the organization and the characteristics of the national 

security apparatus will importantly affect the policies that emerge. 

I
 50

The National Security Council was created as part of the 1947 National Security Act to 

advise the President on the integration of domestic, foreign, and military policies, and to help 

coordinate the activities of the national security departments and agencies. Its statutory members 

currently include the Vice President, the Secretary of State, and the Secretary of Defense. The 

Director of Central Intelligence and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are statutory 

advisers. The NSC staff authorized by the 1947 Act has evolved over time into a major 

instrument of Presidential governance, wielded by the Assistant to the President for National 

Security Affairs (the National Security Advisor or NSC Advisor), not specified in any statute, 

who has become increasingly powerful. 

Obviously, this evolution has been affected by the degree of Presidential involvement in 

foreign and national security policy as well as by their various personalities and leadership styles. 

Over the past decade, Presidents have increasingly centralized power with the NSC staff for the 

making and execution of national security policy. In many ways, the NSC staff has become more 

like a government agency than a Presidential staff. It has its own views and perspectives on the 

myriad of national security issues confronting the government. It has its own press, legislative, 

communication, and speechmaking “shops” to enable it to conduct ongoing relations with the 

media, Congress, the American public, and foreign governments. Aside from staffing the 

President, the NSC staff’s primary focus has become the day-to-day management of the nation’s 

foreign and national security policy. 

Why has this centralization of power occurred? First, with the end of the Cold War, 

national security issues now involve even more policy dimensions—financial and trade issues, 

environmental issues, international legal issues, for example—and each dimension has 

proponents within the Executive Branch. It has become harder, therefore, to assign any one 

department as the leading actor for a given policy area. The traditional dividing lines between 

foreign and domestic policy have also blurred further. Of all the players, only the NSC staff, in 

the name of the President, is in a position to coordinate these disparate interests effectively. 

Second, foreign policy is also now very politicized. Few, if any, issues are easily 

separated from domestic political debate: not military intervention, not diplomatic relations, and 

certainly not trade and economic interactions with the outside world. Political oversight of these 

policies naturally falls to the White House, with the NSC staff acting as its foreign policy arm. 

Finally and most importantly, the State Department over the past few decades has been 

seriously weakened and its resources significantly reduced. Foreign aid programs, as well as 

representational responsibilities, are now dispersed throughout the government. It therefore has 

fallen to the NSC staff to manage the conduct of America’s foreign policy that was once the 

prerogative of the Department of State. 

This description of the origin of the problem clearly illustrates a key principle in any 

attempt to set it aright; namely, that the NSC Advisor and staff cannot be redirected unless the 

Department of State is also set aright. 

The Commission views with alarm the expansion of the role of the NSC staff and 

recommends the following: 
 51

● 16: The National Security Council (NSC) should be responsible for advising the President 

and for coordinating the multiplicity of national security activities, broadly defined 

to include economic and domestic law enforcement activities as well as the 

traditional national security agenda. The NSC Advisor and staff should resist the 

temptation to assume a central policymaking and operational role. 

The National Security Advisor and NSC staff should give priority to their traditional and 

unique roles, namely coordinating the policymaking process, so that all those with stakes are 

involved, and all realistic policy options are considered and analyzed.49 The NSC Advisor and 

staff should provide advice privately to the President and oversee the implementation of 

Presidential decisions. They should also assume those roles that are unique to the President’s 

staff, such as preparations for overseas trips and communications with foreign leaders. 

At the same time, the NSC advisor and staff should resist pressures toward the 

centralization of power, avoid duplicating the responsibilities of the departments, and forego 

operational control of any aspect of U.S. policy. Assuming a central policymaking role seriously 

detracts from the NSC staff’s primary roles of honest broker and policy coordinator.

The National Security Advisor should also keep a low public profile. Legislative, press, 

communications, and speech writing functions should reside in the White House staff. These 

functions should not be duplicated separately in the NSC staff as they are today. 

The President, not his personal staff or advisors, is publicly accountable to the American 

people. To the degree that the role of the National Security Advisor continues to be one of public 

spokesman, policymaker, and operator, the Commission wishes the President to understand that 

pressure is growing in the Congress for making the National Security Advisor accountable to the 

American people through Senate confirmation and through formal and public appearances before 

Congressional committees. Returning to a lower-profile National Security Advisor will be 

difficult, but such an approach will produce the best policy results and deflate this pressure. 

very President in the last thirty years has devised some organizational approach to 

integrating international economic policies with both domestic economic policies and 

national security considerations. Many methods have been tried. Most recently, in 1993 the 

Clinton Administration created the National Economic Council (NEC) as a parallel coordinating 

institution to the NSC. 

The NEC experiment has been a disappointment. The Treasury Department dominates 

global financial policy, and its decisions have often neglected broader national security 

considerations—most critically, for example, in the early stages of the recent Asian economic 

crisis. Meanwhile, the United States Trade Representative (USTR)—and not the NEC—retains 

responsibility for coordinating trade policies and negotiations. The small NEC staff, as well, finds 

itself bureaucratically weaker than the NSC staff and (even when the staffers are dual-hatted) the 

NSC perspective has predominated. 

 

49 These recommendations parallel those of the Tower Commission. See Report of the Tower Commission

(Washington, DC: February 1987), pp. 90-93. 

E
 52

The policy process should ensure that the coordination of national security activities 

reflects the new centrality of economics. This Commission therefore offers the following two 

recommendations: 

● 17: The President should propose to the Congress that the Secretary of Treasury be made 

a statutory member of the National Security Council. 

Consistent with our strong preference for Cabinet government, this Commission believes 

the Secretary of the Treasury should be the President’s right arm for international economic 

policy. But the Treasury’s actions should be coordinated within the National Security Council 

process. In the NSC system of supporting subcommittees, Treasury should chair an interagency 

working group that manages international economic and financial policies (including managing 

financial crises), but it is a Presidential interest that decisions be fully coordinated with other 

relevant national security agencies. We understand that Secretaries of the Treasury have been 

routinely invited to National Security Council meetings. But designation as a statutory member of 

the NSC would signify the importance of truly integrating economic policy into national security 

policy. 

● 18: The President should abolish the National Economic Council, distributing its domestic 

economic policy responsibilities to the Domestic Policy Council and its international 

economic responsibilities to the National Security Council. 

The NSC staff should assume the same coordinating role for international economic 

policy as for other national security policies. To emphasize its importance, the Commission 

recommends the appointment of a Deputy National Security Advisor with responsibility for 

international economics. We also believe that to integrate properly the economic component of 

statecraft in the NSC staff system, more experts in international economics need to be recruited 

and placed in offices throughout the NSC staff. To ensure the integration of domestic and 

international economic policies, the staffs of the Domestic Policy Council, the Council of 

Economic Advisers, and the NSC will need to work together very closely. 

C. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

ver the past few decades, the Department of State has been seriously weakened as 

many of its core functions were parceled out to other agencies. The Agency for 

International Development, Treasury, and Defense assumed responsibility for foreign assistance 

programs, the USTR took over trade negotiations, and the Commerce Department began to 

conduct foreign commercial activities. For many years, too, arms control and public diplomacy 

were managed by separate agencies. Other departments, as well as the NSC staff, have also 

acquired foreign policy expertise and regularly pursue representational activities all around the 

world. 

The State Department’s own effort to cover all the various aspects of national security 

policy—economic, transnational, regional, security—has produced an exceedingly complex 

organizational structure. Developing a distinct “State” point of view is now extremely difficult 

and this, in turn, has reduced the department’s ability to exercise any leadership. 

O
 53

Over the past decade, the impulse to create individual functional bureaus was useful 

substantively and politically; e.g., in the cases of human rights, democracy, law enforcement, 

refugees, political-military affairs, and nonproliferation. The problem is that overall 

organizational efficiency and effectiveness have been lost in the process. 

More fundamentally, the State Department’s present organizational structure works at 

cross-purposes with its Foreign Service culture. The Foreign Service thinks in terms of countries, 

and therein lies its invaluable expertise. But the most senior officials have functional 

responsibilities. The department’s matrix organization makes it unclear who is responsible for 

policies with both regional and functional elements. The department rarely speaks with one voice, 

thus reducing its influence and credibility in its interactions with the Congress and in its 

representation abroad. 

As a result of these many deficiencies, confidence in the department is at an all-time low. 

A spiral of decay has unfolded over many years in which the Congress, reacting to inefficiencies 

within the department, has consistently underfunded the nation’s needs in the areas of 

representation overseas and foreign assistance. That underfunding, in turn, has deepened the State 

Department’s inadequacies. This spiral must be reversed. 

oreign assistance is a valuable instrument of U.S. foreign policy, but its present 

organizational structure, too, is a bureaucratic morass. Congress has larded the 

Foreign Assistance Act with so many earmarks and tasks for the U.S. Agency for International 

Development (AID) that it lacks a coherent purpose. Responsibility today for crisis prevention 

and responses is dispersed in multiple AID and State bureaus, and among State’s Under 

Secretaries and the AID Administrator. In practice, therefore, no one is in charge. 

 

Over $4 billion is spent on the State Department’s bilateral assistance programs 

(Economic Support Funds) and AID’s sustainable development programs. Neither the Secretary 

of State nor the AID Administrator is able to coordinate these foreign assistance activities or 

avoid duplication among them. More important, no one is responsible for integrating these 

programs into broader preventive strategies or for redeploying them quickly in response to crises. 

The Congress, too, has no single person to hold accountable for how the monies it appropriates 

are spent. Moreover, the majority of AID funding is expended through contracts with nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) who often lobby Congress over various AID programs, 

further undermining the coherence of the nation’s assistance programs. 

Take the case of a potential response to a humanitarian disaster in Africa, similar in 

nature and scale to the 1999 floods in Mozambique. Today, should some such disaster recur, 

three AID bureaus would be involved: those dealing with Africa, Global Programs, and 

Humanitarian Response. Responsibility would be dispersed among at least three Under 

Secretaries of State (Global Affairs, Political Affairs, and International Security Affairs), and four 

State bureaus (Africa; Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor; Population, Refugees, and 

Migration; and Political-Military). Neither the Secretary of State nor the AID Administrator 

would be in a position to commit the resources found to be necessary, or to direct related 

humanitarian and refugee assistance operations. As Figure 3 on page 57 suggests, other 

government agencies, and especially the Defense Department, would be at a loss to know where 

and how to coordinate their activities with those of the State Department. 

F
 54

his Commission believes that the Secretary of State should be primarily responsible 

for the making and implementation of foreign policy, under the direction of the 

President. The State Department needs to be fundamentally restructured so that responsibility and 

accountability are clearly established, regional and functional activities are closely integrated, 

foreign assistance programs are centrally planned and implemented, and strategic planning is 

emphasized and linked to the allocation of resources. While we believe that our NSC and State 

Department recommendations make maximal sense when taken together, the reform of the State 

Department must be pursued whether or not the President adopts the Commission’s 

recommendations with respect to the NSC Advisor and staff. 

Significant improvements in its effectiveness and competency would provide the 

rationale for the significant increase in State Department resources necessary to carry out the 

nation’s foreign policy in the coming quarter century. In our view, additional resources are clearly 

needed to foster the nation’s critical goals: promoting economic growth and democracy, 

undertaking preventive diplomacy, providing for the security of American officials abroad, 

funding the shortfalls in personnel and operating expenses, and installing the information 

technologies necessary for the U.S. national security apparatus to operate effectively in the 21st

century. The United States will be unable to conduct its foreign policy in all its dimensions 

without the commitment of such new resources. A failure to provide these funds will be far more 

costly to the United States in the long term. 

ore specifically, then, this Commission strongly recommends the following State 

Department redesign: 

● 19: The President should propose to the Congress a plan to reorganize the State 

Department, creating five Under Secretaries, with responsibility for overseeing the 

regions of Africa, Asia, Europe, Inter-America, and Near East/South Asia, and 

redefining the responsibilities of the Under Secretary for Global Affairs. These new 

Under Secretaries would operate in conjunction with the existing Under Secretary 

for Management.

 

 The new Under Secretaries, through the Secretary of State, would be accountable to the 

President and the Congress for all foreign policy activities in their areas of responsibility. 

Someone would actually be in charge. 

 On behalf of the Secretary, the new Under Secretaries would formulate a “State” view 

and represent the department in NSC meetings. They would appear before Congressional 

committees. They would be positioned to orchestrate preventive diplomatic strategies as well as 

crisis responses. They would oversee the implementation of all the various assistance programs 

(development aid, democracy building, and security assistance) and explain them coherently 

before Congress. They would assemble the various political and security considerations that need 

to be factored into U.S. government decisions on global financial crises and other international 

economic policies. They would be able to tailor public diplomacy to policy goals and integrate 

these activities with other aspects of America’s diplomacy. They would be able to liaise 

effectively with the growing number of NGOs engaged in national security activities. (To show 

how this would work, we have provided below illustrative responsibilities for a regional Under 

Secretary and for the Under Secretary for Global Affairs.) 

T

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Under Secretary 

Regional—Asia 

Illustrative Responsibilities 

ECONOMIC &TRANSNATIONAL POLITICAL AFFAIRS SECURITY AFFAIRS

AFFAIRS

 

China-human rights Japan Taiwan arms sales 

Investment treaties China China nonproliferation 

Economic sanctions North Korea Japan base negotiations 

Asian currency crisis ASEAN Security assistance 

China Ex-Im bank loans Indonesia Burma counter-narcotics 

Indonesia economic assistance Taiwan N. Korea Framework 

Links with NGOs APEC 

Under Secretary 

Global Affairs 

Illustrative Responsibilities 

ECONOMIC &TRANSNATIONAL POLITICAL AFFAIRS SECURITY AFFAIRS

AFFAIRS

 

Oceans, environment UN General Assembly Conference on Disarmament 

Refugees, humanitarian assistance UN Security Council Nonproliferation regimes 

Paris Club debt negotiations Intl. Labor Organization Law enforcement 

International relief organizations Defense trade controls 

Assistance to multilateral banks Counter-terrorism 

Global climate change—Kyoto Crisis management 

AID’s global assistance programs UN peacekeeping 

Fulbright’s exchange programs International narcotics 

UNHCR 

As Figure 4 on page 58 shows, each Under Secretary would have a Deputy, so as to 

provide depth in crisis situations, or to take on critical diplomatic assignments. Three bureaus 

would support the Under Secretaries, each organized to achieve functional goals (political affairs, 

security affairs, and economic and transnational affairs). The new Under Secretary for Global 

Affairs would be designated as the third-ranking official in the department to emphasize the 

importance of global issues and activities. Consistent with past practice, this designation would 

not represent another organizational layer; the Under Secretary for Global Affairs would simply 

be the one designated as Acting Secretary when the Secretary and Deputy Secretary are away. 

The functions of the Under Secretary for Management would need to be redefined in light of the 

responsibility being given for programs and budgets to the other Under Secretaries. 

his reorganization should be accompanied by, and will be strengthened by, the full 

integration of the nation’s foreign assistance activities into the overall framework of 

U.S. national security. We therefore recommend strongly that: 

T
 56

● 20: The President should propose to the Congress that the U.S. Agency for International 

Development be consolidated into the State Department. 

Development aid is not an end in itself, nor can it be successful if pursued independently 

of other U.S. programs and activities. It is part of the nation’s overall effort to eradicate poverty, 

encourage the adoption of democratic norms, and dampen ethnic and religious rivalries. To be 

effective, U.S. development assistance must be coordinated with other diplomatic activities, such 

as challenging corrupt government practices or persuading governments to adopt more sensible 

land-use policies. Only a coordinated diplomatic and assistance effort will advance the nation’s 

goals abroad, whether they be economic growth and stability, democracy, human rights, or 

environmental protection. 

Such a fundamental organizational redesign must have a strategic planning and budgetary 

process aligned with it. We therefore recommend the following: 

● 21: The Secretary of State should give greater emphasis to strategic planning in the State 

Department and link it directly to the allocation of resources through the 

establishment of a Strategic Planning, Assistance, and Budget Office. 

This office would work directly for the Secretary of State and represent the department in 

NSC-led government-wide strategic planning efforts. Within that framework, the office would 

define the department’s overall foreign policy goals and priorities. It would plan and prioritize all 

the department’s assistance programs. It would be responsible for coordinating the budget 

planning process and adjudicating any differences among the Under Secretaries. 

Take the case of a Congressional appropriation involving worldwide population 

programs. This new office would ask the Under Secretary for Global Affairs to make the initial 

recommendation as to how the funds would be distributed. The regional Under Secretaries would 

then have an opportunity to appeal. Once the Secretary decided, the Under Secretary for Global 

Affairs would have line responsibility for implementing those programs destined for international 

organizations, and the other Under Secretaries for programs within their regions. 

By integrating strategic and resource planning, the Secretary of State would have a more 

effective means for managing the activities of the department as well as U.S. embassies abroad. 

This office would essentially combine the offices of Resources, Plans & Policy, and 

Policy Planning in the current organizational set-up, eliminating the major design flaw of 

segregating planning from resource allocation. But it would retain the responsibility for housing 

and encouraging a small group of officers to do longer-range and strategic thinking, as has been 

the principal task of the Policy Planning Staff for half a century.
 57

Figure 3. Current Organization of Department of State50

 

50 Administrative and management offices are not included in Figures 3 & 4. For the official organization 

chart of the U.S. Department of State, see www.state.gov; for USAID, see www.usaid.gov. 

U.S. Permanent

Representative to

United Nations

USAID

Administrator

Asia & the Near East

Latin America & the

Caribbean

Europe & Eurasia

Africa

Humanitarian Response

 Global Programs

Business, &

Agriculture

U/S

Economics,

Affairs

Economic

& Business

Affairs

 U/S

Political

Affairs

African

European

Near Eastern

Western

Hemisphere

South Asian

International

Organizations

East Asian

& Pacific

U/S

Arms

Control

& Int’l

Security

Arms

Control

Political

Military

Verification

& Compliance

Public

Affairs

U/S

Global

Affairs

Law Enforcement

Oceans, International

Democracy, Human

Rights, & Labor

Int’l Narcotics &

Environment, & Science

Population, Refugees,

& Migration

Counselor U/S

Management

Nonproliferation

Public

Diplomacy/

Public

Affairs

U/S

Resources, Plans,

& Policy

Policy Planning

Legal Adviser

Legislative

Intelligence &

Research

Counter Terrorism

New Independent

States

Educational &

Cultural Affairs

Int’l

Information

Programs

Secretary of State

Deputy

Deputy
 58

Figure 4: Proposed Organization of Department of State 

t follows from a reform that integrates many of the nation’s foreign policy activities 

under the Secretary of State that a similar logic should be applied to the State 

Department budget. We therefore recommend the following: 

● 22: The President should ask Congress to appropriate funds to the State Department in a 

single integrated Foreign Operations budget, which would include all foreign 

assistance programs and activities as well as all expenses for personnel and 

operations. 

The State Department’s International Affairs (Function 150) Budget Request would no 

longer be divided into separate appropriations by the Foreign Operations subcommittee on the 

one hand, and by a subcommittee on the Commerce, State, and Justice Departments on the other. 

The Congressional leadership would need to alter the current jurisdictional lines of the 

Appropriations subcommittees so that the Foreign Operations subcommittee would handle the 

entire State Department budget. Such a reform would give the administration the opportunity to: 

—Allocate all the State Department’s resources in a way to carry out the President’s 

overall strategic goals; 

I

Legislative Affairs

Public Affairs

Legal Adviser

Strategic Planning,

Assistance, and

Budget Office

Intelligence &

Research

U/S

Global Affairs

U/S

Europe

U/S

Africa

U/S

Inter-American

Affairs

U/S

Near East &

South Asia

U/S

Asia

U/S

Management

Political Affairs

Inspector General

Economic &

Transnational Affairs

Security Affairs

Secretary of State

Deputy
 59

—Ensure that the various assistance programs are integrated, rather than simply a 

collection of administrations’ political commitments and Congressional earmarks; and 

—Replace the existing budget categories with purposeful goals.51

e cannot emphasize strongly enough how critical it is to change the Department of 

State from the demoralized and relatively ineffective body it has become into the 

President’s critical foreign policymaking instrument. The restructuring we propose would 

position the State Department to play a leadership role in the making and implementation of U.S. 

foreign policy, as well as to harness the department’s organizational culture to the benefit of the 

U.S. government as a whole. Perhaps most important, the Secretary of State would be free to 

focus on the most important policies and negotiations, having delegated responsibility for 

integrating regional and functional issues to the Under Secretaries. 

Accountability would be matched with responsibility in senior policymakers, who in 

serving the Secretary would be able to speak for the State Department both within the interagency 

process and before Congress. No longer would competing regional and functional perspectives 

immobilize the department. At the same time, those functional perspectives, whether human 

rights, arms control, or the environment, would not disappear. The Under Secretaries would be 

clearly accountable to the Secretary of State, the President, and the Congress for ensuring that the 

appropriate priority was given to these functional tasks. 

By making work on functional matters a career path through the regional hierarchy, the 

new organization would give Foreign Service officers an incentive to develop functional expertise 

in such areas as the environment, arms control, and anti-drug trafficking. Civil servants in the 

State Department would have new opportunities to apply their technical expertise in regional 

settings. The ability to formulate and integrate U.S. foreign policies in a regional context, too, 

will give their skills greater coherence and improve their professional effectiveness. 

The Under Secretary for Global Affairs, as redefined, would give priority and high-level 

attention to working with international organizations. In particular, this office would consolidate 

humanitarian and refugee assistance programs, thereby remedying the lack of leadership and 

coordination in past operations. This new organization would bring together all the department’s 

crisis management operations: counter-terrorism Foreign Emergency Support Teams (FEST) 

teams, humanitarian assistance Disaster Assistance Response Teams (DART) teams, and military 

over-flight clearances. 

The overall restructuring of the State Department would vastly improve its management. 

It would rationalize the Secretary’s span of control through a significant reduction in the number 

of individuals reporting directly to the Secretary, and it would abolish Special Coordinators and 

Envoys. The duplication that exists today in the regional and functional bureaus would be 

eliminated. The number of bureaus would be reduced significantly. One new Under Secretary 

would be created, but the AID Administrator position would be eliminated. 

 

51 Today, the Function 150 budget categories are defined in terms of titles such as Export and Investment 

Assistance, Bilateral Economic Assistance, Military Assistance, and Multilateral Economic Assistance. 

More purposeful titles should be put in their place; e.g., economic development or international security. 

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e are aware that our proposed restructuring of the State Department will give rise to 

the concern that such functional goals as nonproliferation and human rights will be 

diminished in importance. Indeed, the primary motivation for establishing the functional Under 

Secretaries and their bureaus was to counter the prevailing culture of the department, which tends 

to give priority to maintaining good bilateral relations rather than pressing foreign governments 

on these contentious matters. 

But in the restructuring reform offered here, proponents for these functional goals will 

still exist. Indeed, they will be in a better position to affect policies by being involved in their 

formulation early on in the process, and not at the last moment by intercession with the Secretary. 

The Under Secretaries will be responsible for ensuring that the priorities of the President, 

Secretary, and Congress are being achieved. If these involve counter-terrorism, refugees, the 

environment, or some other functional goal, it is hard to imagine that they would be neglected. 

Another possible concern is that organizing in terms of regional Under Secretaries is 

inconsistent with globalizing trends. The Commission’s Phase I Report forecasts that global 

forces, especially economic ones, will continue to challenge the role and efficacy of states. More 

important, however, it affirms that “the principle of national sovereignty will endure.”52 States 

will remain the main venue for diplomatic activity for a long time. This restructuring proposal is 

based on the reality that the United States will need to continue to deal with states around the 

world while being able, as well, to integrate policies in both regional and global contexts. The 

new Strategic Planning, Assistance, and Budget Office, along with the Global Affairs Under 

Secretary and Assistant Secretaries, will also be available to ensure that global perspectives are 

given sufficient attention. 

Defining the geographical coverage of the regions will necessarily be somewhat arbitrary, 

but the same problem exists under any arrangement. Russia will be integrated again into Europe 

and South Asia joined again with the Middle East. The most difficult decisions will involve 

where to place Turkey; whether to keep India and Pakistan in the same region or separate them; 

how to divide up the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union; and whether northern 

Africa is part of the Middle East or Africa. Setting up the new organization will provide an 

opportunity to make these decisions anew in light of prospective developments in the coming 

decades, and, if at all possible, to build in some degree of flexibility for the years ahead. 

Issues will certainly arise that span regions or require the integration of regional and 

global perspectives. Planning for G-8 meetings, for example, will have to involve all the Under 

Secretaries. The Under Secretaries of Global Affairs, Europe, the Americas, and Asia would have 

a role in policies bearing on national missile defense. Global financial crises would almost 

certainly engage more than one Under Secretary. Jurisdictional disputes may well arise that the 

Secretary (or the Deputy Secretary) will have to address. What the restructuring will have done, 

however, is to make the number of those cases requiring intervention far fewer than today. That is 

how senior management is most effectively employed in any successful private corporate 

organization; so why not in the U.S. Department of State? 

Another concern that some may have is that development programs will be neglected if 

AID is integrated into the State Department. Some may worry, as well, that the State Department 

will direct foreign assistance to programs promising immediate political returns. This is not so. In 

the new organization, the Secretary of State could directly instruct the Strategic Planning, 

Assistance, and Budget Office to ensure that priority is given to development aid—if that is the 

 

52 New World Coming, p. 38. 

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wish of the President and the Congress. The demise of AID would also mean that no single 

person, apart from the Secretary of State, would be accountable for the implementation of 

development programs. It is true that each Under Secretary would oversee development aid for 

only their area of responsibility. But they would be able to integrate these activities with all the 

other regional or global assistance programs far more effectively than is the case today. 

Indeed, AID’s current decentralized structure would fit well with the overall State 

restructuring. AID’s regional and global offices would become part of the new Economic and 

Transnational Bureaus. AID regional and global planning and budgeting offices would be 

retained as part of the Under Secretaries’ staffs. AID’s budget officials would join the Strategic 

Planning, Assistance, and Budget Office, and their procurement and contracting officials would 

be integrated into State Department offices with similar responsibilities. The actual planning and 

administration of AID programs would be very similar to current practices. 

he United States is represented overseas in 160 countries, with over 250 embassies, 

consulates, and missions. Over 14,000 Americans and about 30,000 foreign nationals 

are employed in these posts. More than thirty U.S. government agencies operate overseas. This 

Commission believes that the U.S. overseas presence has been badly short-changed by 

shortsighted budget cuts to the point where the security and prosperity of the American people are 

ill-served. But it also believes that the U.S. presence must be adjusted to new and prospective 

economic, social, political, and security realities. Only with such changes will Congressional 

confidence be restored, and the necessary funding provided, to support these critical activities. 

We also believe that in order for the State Department to run efficiently in an increasingly 

“wired world,” its worldwide information technology assets must be updated. There has been 

progress in this area, but more could be done. This Commission urges Congress to provide 

sufficient funding to ensure the full completion of this effort.

53

U.S. Ambassadors and embassies play critical roles in promoting U.S. national security 

goals overseas. We therefore recommend that all other Ambassadors, including the U.S. 

Permanent Representative to the United Nations, be brought under the authority of the Secretary 

of State for policymaking and implementation, without altering their representational role on 

behalf of the President. 

The President should also take steps to reinforce the authorities of all U.S. Ambassadors. 

Ambassadors should be responsible for planning and coordinating the activities of all the 

agencies at each mission, including U.S. assistance and law enforcement activities. The 

Ambassadors should formulate a comprehensive, integrated mission plan and recommend to the 

Cabinet secretaries an integrated country budget. The new State Department Under Secretaries 

should be advocates for their Ambassadors’ budget priorities in Washington’s interagency budget 

deliberations. We further recommend the following: 

 

53 The Commission supports the recommendation of the Overseas Presence Advisory Panel to upgrade 

immediately the State Department’s information and communications technologies by providing all 

overseas staff with Internet access, e-mail, a secure unclassified Internet website, and shared applications, 

permitting unclassified communications among all agencies around the globe. See the Report of the 

Overseas Presence Advisory Panel, America’s Overseas Presence in the 21st Century (Washington, DC: 

November 1999), p. 7. 

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● 23:The President should ensure that Ambassadors have the requisite area knowledge as 

well as leadership and management skills to function effectively. He should 

therefore appoint an independent, bipartisan advisory panel to the Secretary of 

State to vet ambassadorial appointees, career and non-career alike. 

This Commission also believes that the Secretary of State, on behalf of the President, 

should pursue urgently the process of “right-sizing” all American posts overseas. The process 

must ensure that embassy activities are responsive to emerging challenges and encourage greater 

flexibility in the size and concept of embassies and consulates to serve specialized needs.54

Embassies should also be reorganized into sections reflecting the new State Department 

organization: political, security, and economic/transnational affairs. 

egions will become more important in the emerging world of the 21st century. State 

borders no longer contain the flow of refugees, the outbreak of ethnic violence, the 

spread of deadly diseases, or environmental disasters. Humanitarian and military operations will 

often depend on access rights in many different countries. As regional political and economic 

organizations gradually evolve outside Europe, they may begin to take on roles in fighting such 

transnational dangers as crime, drugs, and money laundering. The United States needs flexible 

ways to deal with these regional problems. 

Today, U.S. Ambassadors are accredited to individual states. No mechanism exists for 

them to coordinate their activities regionally. The unified military commands are regionally 

based, but their planning and operations are focused primarily on military contingencies. Every 

regional Commander-in-Chief (CINC) does have a Political Adviser from the State Department, 

but there is no systematic civilian foreign policy input into military planning. When a crisis 

occurs, coordinating the various civilian activities (humanitarian assistance and police forces) 

with military activities (transport or peacekeeping operations) remains very uneven. More 

fundamentally, a gap exists between the CINC, who operates on a regional basis, and the 

Ambassador, who is responsible for activities within one country. 

In light of these circumstances, and fully mindful of the need to reinforce the goals of the 

new State Department organization proposed above, the Commission encourages the departments 

and agencies involved in foreign operations—State, Defense, Treasury, Commerce, and Justice—

to cooperate more fully in regional planning. Specifically the President should: 

● Establish NSC interagency working groups for each major region, chaired by the 

respective regional Under Secretary of State, to develop regional strategies and 

coordinated government-wide plans for their implementation; 

● Direct the Secretary of Defense to have regional CINCs institute a process through 

their Political Advisers to involve the Ambassadors in their region in their military 

planning; and 

 

54 The Overseas Presence Advisory Panel made this recommendation in November 1999. The Panel 

concluded that significant savings are achievable from right-sizing U.S. embassies; e.g., a ten percent 

reduction in all agencies’ staff would save almost $380 million annually. The Secretary of State has taken 

steps to implement this recommendation. 

R
 63

● Direct the Secretary of State to instruct the regional Under Secretaries to meet at least 

semi-annually with the ambassadors located in their region (with one such meeting each 

year being held in the same general location as the regional CINCs). 

he implementation of these recommendations concerning the Department of State in 

all its various aspects, and their budgetary implications, is a complex undertaking. As 

noted, the Commission’s recommendations involving the NSC processes and staff could be 

implemented immediately. The problem will be that, to have any chance of returning to the 

NSC’s more traditional roles, the State Department needs to be strengthened well beyond the 

designation of a strong Secretary of State. Congressional action will be required to implement the 

proposed reorganization. With respect to the U.S. overseas presence, the President has the 

authority to carry out the Commission’s recommendations. We urge him to use that authority 

forthwith. 

D. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

he Department of Defense (DoD) protects the American people and advances the 

nation’s interests and values worldwide. It also plays a critical role in maintaining 

global peace. And it stands in dire need of serious reform. 

DoD’s current organization, infrastructure, business practices, and legal and regulatory 

structure evolved during the Cold War in ad hoc and incremental ways. Many commissions have 

addressed DoD structure over the years and offered recommendations for reform. Some have 

been implemented, but this Commission believes that much still needs to be done. In particular: 

● DoD’s policy organization is outdated and overly complex;

● Major staff roles and responsibilities are ill-defined, with duplication and redundancy 

the rule, not the exception; 

● Supporting infrastructure is highly inefficient and consumes a major portion of the 

DoD budget; 

● The present process for programming and budgeting military forces generates strategic 

postures not very different from those of the Cold War despite vastly changed strategic 

realities; 

● The weapons acquisition process, which is slow, inefficient, and burdened by excessive 

regulation and politicization, has become a burden on a defense industry is already in the 

midst of a financial crisis; and 

● The process by which force structure planning occurs is not appropriately aligned with 

the current global security realities. 

The key to the success of any program of reform will be direct, sustained involvement 

and commitment to defense reform on the part of the President, Secretary of Defense, and 

Congressional leadership. The new Secretary of Defense will need to be personally engaged. The 

challenges are too great to delegate responsibility to others. His central task will be to persuade 

Congress to accord him the flexibility he needs to carry out the Commission’s recommendations, 

T

T
 64

and to contain Congress’ desire to micro-manage DoD processes through crippling laws and 

regulations. 

Resource issues are also at stake in Defense Department reform. America’s global 

commitments are so extensive, and the costs of future preparedness are so high, that significantly 

more resources will be required to match means to ends. The potential mismatch ahead between 

strategy and resources can be mitigated in the longer run by generating savings from within the 

Defense Department through extensive management reform. Not only will the Defense 

Department save money that it needs for its core responsibilities, it may also increase Congress’ 

willingness to shrink the mismatch between means and ends in the nearer term. 

 

Policy Reform 

he Under Secretary of Defense for Policy supports the Secretary of Defense in his 

role as a member of the National Security Council, and helps him to ensure that the 

multiplicity of DoD’s defense and military activities are guided by the President’s overall 

national security policies. The structure of the Policy staff has evolved over many years as a 

result of the wishes of individual Secretaries and various Congressional mandates. Today, the 

office retains its traditional focus on security assistance and alliance relations. It has also 

expanded its mandate to foster defense relationships throughout the world as well as to participate 

in such functional activities as nuclear threat reduction, humanitarian assistance, and counter-drug 

efforts. At the same time, such policy activities as export controls and arms control verification 

have been given to the recently consolidated Defense Threat Reduction Agency. 

The most recent reorganization places little emphasis on strategic planning, though the 

Strategy and Threat Reduction office is involved to some extent in defense strategy and 

contingency planning. Regional and functional responsibilities are dispersed among Policy’s 

three offices. The office of International Security Affairs covers Europe, Asia, Middle East, and 

Africa. A Congressionally-mandated assistant secretary deals with Special Operations and LowIntensity Conflict (SOLIC) as well as Inter-American affairs, terrorism, drugs, peacekeeping, and 

humanitarian operations. The Strategy and Threat Reduction office focuses on the functional 

areas of nuclear weapons and missile defense, counter-proliferation and threat reduction, and the 

regional areas of Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia. The result is a very complex structure that makes 

coordination difficult within the Defense Department and with other government agencies. 

This Commission therefore recommends some modest but important reforms, as follows: 

● 24: The Secretary of Defense should propose to Congress a restructuring plan for the 

Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy that would abolish the office of 

the Assistant Secretary for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict (SOLIC),

and create a new office of an Assistant Secretary dedicated to Strategy and Planning 

(S/P). 

We believe that a separate Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and 

Low Intensity Conflict is no longer needed, for these activities are now widely integrated into 

U.S. strategy, plans, and forces. Special operations can and should be addressed like all other 

mature missions within the department’s Major Force Program process. The other regional 

activities of SOLIC would be transferred to other parts of the policy office. But a new office of 

Strategy and Planning (S/P) should be created, with responsibility for leading and coordinating 

T
 65

DoD planning processes. This office would also support the Secretary of Defense in the NSC-led 

strategic planning process as well as the Joint Staff’s military contingency planning process. 

Structural Reform 

ast efforts to reform the Defense Department have emphasized the following three 

general principles.55 DoD civilian and military staffs need to focus on their core roles 

and responsibilities. The department should eliminate unnecessary layers, avoid duplication of 

activities, and encourage the delegation of authority. Many defense support activities should be 

outsourced to the private sector and others fully privatized. The Commission supports these 

overall goals and, more specifically, recommends the following: 

● 25: Based on a review of the core roles and responsibilities of the staffs of the Office of the 

Secretary of Defense (OSD), the Joint Staff, the military services, and the CINCs, 

the Secretary of Defense should reorganize and reduce those staffs by ten to fifteen 

percent.56

A comprehensive review of staff sizes and structures must follow from clear definitions 

of each staff’s mission, and core competencies should be established around those missions. All 

activities peripheral to a staff’s main missions should be curtailed or eliminated.57 In the 

Commission’s view, mandatory reductions will force the staffs to eliminate redundancies among 

them and unnecessary layers within them. Staff activities that can be downsized include: 

—OSD program management involving special operations, humanitarian assistance, and 

counter-drug programs; 

—Joint Staff regional and manpower offices, as well as their use of the Joint 

Requirements Oversight Council (JROC) and the Joint Warfighting Capability 

Assessment (JWCA) processes, to evaluate infrastructure and service support programs; 

—Service regional planning offices, some acquisition oversight, as well as the duplicate 

manpower activities of the military and OSD staffs; 

—CINC program analysis activities and some sub-unified and component command 

headquarters. 

 

55 Many studies have endorsed such principles, including GAO studies in 1976, 1978, 1996, 1999, and 

2000, as well as the Rockefeller Committee, the Rice Report, the Packard Commission, the Senate Armed 

Services Committee study leading up to Goldwater-Nichols, the Commission on Roles and Missions, the 

Hicks & Associates study, the Defense Reform Initiative, and the BENS (Business Executives for National 

Security) Tail-to-Tooth Commission. 

56 We are speaking only of these specific staff roles, not of DoD civilian personnel in general. We are aware 

that, in this more general category, there has been a reduction of approximately 35 percent since 1990. 

57 At the same time, our discussion of the Civil Service in Section IV.D, specifically in recommendation 42, 

calls for a 10-15 percent personnel float to allow for adequate professional training should be introduced in 

civilian staff offices within OSD. In other words, while we advocate cutting staff slots by 10-15 percent, 

the actual number of civilian employees working in OSD staffs need not change significantly. 

P 
 66

In the case of Joint Forces Command (JFCOM), the Commission strongly urges that its 

responsibilities be carefully defined and limited. Many Joint Staff activities have been divested to 

JFCOM and new missions have been added, including homeland security, joint training, and joint 

experimentation. Some have suggested further that JFCOM represent the CINCs in the 

requirements definition process. Since the JFCOM commander is already dual-hatted as NATO’s 

Supreme Allied Commander-Atlantic (SACLANT), a span of control problem looms with the 

steady expansion of his duties. 

ut realigning these staffs is not enough. DoD’s supporting infrastructure needs to be 

reduced as well, both because it holds the promise of giving better support to the 

nation’s military forces and because it will free up significant resources for modernization.58 

Roughly half of DoD’s infrastructure falls into two categories: central logistics and 

installation support. More than 75 percent of DoD’s infrastructure resides within the military 

services and, in this fiscal year, will consume $134 billion. This system consists of approximately 

two-dozen defense agencies and field activities whose accounts are scattered across various 

program and budgeting elements. 

Since these infrastructure activities do not operate according to market forces, it should 

come as no surprise that business costs and practices are not competitive with the civilian sector. 

Most defense agencies place little emphasis on achieving performance goals based on measurable 

outputs. Many also suffer from conflicting supervision from OSD and the military services, while 

at the same time receiving strong advocacy from the Congress bent on protecting local constituent 

jobs and installations. Several defense agencies and field activities have a combat support role, 

which adds the difficulty of having to harmonize business efficiency with military effectiveness. 

Efforts over the years to reduce DoD’s infrastructure have focused in part on outsourcing 

various activities to the private sector. Outsourcing guidelines are found in OMB Circular A-76, 

but the process is cumbersome and bureaucratic, often taking two to four years to complete for 

each major initiative. Moreover, the Circular A-76 process involves competition between the 

private sector and an ongoing government activity. The “competition” is inherently biased against 

private business because the government’s “bid” deflates true operating costs and hides overhead 

expenses. This sharply limits the applicability of the Circular A-76 process. 

Given the significant obstacles to reducing, consolidating, and restructuring the Defense 

Department’s supporting infrastructure, the Commission recommends the following: 

● 26: The Secretary of Defense should establish a ten-year goal of reducing infrastructure 

costs by 20 to 25 percent through outsourcing and privatizing as many DoD support 

agencies and activities as possible. 

Given the political sensitivities surrounding such steps, an independent and bipartisan 

commission should be established to produce a plan to achieve this goal. We propose that 

implementation of the plan rely on a joint Executive-Legislative Branch mechanism similar to the 

Base Realignment and Closures (BRAC) process.

 

58 Infrastructure is defined as non-combat activities and support services that commonly operate from fixed 

locations (e.g., installation support, central training, central medical, central logistics, acquisition 

infrastructure, central personnel, and central command, control, and communications.) 

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 67

In putting together such a plan, this new commission will need to explain to Congress 

what the process will entail. This plan should develop common definitions of what constitutes a 

“support activity.” It should include all the various categories of supporting infrastructure, 

including both Service and civilian DoD agencies. It should then define in general terms what 

should remain government owned and operated, what should be outsourced, and what should be 

privatized.59 In principle, it would seem that intelligence, acquisition, and criminal investigation 

should be consolidated, but remain government owned and operated. Some aspects of health, 

personnel, and many support functions on local installations should be outsourced. Logistics, 

accounting, auditing, aspects of defense communications, military exchanges, and commissaries 

should be privatized.60 Finally, the plan should lay out a five-year road map for accomplishing the 

outsourcing, and a ten-year road map for privatization—recognizing that outsourcing can be a 

useful step toward privatization. 

In the meantime, DoD and the Office of Management and Budget need to revamp the 

Circular A-76 guidelines in ways to make the selection process quicker and the competition more 

equitable. This will require working with Congress, because steps to privatize substantial portions 

of the DoD infrastructure will invite intense Congressional scrutiny. 

The failure to significantly reduce DoD’s infrastructure could prove very injurious in the 

long run. Attempts to save money merely by squeezing savings from the current system—but 

without fundamentally restructuring that system—will eventually jeopardize the provision of 

adequate funding for core needs such as modernization and personnel. If the Congress will not 

provide the funding needed to compensate for departmental inefficiencies, then it will need to 

explain why it also obstructs the department’s own efforts to become more efficient. 

Process Reform 

hree major areas of DoD responsibility cry out for particular scrutiny: the 

programming and budgeting process, the acquisition process, and the force planning 

process. We take these in turn. 

For the past thirty years, the Defense Department has produced its budget through its 

Planning, Programming, and Budgeting System (PPBS) process. Theoretically, the PPBS process 

is top-down in design, beginning with the National Security Strategy (NSS) as guidance for both 

the National Military Strategy (NMS) and the Defense Planning Guidance (DPG).61 In reality, 

however, the PPBS process is predominantly a “bottom-up” system driven by existing programs 

and budgets. 

The problems of the PPBS process are well known. The PPBS phases operate semiautonomously rather than supportively, creating unnecessary turbulence and encouraging the 

 

59 Outsourcing combines government ownership with private contracting. Privatization means reducing or 

eliminating government ownership and getting DoD out of the process of competing with private industry. 

Outsourcing can achieve 10 percent savings; privatization may achieve savings of up to 20 percent in some 

sectors. 

60 Commissaries and exchanges would still exist, but they would be privately owned and operated. 

61 Goldwater-Nichols mandated the National Security Strategy as a way for the President to describe the 

country’s broad national security directions. Required by law every January, the NSS is habitually late, and 

its objectives and goals have never been prioritized. By this Commission’s definition, the NSS is not a 

“strategy” document because it fails to relate ends to means. 

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repeated revisiting of prior decisions. Guidance to the Services and other DoD components for 

program and budget development tends to be both vague and late. Major program decisions are 

often delayed until the end of the budget development phase, in turn causing hurried and often 

inaccurate adjustments to budgets and to the Future Years Defense Program (FYDP). Frequently, 

long-term modernization plans are disrupted during annual budget cycles. Minor details receive 

inordinate attention. As a result, the PPBS process fails to provide the Secretary with the means to 

guide the budget process strategically. It has contributed much to the department’s tendency to 

replicate existing force structure and its inability to advance the transformation of U.S. forces to 

deal with a post-Cold War environment. 

The PPBS must be restructured to link it directly to strategic goals and to reduce its 

obsession with mundane program and budgeting details. The department’s planning should be 

informed by the strategic guidance emanating from the President and NSC principals, as specified 

above in Section III.A, and then the Secretary of Defense should translate that guidance into the 

various internal DoD processes that produce Defense Department programs and budgets. 

The most critical step is for the Secretary of Defense to produce defense policy and 

planning guidance that defines specific goals and establishes relative priorities. He needs to do 

this through a departmental process that involves serious analysis and debate of the most critical 

issues. Real strategic choices must be defined and decisions made. The program review phase of 

the PPBS could then measure progress in achieving his policy and planning objectives. This 

Secretarial guidance would also provide the basis for defining the National Military Strategy and 

for conducting the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). 

The Commission believes that the QDR should then become the foundation of the PPBS. 

To be truly effective, we recommend: 

● 27: The Congress and the Secretary of Defense should move the Quadrennial Defense 

Review to the second year of a Presidential term. 

By statute, the QDR is to be completed in the first year of a new administration. Such a 

deadline, however, does not allow the time or the means for an incoming administration to 

influence the QDR’s outcome. The Presidential appointment process now extends six to nine 

months.62 The new President’s overall vision and strategic goals also take time to develop and so 

cannot inform the review. Meanwhile, the new team inherits the supporting analysis from the 

previous administration and Joint Staff. Past practice suggests that the DoD bureaucracy has 

figured out how to use the QDR process to preserve the status quo, while outgoing senior officials 

have rarely acquired any stake in the process. Postponing the QDR until the second year would 

remedy these problems, and would still be available in time to influence the second of four 

budgets that an administration develops entirely on its own. 

For the department to be able to develop true strategic alternatives, it will need to focus 

on resources. We therefore recommend a second change in the QDR. 

Despite the end of the Cold War and the emergence of a newer, less certain strategic 

environment, the percentage of budget resources that is allotted to the Services and defense 

agencies—called Total Obligation Authority (TOA) in the defense budget—has not changed 

appreciably over the last ten years. Only minor force structure alternatives have been generated; 

 

62 In our discussion of Presidential appointments in Section IV, we recommend shortening this period. 
 69

defense programs remain essentially unchanged, and modernization funding keeps getting pushed 

into the future. Therefore, we recommend the following: 

● 28: The Secretary of Defense should introduce a new process that would require the 

Services and defense agencies to compete for the allocation of some resources within 

the overall Defense budget. 

A structured process of competition for resources, moored within the QDR process and 

focused on the allocation of TOA, would produce innovative choices to fill broad mission 

requirements. One way this competition could be accomplished is for OSD to retain five to ten 

percent of the TOA and then reallocate it during the QDR to promising systems and initiatives—

be they those of the Services, DARPA, or Joint programs. The Secretary must accompany the 

TOA holdback with the identification of his high-priority strategic requirements that must be 

funded. Moreover, in this process, the Services and defense agencies would be required to 

identify their highest and lowest priority programs.63 This would give the Secretary a means of 

killing low-priority programs and reallocating the resulting savings to more promising areas 

during subsequent PPBS cycles. 

For any TOA reallocation process to be viable, two things must happen. First, the 

Secretary will need to rely on his OSD staff, and not rely only on the Service and Joint Staffs. 

The OSD staff will also need to coordinate the analysis that will inform the discussion of the 

alternatives. OSD internal reforms will be key to its ability to carry out these tasks. 

The Commission proposes a final change to improve the QDR process. The QDR should 

be restructured so that it defines defense modernization requirements for two distinct planning 

horizons: near-term (one to three years) and long-term (four to fifteen years). The CINCs 

should have primary influence on readiness in the near-term execution horizon. The Services 

should focus on modernization, personnel, and infrastructure throughout the long-term planning 

horizon. The Joint Staff should focus on joint issues and force interoperability planning. The OSD 

staff would exercise broad oversight and ensure that QDR planning followed the President’s and 

the Secretary’s strategic guidance and was based on realistic political and resource assumptions.

Flowing from the QDR process, the PPBS process must be reoriented in ways to conform 

to political reality and achieve better coordination among the civilian and military staffs. To do 

this, the calendar should be revamped. Policy and planning guidance should be issued biennially 

and prior to when the Services start building their initial programs and budgets. The Joint Staff 

and OSD would then develop the most critical issues for review by the Secretary in the April to 

August time frame. Final decisions would then be postponed until after Congress had done its 

markup of the previous year’s budget, so as to integrate their decisions into the upcoming budget. 

Final Presidential approval would occur by the end of the year. High-speed computers now allow 

the programming and budgeting phases to be compressed and to take account of Congressional 

action. The PPBS need not be wholly linear in execution. 

he United States equips its military forces through a complex process that depends to 

a large degree on the private sector, but also involves an enormous number of laws 

 

63 Note the Services and defense agencies must identify “programs,” rather than “funds.” Otherwise they 

will stretch programmed procurement to free budget year “funds,” but increase future unit costs by doing 

so. 

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and regulations that compose a thick web of government oversight. The acquisition process is a 

hybrid process, with characteristics of both a free enterprise system and a government arsenal 

system. Operating within this environment is a small group of primarily defense-oriented 

companies, a larger number of basically commercial companies with some involvement in 

defense procurement, and a growing number of companies, particularly high-tech companies, to 

which dealing with the Department of Defense is an anathema. Importantly, all of these 

companies must compete in the open marketplace for both financial capital and skilled workers 

and managers. 

A worrisome number of studies in recent years have pointed to the precarious health of 

many of the nation's most critical defense suppliers.64 Many businesses are unable to work 

profitably with DoD under the weight of its auditing, contracting, profitability, investment, and 

inspection regulations. These regulations also impair DoD’s ability to keep abreast of the current 

pace of technological innovation. Weapons development cycles today average nine years in an 

environment where technology changes markedly every twelve to eighteen months in Silicon 

Valley—and the trend lines continue to diverge. 

Competition is essential within the defense sector to achieve both affordability and 

innovation. Yet the current low level of modernization activity often makes competition 

impractical. In addition, competition is affected adversely by the exacting social and ethical 

standards to which DoD is held. Such standards impose restrictions that make it virtually 

impossible for DoD to be efficient and aggressive in achieving cost savings. 

 Despite some recent improvements, the trends of the last decade are very troubling and, 

if they continue, could severely endanger America’s long-term military capability. A strategy of 

standing back and totally relying on the forces of the marketplace will likely fail. The United 

States must look to the health of the U.S. defense industrial base just as it takes responsibility for 

the viability of its Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard. This does not mean 

government management of the defense industrial base. It does mean creating an environment 

where good performers can succeed and prosper. 

In place of a specialized “defense industrial base,” the nation needs a national industrial 

base for defense composed of a broad cross-section of commercial firms as well as the more 

traditional defense firms. The “new technology” sectors must be attracted to work with the 

government on sound business and professional grounds; the more traditional defense suppliers, 

who fill important needs unavailable in the commercial sector, must be given incentives to 

innovate and operate more efficiently. 

f this is to be accomplished, the defense acquisition process will need fundamental 

reform. To guide this reform, the Commission offers these overarching principles. 

 

64 See John Harbison, Thomas Moorman Jr., Michael Jones, and Jikun Kim, “U.S. Defense Industry Under 

Siege—An Agenda for Change,” Booz-Allen & Hamilton Viewpoint, July 2000; “Preserving a Healthy and 

Competitive U.S. Defense Industry to Ensure our Future National Security,” Defense Science Board Task Force 

briefing to USCNS/21, June 2000; “U.S. Space Industrial Base Study,” DoD and NRO Co-sponsored Study by 

Booz-Allen & Hamilton, briefed to USCNS/21, June 2000; “The National Crisis in the Defense Industry,” study 

briefed by the Scowcroft Group and DFI International to USCNS/21, June 2000. 

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● The nation needs to restore the balance of funding among modernization, readiness, 

and force structure. The procurement “holiday” affecting modernization has produced a 

highly unbalanced force for the future. 

● The government should encourage small, agile, high-tech companies to enter defense 

competitions, as they represent both a source of innovation and an inspiration to new 

efficiencies. 

● The department’s overall modernization strategy should give priority to fundamental 

research; substantially increase prototyping; stress the evolutionary upgrading of 

platforms throughout their life; and keep commitments to long-term, stable production. 

● To the extent practicable, the acquisition system needs to be open to continuous 

competition, and open to new ideas from companies of all sizes. It should focus on 

“outputs”—i.e., measurable products, time, and cost—as opposed to “process.” 

● The weapons development process should rely on competition to solve performance 

problems and keep down costs, with commensurate rewards for those who succeed. 

● The acquisition system should use the market to decrease system costs and improve 

schedule and system performance. The current system of centralized planning, the 

inappropriate use of government agencies to perform commercial tasks, and the lack of 

managerial accountability stifles efficiency. 

● The government, not the private sector, should pay the costs that result from explicit 

government demands and requirements in the acquisition process. At the same time, 

companies deserve no proprietary entitlement to publicly-financed designs and 

technology. 

Turning to more specific recommendations, this Commission is concerned that the 

current acquisition system does not support the timely introduction of new technologies. 

Developing and producing weapon systems takes too long.65 Some major systems are not even 

completed before the parts they depend on from the commercial sector are outmoded and no 

longer available. Worse, while the commercial world is shortening cycle times, DoD is not—so 

the gap between commercial and government practice continues to widen. This is the case in 

large part because of the inflexibility built into federal regulations. We therefore recommend the 

following: 

● 29: The Secretary of Defense should establish and employ a two-track acquisition system, 

one for major acquisitions and a second, “fast track” for a limited number of 

potential breakthrough systems, especially in the area of command and control. 

The two-track system would accept an accelerated, higher-risk approach to the 

development of breakthrough capabilities, especially in areas undergoing rapid change in the state 

of the art. Simultaneously, a more conservative approach is appropriate for more conventional 

programs. One size does not fit all. 

 

65 In DoD acquisition jargon, the period from requirement definition to production of a weapon system is 

referred to as its “cycle time.” 
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The Commission also believes that the development of new technologies must be 

emphasized and properly financed. Development programs should generally be administered 

through contracts that pay for the costs plus a fee, with the fee being tied not only to system 

performance but also to meeting the schedule within costs. We must eliminate the pressures 

whereby firms need to recover R&D costs and losses during the production phase. Full funding of 

R&D programs is an essential part of the acquisition process. Correspondingly, fixed-price 

contracts are appropriate for programs whose scope and risk are well understood and manageable. 

As we have already suggested in Section II above, the nation must also invest heavily in basic 

research in university, corporate, and government laboratories. 

rototyping of a weapon system, which allows the possibility that some attempts will 

fail, and then developing and producing the most promising concepts, will get the 

“kinks” out of systems early and shorten the development cycle time. The initial costs are higher 

to the Services, which is why prototyping is often resisted, but the total program costs promise to 

be lower. In addition, it will help create and maintain viable defense suppliers and their critical 

design teams, even in a low-production environment. We therefore recommend the following: 

● 30: The Secretary of Defense should foster innovation by directing a return to the pattern 

of increased prototyping and testing of selected weapons and support systems. 

Prototyping should be paired with incremental delivery and evolutionary upgrades of 

existing operational systems. This will allow the product to remain current with continuing 

technological developments. It has the further advantages of reducing the time needed to deliver a 

new capability to the war fighter and of decreasing production risks significantly. 

The Defense Department cannot depend entirely on speeding up its integration with the 

commercial sector. The nation also needs to invest in selected research programs where military 

systems have no commercial counterparts. Unfortunately, large and complex DoD research and 

development projects generally suffer from a distortion of cost competition since companies often 

underbid the R&D phase in hopes of securing funding in more profitable production phases. The 

Commission thus recommends that the laws prohibiting the use of Independent R&D (IR&D) 

funding for program support be more broadly interpreted and more strictly enforced. 

rogram turbulence, often stemming from lack of funds or from budgetary instability, 

is the primary cause of inefficiencies and cost overruns in DoD programs. This 

budgetary instability has several sources. One is the current reality of the resource allocation 

process itself within DoD, which unfortunately often takes all resources into account during 

budget reductions—including acquisition programs. This normally results in a known and 

deliberate underfunding of previously approved programs. Another problem is the acquisition 

system itself, which suffers from cost overruns and program extensions. Lastly, the Congress 

often uses small “takes” from large programs to reallocate funds to other priorities without 

realizing or understanding the problems this creates in having to reprogram funds, write new 

contracts, and establish new schedules. 

We realize that many commissions, and ever more studies, over the past several years 

have recommended two-year budgeting and multiyear procurement as a way of limiting program 

turbulence. If these forms of budgeting were introduced, the disincentive to disrupt acquisition 

programs would appropriately be very high. We also know that Congress has doggedly refused to 

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take such proposals seriously. Congress lacks confidence in DoD’s ability to execute such a 

budget given past weapons cost overruns. Furthermore, appropriating funds on a yearly basis 

gives Congress a greater ability to influence the Defense Department’s policies and programs. 

Therefore, rather than propose two-year budgeting across the entire Department of 

Defense, we focus on the single area where two-year budgeting makes the most sense and stands 

to do the most good. We recommend the following: 

● 31: Congress should implement two-year defense budgeting solely for the modernization 

element of the DoD budget (R&D/procurement) because of its long-term character, 

and it should expand the use of multiyear procurement.

Such steps would markedly increase the stability of weapons development programs and 

result in budgetary savings in the billions of dollars. For this to happen, however, the Secretary of 

Defense must impose discipline in the decision-making process. It is already difficult to start new 

engineering development programs. It should be made even more demanding, ensuring that the 

military requirements are understood and enduring, and that the technology, concepts, and 

funding are all well in hand. Once a program is approved, it should be equally difficult to change 

it. The Commission also notes that it is sometimes better to eliminate some programs early than 

to absorb the costs of constantly extending programs and procuring limited numbers of weapons 

at high unit costs. To accomplish this, Congress will need to let decisions to kill programs stand 

as well as support DoD budgeting and procurement reforms. 

If the government will not take the measures to improve program stability by introducing 

two-year budgeting in modernization and R&D accounts, and more broadly adopt multiyear 

funding, it cannot expect private industry to obligate itself to suppliers, or to assume risks on its 

own investments with little prospect of long-term returns. 

stimating costs is very difficult, especially in the early stages of weapons 

development. As a result, costs often escalate significantly. Introducing immature 

technologies and concepts into engineering development can lead to a major waste of resources. 

Constant modifications in program specifications can significantly drive up costs. The acquisition 

system today is characterized by underfunding, turbulence, occasional lack of competition, and a 

propensity to follow routine processes rather than focus on producing on-time results. In addition, 

the current system gives incentives to program offices to spend all their annual appropriation 

regardless of need. We therefore recommend that the Defense Department allocate resources 

for weapon development programs by phase rather than in annual increments.

This approach to resource allocation within DoD should include the provision of financial 

reserves to resolve unanticipated problems, as is common commercial practice. This can be 

accomplished by providing contingency funds in advance to deal with program uncertainties. To 

ensure their proper use, such funds should be placed not in the program office, but under the 

control of the Service acquisition official. Fully funding programs during each phase—and 

especially the early phases—will decrease program turbulence and provide a basis for more 

reliable budget and schedule forecasting. It will also allow better program management and 

produce significant cost savings. 

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obust experimentation and exploration of innovative technologies are essential, but 

there must also be an effective screening process for the selection of mature, 

affordable technologies before entering full-scale development. DoD currently uses a complex 

acquisition schedule, where problems associated with technology generation, prototyping, and 

engineering development often migrate into production. The acquisition system inadequately 

addresses concurrent risk. Worst of all, testing procedures are generally viewed (and feared) as 

report cards in the weapon development process. This discourages program managers from using 

tests to attain knowledge, demonstrate technology maturity, and assure the viability of key 

manufacturing processes. 

We therefore recommend that the recently adopted three-phase acquisition process be 

institutionalized. Those three phases are technology development, product development, and 

production. Testing should be a key part of the technology development process as well as the 

last two phases. 

A three-phase system would focus on maturing robust technologies prior to decisions on 

development, and then on identifying problems earlier in engineering development to minimize 

risk and cost in production. Some overlap between phases is inevitable, but steps can be taken to 

control the concurrent risk. This will require that DoD adopt a “knowledge-based” evaluation and 

testing procedure to establish technology maturity, to evaluate risks, costs, and operational 

limitations. Testing should follow commercial practices, which test early, hard, and often to 

identify problems, to generate “knowledge,” and to guide subsequent program development. 

Commercial testing is also more systematic. Subcomponents are thoroughly tested before they are 

combined into components, components are thoroughly tested before they are combined into 

subsystems, and so forth. 

We believe that a clear three-phrase process—with bright red stop signs erected to 

prevent premature entry into subsequent phases—will help in every respect, and we applaud 

DoD’s recent move in this direction. More importantly, this Commission recommends that 

program reviews focus on the need, merit, and maturity of the program, and not be used to 

reopen past debates about the wisdom of the original program approval. 

ongress and others have put in place an accumulation of laws and regulations to 

protect against fraud, waste, and abuse, the net effect of which is to create a system 

of requirements and acquisition oversight that creates the very waste it was intended to prevent. 

The “regulation cost” in DoD and the defense industry has been estimated by various 

observers to be on the order of 30 percent of the acquisition budget, while the indirect 

management and oversight burden in the nation’s commercial sector ranges from 5 to 15 

percent—and is falling. The Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA) and the Defense Contract 

Management Command (DCMC) employ a “division equivalent” of auditors, and these are 

complemented by multitudes of various Service auditing organizations. They create costly 

inefficiencies and often lead to inferior products. 

Moreover, the DoD oversight process, by engendering an adversarial system, encourages 

timid decision-making and forces industry to go to extremes in accounting and business 

procedures. This system, which is based on institutional and individual distrust, needs to be 

replaced with one that conforms better to normal business practices. The Defense Department 

needs to mimic the nation’s private sector—again, to the extent possible—in reducing costs, 

improving product development cycles, and adapting rapidly to new technologies. 

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Specifically, federal acquisition regulations must no longer weigh down business with so 

much gratuitous paperwork and regulation that they discourage firms from doing business with 

the government. While the requirement for public accountability can never allow the defense 

acquisition system to mirror image the private sector completely, excess regulation can and 

should be significantly reduced. We therefore recommend the following: 

● 32: Congress should modernize Defense Department auditing and oversight requirements 

by rewriting relevant sections of U.S. Code, Title 10, and the Federal Acquisition 

Regulations (FARs). 

The goal should be to reduce the numbers of auditors and inspectors for the DoD 

weapons acquisition system to a level commensurate with the marginal benefits produced by such 

auditing and inspection. Compared to leading companies in the commercial sector, this would 

entail an approximate reduction within DoD of 50 to 60 percent. 

Rewriting the FARs should be premised on two principles. First, the government must 

pay for the legitimate costs that it causes to be incurred for what it demands in the acquisition 

process. The government must reimburse legitimate costs so that contractors may invest in new 

technology. The government must also share cost savings to create incentives for efficiency. 

Progress payments, covering a legitimate cost of business, should be automatically indexed to 

interest rates. Second, the FARs must encourage competition and provide incentives for timely 

production. The rewritten FARs must have the flexibility that promote a profit policy under 

which firms that perform well are rewarded well—and firms that perform poorly are penalized or 

terminated, or both.66 

To make this recommendation work, DoD will have to exercise significant leadership and 

work with Congress and industry to change the existing culture throughout the acquisition and 

procurement infrastructure. But that is not the only problem. Both industry and government 

officials often fail to take advantage of flexibilities in government regulations because it is less 

risky for them to follow old procedures. Positive actions taken in the past decade have paid off 

only when both DoD program managers and industry changed their way of doing business. 

DoD’s goal to expand participation in the defense industrial base will be helped 

significantly by introducing competition, placing emphasis on timely output versus process, 

increasing the funding for technology experimentation, transitioning more quickly from 

technology development into production, fostering program stability, reducing the oversight 

burden, changing regulations, and revamping the penalty focus of today’s system. 

inally, beyond the other structure and process recommendations, this Commission 

would offer its suggestions on the force structure process. As the Commission 

indicated in its Phase Two report, the concept of fighting two major theater wars (2MTW) nearsimultaneously, the current threat basis for U.S. military force planning, is not producing the 

 

66 It might be appropriate for the revised FARs to test a modified version of the award fee process tied to 

schedule, cost, and performance. This discretionary award could range from a higher-than-present level to a 

moderately negative level. The determining evaluation would be based upon separate periodic input from 

the program manager, the contractor, and outside auditors who would advise either the Service acquisition 

official or an independent board with authority to determine the fee. 

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military capabilities this nation requires.67 It is difficult to envision, at this period in history, two 

opponents capable of challenging the United States at the theater level of conflict, although we 

see the value in maintaining the capability to deter opportunists who might seek advantage while 

the United States was otherwise engaged. Indeed, the commitment for concurrent, all-out 

engagement in two regions of the world, without strategic prioritizing and sequencing of 

campaigns, is in itself an extraordinary notion. We believe it more useful to plan and retain 

readiness for a major conflict, while also securing the homeland and responding to small or 

medium-scale conflicts, international terrorism, peacekeeping, humanitarian actions, and other 

commitments requiring U.S. military support. 

We conclude that the concept of two major, coincident wars is a remote possibility 

supported neither by actual intelligence estimates nor by this Commission’s view of the likely 

future. Thus, it is no longer an appropriate basis for U.S. force structure planning and should be 

replaced by a new approach that accelerates the transformation to capabilities and forces better 

suited to the present and prospective security environment. 

The Commission believes that the military challenges of the next ten to twenty years will 

be an extension of those of the last decade. The United States will have no peer competitor, but it 

will face increasing threats to its homeland from a widening array of actors on the global stage 

with access to weapons of mass destruction and disruption. The likelihood of interstate conflict 

threatening to U.S. interests will remain diminished, while intrastate conflict in areas important to 

U.S. security will increase. 

This Commission believes the United States should maintain full capabilities of the kind 

it now possesses to prevail against the possible emergence of a theater-level opponent. The 

United States, however, must further improve its ability to deal with small to medium violent 

conflicts, often occurring simultaneously, which require very rapid, forced entry response 

capabilities, as well as long-term stability operations in tense, post-conflict scenarios. We should 

thus strive to achieve land, sea, and air capabilities suitable to this security environment that 

possess speed, agility, lethality, ease of deployment and sustainment, and highly networked 

connectivity. Demand for peacekeeping and humanitarian duties will likely continue, with their 

inherent constabulary requirements, and the United States must organize and train for these 

missions. Finally, new emphasis must be placed on the special needs of homeland security. 

Accordingly, the Commission recommends that: 

● 33: The Secretary of Defense should direct the DoD to shift from the threat-based, 2MTW 

force sizing process to one which measures requirements against recent operational 

activity trends, actual intelligence estimates of potential adversaries’ capabilities, 

and national security objectives once formulated in the new administration’s 

national security strategy. 

In such a capability-based sizing process, force structure planning would proceed from a 

strategic vision of the current and projected security environment and the national security 

objectives the new administration seeks to achieve. Sizing would take into account intelligence 

projections of potential adversary’s capabilities plus actual operational activity trends, reflecting 

recent demands. Finally, adoption of updated modeling techniques, which this Commission 

 

67 While the military departments have never defined the term MTW, we infer it to require all forms of 

military capability (land, sea, air) on the scale equivalent to the Gulf War or that envisioned in the past for 

North Korea. 
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recommends, would value the synergistic effects of joint forces with modern weapons that are 

employable in a networked environment. 

It would be inappropriate for the Commission to dictate the exact number and type of 

divisions, wings, and naval battle groups that this nation needs to execute its strategy. We can, 

however, provide guidance and a mechanism to help the Department move in the necessary 

direction. Accordingly, the Commission recommends that the Secretary should revise the 

current categories of Major Force Programs (MFPs) used in the Defense Program Review to 

focus on providing a different mix of military capabilities. Given the need for transformation, 

the Major Force Programs should be updated, and new ones created corresponding to the five 

military capabilities the Commission prescribed in its Phase II report. We expand on those 

capabilities below. 

 

Strategic nuclear forces must retain the capability to perform the classic role of nuclear 

deterrence. The future security environment and probable strategic nuclear arms reduction efforts, 

however, likely will call for appropriately lower numbers of nuclear weapons and delivery 

systems. 

Homeland security forces must possess the ability to deter, protect, and respond to threats 

to the American homeland. Homeland security is not just a military function; it requires the 

capabilities and expertise of numerous government agencies, best integrated by this 

Commission’s proposed National Homeland Security Agency. For DoD’s contribution to this 

vital mission, the Commission recommends that reserve component forces should be assigned a 

primary role. They should be trained and equipped to respond as deployable forces to natural, 

manmade, and/or WMD-triggered disasters. Active duty military forces should be trained to 

perform these missions in augmenting the reserve component forces. 

Conventional forces must be sized and tailored to threats defined by realistic needs and 

updated force modeling. For the near future, conventional forces of the types now possessed can 

provide this capability. Fewer such forces, however, will be required to dominate potential threats 

than have been previously required by current assumptions and models. Given likely limitations 

on strategic air mobility assets, fast sealift and pre-positioned equipment in regions at risk should 

receive higher funding priority. 

Expeditionary capabilities should be distinguished from “current conventional 

capabilities” insofar as they are designed to respond to crises very rapidly, operate with much 

lower logistic requirements in a network-centric environment, and possess technological 

superiority to dominate any potential adversary in the foreseeable future. Rapid power projection 

with forced entry ability, from forward locations and afar, must characterize these capabilities 

which, in the Commission’s view, describes few of the forces the U.S. military now possesses. 

Humanitarian relief and constabulary operations will involve all the military services, 

including the support that has been customarily provided by naval, air, and ground forces. Other 

government and non-government organizations will undoubtedly be involved, and this should be 

anticipated in preparing for such missions. The constabulary capabilities should be vested 

primarily in Army and Marine Corps elements trained and equipped with weapons and mobility 

resources that will enhance the conduct of such missions, which should be additive to other force 

structure requirements.
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his Commission recognizes the transformation process will produce these five 

capabilities over time, yet some must mature at a faster rate. Ultimately, the 

transformation process will blur the distinction between expeditionary and conventional forces, 

as both types of capabilities will eventually possess enhanced mobility. For the near term, 

however, those we call expeditionary capabilities require the most emphasis. Consequently, we 

recommend that: 

● 34: The Defense Department should devote its highest priority to improving and further 

developing its expeditionary capabilities.

This Commission has identified what the U.S. military needs to achieve for the future—

how to get there is best left to the responsible experts. We may discover that a transformed U.S. 

force structure will require a resource and capabilities baseline that is higher than that derived 

through the current 2MTW construct. Moreover, these transformed forces will be the ones this 

nation uses to fight all its conflicts, large and small, one at a time or simultaneously. Clearly, the 

transformation process will require a reprioritization of current resources. Ultimately, the result 

may be a larger force, or a smaller one, but we are confident that it will be a better force, 

appropriate to the environment in which it must serve. 

E. SPACE POLICY

n its earlier work, this Commission has recognized space as a critical national security 

environment.68 In so doing, it affirms current U.S. National Security Strategy, which 

considers “unimpeded access to and use of space” a vital national interest.69 

The United States relies on space for the viability of both its economy and its national 

defense. Space technologies, such as the Global Positioning System, are already revolutionizing 

several major industries. The nation’s military and intelligence activities, too, depend increasingly 

on space. U.S. superiority in space makes possible a military doctrine based on information 

superiority. U.S. military forces exploit space as the “high ground” for command, control, 

computers, communications, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) activities. 

The U.S. military cannot undertake any major operation, anywhere in the world, without relying 

on systems in space. Key elements of the U.S. strategic deterrent posture will be maintained in 

space as will the nation’s ISR systems critical to avoiding strategic surprise. Space will also be a 

crucial component to any layered defense the United States may construct in the next quarter 

century against ballistic missiles. 

That is why the nation’s space architecture—the infrastructure required to conduct space 

activities—must serve a multiplicity of commercial, civil, military, and intelligence purposes. Its 

protection must also be assured against threats that are clearly on the horizon. 

Unfortunately, the superiority the United States enjoys today in space is unlikely to 

persist. Many countries have space capability or access to space. A few states already have the 

satellite and weapons technology to threaten U.S. space assets, and more will acquire such 

technology in due course. 

 

68New World Coming, pp. 53-4, and Seeking a National Strategy, p. 9. 69A National Security Strategy for a New Century (Washington, DC: The White House, December 1999), 

pp. 12. 

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In terms of defining its space strategy, the United States must balance two related goals. 

On the one hand, it seems prudent for the United States to seek space superiority, defined by the 

Defense Department as “that degree of dominance in space of one force over another, which 

permits the conduct of operations by the former and its related land, sea and air forces at a given 

time and place without prohibitive interference by the opposing force.”70 On the other hand, the 

United States should continue to support general international norms that protect space as an 

international domain where all participants are free to pursue peaceful activities. The problem is 

that unilateral U.S. steps taken to assure military superiority in space may be seen by others as 

implying an ability to deny access to space and freedom of action there. Even if that ability is 

never used, it could complicate the ability of the United States to shape a benign international 

environment. The United States recognizes space as a global commons, but if it does so without 

qualification, it risks being surprised and overtaken militarily in a crucial environment by some 

future adversary. 

 

At the very least, this Commission believes that the United States should pursue a robust 

ground- and space-based C4ISR capability.71 Because space capabilities take a long time to 

develop, the United States must also take, in the near- and middle-term, the steps necessary to 

protect its space assets within the current international legal framework should the need arise.72 

n our view, now is the time to reevaluate how both space activities and assets serve 

broader U.S. national security needs, and then how the U.S. government is organized to 

manage these assets. The first is required because science and technology are generating a rapid 

rate of innovation, and that innovation has both commercial and military implications the 

interplay of which we do not yet fully comprehend. The second is required because, frankly, the 

current state of affairs is inadequate. 

As it happens, other commissions or boards have recently addressed or are currently 

addressing space issues, and they are doing so in a more comprehensive way than this 

Commission.73 We endorse their work and offer recommendations that bear, in particular, on 

issues of structure and process. 

Most important, this Commission finds serious problems with the way the existing 

interagency procedures in the U.S. government deal with space. No standing interagency process 

for space exists. Neither the NSC staff nor the White House Office of Science and Technology 

Policy is adequately manned to coordinate space issues. This means that space issues are 

addressed as they arise on an ad hoc basis. Neither the NSC, the National Science and 

 

70This is how the 1999 DoD promulgated space policy defined space superiority. 

71 See Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Space Superiority (Washington, DC: Office of 

the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology, February 2000.) 

72 The Outer Space Treaty bans only the deployment of weapons of mass destruction in space, and the 

ABM Treaty only limits interference with national means of verification with respect to arms control 

agreements. Meanwhile, even the United Nations Charter, in Article 51, states explicitly that no nation is 

precluded from taking appropriate defensive measures in any environment. 

73 Recent or ongoing examinations of space issues include: Report of the Defense Science Board Task 

Force on Space Superiority (Washington, DC: Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition 

and Technology, February 2000); “U.S. Space Industrial Base,” Booz-Allen Hamilton report to the NRO 

and DoD, June 2000; and the Congressionally-mandated “Commission to Assess United States National 

Security Space Management and Organization.” 

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Technology Council (NSTC), or the National Economic Council (NEC) integrates U.S. space 

activities. Hence, the Commission recommends the following: 

● 35: The President should establish an Interagency Working Group on Space (IWGS) at 

the National Security Council to coordinate all aspects of the nation’s space policy, 

and place on the NSC staff those with the necessary expertise in this area. 

Such a working group would include key representatives from the Executive Office of 

the President (NSC, OSTP, OMB) and stakeholder representatives: the Departments of Defense, 

State, Transportation, and Commerce, the Director of Central Intelligence, and the Chairman of 

the Joint Chiefs of Staff.74 The creation of the IWGS would allow space to be considered 

systematically and consistently as a critical element of U.S. national security policy. 

he global presence and responsibilities of the United States, and the demands of the 

information age, have placed enormous new requirements for space and information 

infrastructures. These will create major demands for resources in both the Defense Department 

and the intelligence community. The problem is that the nation has not developed the concept of a 

comprehensive national space architecture to guide the allocation of resources.75 

A national intelligence Future Imagery Architecture (FIA) does exist, but it has been 

given woefully inadequate means either to fully process or to disseminate the information 

collected for its clients in the intelligence community, DoD, and other agencies.76 Rectifying 

these problems is estimated to cost several billion dollars and no funds have so far been 

earmarked for this purpose. At present, then, the system for national intelligence imagery 

collection, processing, and dissemination is not fully integrated. The National Reconnaissance 

Office (NRO) and the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) have failed to provide 

imagery capability that meets U.S. security needs.77 As currently envisioned, too, the National 

Missile Defense (NMD) architecture focuses solely on engagement, not on an architecture that 

integrates the entire spectrum of national and defense-related intelligence, or that covers preengagement and post-strike assessments and reconstitution activities. Other space activities, such 

as those of NASA and NOAA, have been given little attention in thinking about the nation’s 

space architecture. This is also the case for commercial space activities. 

There is within the Defense Department a National Security Space Architect (NSSA) 

with responsibility for the design and oversight of the nation’s defense and intelligence space 

infrastructure.78 But this official lacks the means to affect the non-DoD/intelligence space 

 

74 The representation of relevant agencies would be achieved through their departments; e.g., FAA 

representation through the Department of Transportation, and that of the National Oceanic and 

Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) through the Department of Commerce. 

75 A more detailed definition of space architecture includes: the on-orbit force structure and missions; 

configurations to include type of sensors, on-board processing, and dissemination; ground control systems 

and downloading/processing capabilities; frequency spectrum use and deconfliction; multi-mission 

capabilities; and system protection measures and security requirements. 

76 The national Future Imagery Architecture [FIA] is sponsored by the National Reconnaissance Office 

(NRO). 

77 The NRO is responsible for satellite, constellation, and ground operations design and acquisition; NIMA 

is responsible for imagery product development and dissemination. 

78 The NSSA currently reports to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command, Control, 

Communications, and Intelligence ASD(C3I) for DoD-related issues, and coordinates with the Deputy 

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architecture, much less influence decisions in other departments and agencies. The NSSA does 

not directly influence programs and budgets and, hence, cannot influence the allocation of 

resources. This Commission therefore recommends that the existing National Security Space 

Architect (NSSA) should be transferred from DoD to the NSC staff and take the lead in this 

effort.

 Moreover, the problem of organizing for space policy must also be addressed at levels 

below the interagency. In the Department of Defense, responsibility for space policy and 

oversight is dispersed among various elements of the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s (OSD) 

staff. We recommend establishing one office responsible for oversight of the department’s R&D, 

acquisition, and launch/operation of its space assets. Coordination of military intelligence 

activities and long-range intelligence requirements, both within the department and with the 

intelligence community, should reside in this office. This official would therefore develop all 

defense-specific space, intelligence, and space architecture policy for DoD, and coordinate these 

issues at the interagency level. Accordingly, we recommend the Department of Defense create 

an Under Secretary of Defense for Space, Intelligence, and Information by consolidating 

current functions on the OSD staff.

79

ne of the nation's most valuable forms of critical infrastructure is its space-based 

satellite constellation and ground support facilities. It is also our most vulnerable.

Nowhere else does our defense capability rest on such an insecure firmament, even though 

warning and imagery are unquestionably critical. The concept of critical infrastructure protection 

highlighted in Section I must be extended to U.S. space networks as well. In light of U.S. reliance 

on these assets and the present dearth of means to protect them, the Commission endorses the 

conclusions of the recent Commission to Assess U.S National Security Space Management and 

Organization, and recommends increased investment in the protection of U.S. space assets, 

including deployment of a space-based surveillance network. 

Such a network will require, first, that the United States be able to detect when its 

systems are being attacked and then respond. Protective methods must be developed and fielded. 

Second, the nation's access to space must be expanded in ways that are more cost-effective. The 

more robust U.S. space launch capability, the more able the United States will be to retain its 

space superiority, reconstitute systems after attack, and reduce its vulnerabilities. The 

Commission strongly recommends that the modernization of the nation’s space-launch 

capability be accelerated. 

F. THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY 

he basic structure of the U.S. intelligence community does not require change. The 

community has implemented many of the recommendations for reform made by other 

studies. This Commission’s focus is on those changes in intelligence policy, operations, and 

resources needed for the full implementation of recommendations found elsewhere within this 

report. 

 

Director of Central Intelligence (DDCI) and the DDCI for Collection Management on intelligence-related 

issues. 

79 The primary elements would come from the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, 

and Logistics (USD(AT&L)), and the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command, Control, Computers, 

and Intelligence (ASD(C3I)). In essence ASD(C3I) would transfer to the proposed reorganization. 

O

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While the intelligence community is generally given high marks for timely and useful 

contributions to policymaking and crisis management, it failed to warn of Indian nuclear tests or 

to anticipate the rapidity of missile developments in Iran and North Korea. U.S. intelligence has, 

at times, been unable to respond to the burgeoning requirements levied by more demanding 

consumers trying to cope with a more complex array of problems. Steep declines in human 

intelligence resources over the last decade have been forcing dangerous tradeoffs between 

coverage of important countries, regions, and functional challenges. Warfighters in theater are 

often frustrated because the granulated detail of intelligence that they need rarely gets to them, 

even though they know that it exists somewhere in the intelligence system. 

It is a commonplace that the intelligence community lost its focus when the Berlin Wall 

fell. Since then, three other problems have compounded its challenges. First, the world is a more 

complex place, with more diffuse dangers requiring different kinds of intelligence and new means 

of acquiring them. Second, its resources—personnel and monetary—have been reduced. Third, 

the dangers of terrorism and proliferation, as well as ethnic conflicts and humanitarian 

emergencies, have led to a focus on providing warning and crisis management rather than longterm analysis. 

The result of these three developments is an intelligence community that is more 

demand-driven than it was two decades ago. That demand is also more driven by military 

consumers and, therefore, what the intelligence community is doing is narrower and more shortterm than it was two decades ago. Given the paucity of resources, this means that important 

regions and trends are not receiving adequate attention and that the more comprehensive 

analytical tasks that everyone agrees the intelligence community should be performing simply 

cannot be done properly. 

This Commission has emphasized that strategic planning needs to be introduced 

throughout the national security institutions of the U.S. government. We have also emphasized 

the critical importance of preventive diplomacy. Both require an intelligence community that can 

support such innovations, but current trends are leading in the opposite direction. 

This Commission has also stressed the increasing importance of diplomatic and 

especially economic components in U.S. statecraft. The intelligence community as a whole needs 

to maintain its level of effort in military domains, but also to do much more in economic 

domains. In a world where proprietary science and technology developments are increasingly the 

sinews of national power, the intelligence community needs to be concerned more than ever with 

U.S. technological security, not least in cyberspace. And here, too, the trends within the 

intelligence community point not toward, but away from, the country’s essential needs. Resources 

devoted to handling such economic and technical issues are not increasing, but declining. 

o respond to these challenges, some have recommended strengthening the Director of 

Central Intelligence (DCI) through organizational changes, such as vesting greater 

budgetary authority in him and giving him greater control over personnel throughout the 

community. We believe, however, that current efforts to strengthen community management 

while maintaining the ongoing relationship between the DCI and the Secretary of Defense are 

bearing fruit. We recommend no major structural changes, but offer certain recommendations to 

strengthen the DCI’s role and the efficiency of the process. 

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The National Security Act of 1947 gave the National Security Council responsibility for 

providing guidance with respect to intelligence functions. In practice, however, administrations 

have varied widely in their approach to this function—sometimes actively setting priorities for 

intelligence collection and analysis and sometimes focusing simply on coordinating intelligence 

response in times of crisis. 

To achieve the strategy envisioned in our Phase II report, and to make the budgetary 

recommendations of this section most effective, more consistent attention must be paid to the 

setting of national intelligence priorities. To do this, we recommend the following: 

● 36: The President should order the setting of national intelligence priorities through 

National Security Council guidance to the Director of Central Intelligence. 

In recommending this, we echo the conclusion of the Commission on the Roles and 

Capabilities of the United States Intelligence Community (the Brown-Rudman Commission). 

While we do not want to dictate how future Presidents might use the National Security Council, 

we believe this is a crucial function that must be filled in some way. The President’s authority to 

set strategic intelligence priorities should be exercised through continuous NSC engagement with 

the DCI, from which the DCI can establish appropriate collection and analysis priorities. Such an 

approach would ensure consistent policymaker input into the intelligence effort and, if 

policymakers come to feel a part of the intelligence process, it should enable greater support for 

the intelligence community, as well. We believe that this function would be best fulfilled by a 

true strategic planning staff at the NSC—as per our recommendation 14. The point is that policy 

and strategic guidance for intelligence should be formulated in tandem. 

e have emphasized the importance of securing the homeland in this new century 

and have urged, specifically in recommendation 4, that it be a higher intelligence 

priority. Making it so means greatly strengthening U.S. human intelligence (HUMINT) 

capability. This involves ensuring the quality of those entering the community’s clandestine 

service, as well as the recruitment of foreign nationals as agents with the best chance of providing 

crucial information about terrorism and other threats to the homeland. 

Along with the National Commission on Terrorism, we believe that guidelines for the 

recruitment of foreign nationals should be reviewed to ensure that, while respecting legal and 

human rights concerns, they maximize the intelligence community’s ability to collect intelligence 

on terrorist plans and methods. We recognize the need to observe basic moral standards in all 

U.S. government conduct, but the people who can best help U.S. agents penetrate effectively into 

terrorist organizations, for example, are not liable to be model citizens of spotless virtue. 

Operative regulations in this respect must balance national security interests with concern for 

American values and principles. We therefore recommend the following: 

● 37: The Director of Central Intelligence should emphasize the recruitment of human 

intelligence sources on terrorism as one of the intelligence community’s highest 

priorities, and ensure that operational guidelines are balanced between security 

needs and respect for American values and principles.

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he DCI must also give greater priority to the analysis of economic and science and 

technology trends where the U.S. intelligence community’s capabilities are 

inadequate. While improvements have been made, especially in the wake of the Asian financial 

crisis, the global economic and scientific environments are changing so rapidly and dramatically 

that the United States needs to develop new tools merely to understand what is happening in the 

world. The Treasury Department has made important strides in this regard, but it has a long way 

to go. Treasury and CIA also need to coordinate better efforts in this critical area. We therefore 

recommend the following: 

● 38: The intelligence community should place new emphasis on collection and analysis of 

economic and science/technology security concerns, and incorporate more opensource intelligence into analytical products. Congress should support this new 

emphasis by increasing significantly the National Foreign Intelligence Program 

(NFIP) budget for collection and analysis. 

In order to maintain U.S. strength in traditional areas while building new capabilities, the 

President and the Congress should give priority to economic and science/technology intelligence. 

We need to increase overall funding in these areas significantly and the DCI needs to emphasize 

improvement in the collection and analysis of this intelligence. This will require, in turn, a major 

investment in the community’s long-term analytical capacities, but these capacities are crucial in 

any event to supporting the strategic planning that we have emphasized throughout this report. 

Better analysis in non-military areas also means ensuring that open-source intelligence is 

a vital part of all-source analysis. Many new challenges, but especially economic, scientific, and 

technological ones, call for greater attention to the wealth of openly available information. 

Analyses of the failure of the community to anticipate India’s nuclear tests, when clear 

indications were available in open-source publications, demonstrate that this capability has 

relevance for traditional security issues as well. 

e thus urge the strengthening of HUMINT capabilities, the broadening of analytical 

efforts across a range of issues, and the incorporation of more open-source 

information into all-source analysis. Meeting the nation’s future intelligence needs, however, will 

also require changes in the community’s technological capabilities. 

Technological superiority has long been a hallmark of U.S. intelligence. Yet some 

agencies within the National Foreign Intelligence Program spend as little as three to four percent 

of their budget on all aspects of research and development, and as little as one percent on 

advanced research and development. This reflects a decline in overall intelligence expenditures in 

real terms, while salaries and benefits for intelligence personnel have been on the rise. Concerted 

effort is needed to ensure that research and development receive greater funding. 

At the same time, the intelligence community must think about its technological 

capabilities in new ways. During the Cold War, the National Security Agency (NSA) and other 

agencies derived a great wealth of information through signals and communications intelligence. 

In today’s Internet age, global networks, cable, and wireless communications are increasingly 

ubiquitous, with attendant improvements in encryption technologies. Together these trends make 

signal intelligence collection increasingly difficult. The United States must possess the best 

platforms and capabilities to ensure that it can collect necessary information consistent with 

respecting Americans’ privacy. It must also have high-quality technical and scientific personnel 

T

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able to respond to future challenges. To these ends, we recommend that the DCI should provide 

the President a strategic assessment of the effectiveness of current technical intelligence 

capabilities to ensure the fullest range of collection across all intelligence domains, 

particularly as they relate to cyberspace and new communications technologies. 

Should the U.S. intelligence community lack a full-spectrum capability either in 

collection or analysis, the United States would forfeit the depth of intelligence coverage it 

enjoyed during the Cold War. Maintaining this edge will require greater funding and expertise in 

the information and communication sciences. We must also pursue innovative approaches with 

the private sector to establish access to new technologies as they become available. 

his Commission, in sum, urges an overall increase in the NFIP budget to 

accommodate greater priority placed on non-military intelligence challenges. Military 

intelligence needs also remain critical, however, so a simple reallocation of existing resources 

will not suffice. To ensure the continuing technological strength of the community, and to build 

cutting-edge intelligence platforms, there is no escaping the need for an increase in overall 

resources for the intelligence community. 

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IV. The Human Requirements for National 

Security 

s it enters the 21st century, the United States finds itself on the brink of an 

unprecedented crisis of competence in government. The maintenance of American 

power in the world depends on the quality of U.S. government personnel, civil and military, at all 

levels. We must take immediate action in the personnel area to ensure that the United States can 

meet future challenges. 

In its Phase I report, this Commission asserted that “the ability to carry out effective 

foreign and military policies requires not only a skilled military, but talented professionals in all 

forms of public service as well.”80 We reaffirm here our conviction that the quality of personnel 

serving in government is critically important to U.S. national security in the 21st century. The 

excellence of American public servants is the foundation upon which an effective national 

security strategy must rest—in large part because future success will require the mastery of 

advanced technology, from the economy to combat, as well as leading-edge concepts of 

governance. We therefore repeat our conclusion from the Phase II report, that the United States 

“must strengthen government (civil and military) personnel systems in order to improve 

recruitment, retention, and effectiveness at all levels.”81 

In this light, the declining orientation toward government service as a prestigious career 

is deeply troubling. The problem manifests itself in different ways throughout various 

departments, agencies, and the military services, yet all face growing difficulties in recruiting and 

retaining America’s most promising talent. These deficits are traceable to several sources, one of 

which is that the sustained growth of the U.S. economy has created private sector opportunities 

with salaries and advancement potential well beyond those provided by the government. This has 

a particular impact in shaping career decisions in an era of rising student debt loads. The contrast 

with the private sector is also organizational. In government, positions of responsibility and the 

ability to advance are hemmed in by multiple layers, even at senior levels; in the private sector, 

both often come more quickly. Rigid, lengthy, and arcane government personnel procedures—

including those germane to application, compensation, promotion, retirement, and benefits 

systems—also discourage some otherwise interested applicants. 

Another source of the problem is that there is no single overarching motivation to entice 

patriotic Americans into public service as there was during the Cold War. Careers in government 

no longer seem to hold out the prospect for highly regarded service to the nation. Meanwhile, the 

private and non-profit sectors are now replete with opportunities that have broad appeal to 

idealistic Americans who in an earlier time might have found a home within government service. 

Government has to compete with the private sector not only in salary and benefits, then, but often 

in terms of the intrinsic interest of the work and the sense of individual efficacy and fulfillment 

that this work bestows. 

At the same time, the trust that Americans have in their government is buffeted by 

worrisome cynicism. Consistent criticism of government employees and agencies by politicians 

and the press has magnified public dissatisfaction and lowered regard for the worthiness of 

 

80 New World Coming, p. 130. 81 Seeking a National Strategy, p. 9. 

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government service. Political candidates running “against Washington” have fueled the 

impression that all government is prone to management and services of a quality below that of 

similar organizations in the private sector. This is not the case, but virtually every Presidential 

candidate in the past thirty years has deployed campaign rhetoric criticizing “the bloated 

bureaucracy” as a means of securing “outsider” status in the campaign. Neither critics nor their 

audiences often differentiate between performance failures based on political maneuvering and 

the efforts of apolitical professional public servants striving to implement policy. The cumulative 

effect of this rhetoric on public attitudes toward the government is demonstrated in a 1999 study 

highlighting American frustration with “the poor performance of government” and “the absence 

of effective public leadership.”82 

A final reality is that today’s technological age has created sweeping expectations of 

speed, accuracy, and customization for every product and service. Government is not immune to 

these expectations, but its overall reputation remains that of a plodding bureaucracy. Talented 

people seeking careers where they can quickly make a difference see government as the antithesis 

to best management practices, despite many government improvements in this area. Part of the 

recruitment and retention problem, therefore, flows from the image of overall government 

management and must be addressed by making government more effective and responsive at 

every level. 

The effect of these realities on recruiting and retention problems is manifest. The number 

of applicants taking the Foreign Service entrance exam, for example, is down sharply and the 

State Department shows signs of a growing retention problem. The national security community 

also faces critical problems recruiting and retaining scientific and information technology 

professionals in an economy that has made them ever more valuable. The national security 

elements of the Civil Service face similar problems, and these problems are magnified by the fact 

that the Civil Service is doing little recruiting at a time when a retirement wave of baby-boomers 

is imminent. 

For the armed services, the aforementioned trends have widened the cultural gap between 

the military and the country at large that continues to be affected by the abolition of the draft in 

the 1970s. While Americans admire the military, they are increasingly less likely to serve in it, to 

relate to its real dangers and hardships, or to understand its profound commitment requirements. 

With a total active strength of 1.4 million, only one-half of one percent of the nation serves in the 

military. Military life and values are thus virtually unknown to the vast majority of Americans. 

The military’s capabilities, professionalism, and unique culture are pillars of America’s 

national strength and leadership in the world. Without a renewed call to military service and 

systemic internal personnel reform to retain quality people, the requisite leadership and 

professionalism necessary for an effective military will be in jeopardy. For this reason, the 

Commission asserted in its Phase II report that the “United States must strengthen the bonds 

between the American people and those of its members who serve in the armed forces.”83 We 

reaffirm that assertion here. 

 

82 Panel on Civic Trust and Citizen Responsibility, A Government to Trust and Respect: Rebuilding 

Citizen-Government Relations for the 21st Century (Washington, DC: National Academy of Public 

Administration, 1999), p. iii. 

83 Seeking a National Strategy, p. 9.
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A. A NATIONAL CAMPAIGN FOR SERVICE TO THE NATION

o remedy these problems, the Commission believes that a national campaign to 

reinvigorate and enhance the prestige of service to the nation is necessary to attract 

the best Americans to military and civilian government service. The key step in such a campaign 

must be to revive a positive attitude toward public service. It has to be made clear from the 

highest levels that frustrations with particular government policies or agencies should not be 

conveyed through the denigration of federal employees en masse. Calls for smaller government, 

too, should not be read as indictments of the quality of government servants. Instead, specific 

issues should be addressed on the merits, while a broader campaign should be waged to stress the 

importance of public service in a democracy. 

Implementing such a campaign requires strong and consistent Presidential commitment, 

Congressional legislation, and innovative departmental actions throughout the federal 

government. We know this is a tall order, but we take heart in previous examples of such 

leadership. The clarion call of President John F. Kennedy, encompassed in but a few well-chosen 

remarks spread over several speeches, had enormous impact and inspired an entire generation to 

public service. We also remember how President Ronald Reagan reinvigorated the spirit of the 

U.S. military after the tragedies of the Vietnam War and subsequent periods of low funding and 

plummeting morale. What the President says, and how he says it, matters. Moreover, only the 

President can shape the Executive Branch agenda to undertake the changes needed in U.S. 

personnel systems. 

While the President’s involvement is central, other leaders must help build a new 

foundation for public service. Congress must be convinced not only to pass the legislative 

remedies proffered below, but also to change its own rhetoric to support national service. It must 

work with department heads and other affected institutions to ensure that a common message is 

conveyed, and that Executive departments and agencies have the flexibility they need to make 

real improvements. 

Rhetoric alone, however, will not bring America’s best talent to public service. The 

Commission believes that unless government service is made competitively rewarding to 21st

century future leaders, words will surely fade to inaction. Section II of this report highlighted the 

urgent national need for outstanding science and technology professionals. So, too, does 

government need high-quality people with expertise in the social sciences, foreign languages, and 

humanities. The decreased funding available for these programs from universities and 

foundations may threaten the ability of the government to produce future leaders with the 

requisite knowledge—in foreign languages, economics, and history to take several examples—to 

meet 21st century security challenges. 

Therefore this Commission proposes a complement to the National Security Science and 

Technology Education Act (NSSTEA) presented in recommendation 11 of this report. As in the 

case of the NSSTEA, which applies to math and hard science majors, we would extend 

scholarship and debt relief benefits to those social science, foreign language, and humanities 

students who serve the nation. We therefore make the following recommendation: 

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● 39: Congress should significantly expand the National Security Education Act (NSEA) to 

include broad support for social sciences, humanities, and foreign languages in 

exchange for military and civilian service to the nation.84

The current National Security Education Act (NSEA) of 1991 provides limited 

undergraduate scholarships and graduate fellowships for students to study certain subjects, 

including foreign language and foreign area studies. The Act also allows the use of funds at 

institutions of higher learning to develop faculty expertise in the languages and cultures of less 

commonly studied countries. Recipients of these funds incur an obligation either to work for an 

office or agency of the federal government involved in national security affairs, or to pursue 

careers as educators for a period equal to the time covered by the scholarship.85 

An expanded Act would increase the subjects currently designated for study, offering 

one- to four-year scholarships good for study at qualified U.S. universities and colleges. Upon 

completion of their studies, recipients could fulfill their service in a number of ways: in the active 

duty U.S. military; in National Guard or Reserve units; in national security departments and 

agencies of the Civil Service; or in the Foreign Service. To prepare students to fulfill their service 

requirements, the scholarship program should include a training element. One model of this 

training might be a civilian equivalent of the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) or Platoon 

Leader Course (PLC).86

The Act should also provide for those who choose government service after completing 

their education. In those cases, the Act could offer several sorts of incentives in lieu of 

scholarships foregone. One such incentive would be the deferral of educational loan repayment 

while individuals serve in government. Another would reduce school loan principal amounts by a 

set percentage for every year the individual stays in government service up to complete 

repayment.87 In such cases, the government would assume the financial obligations of the 

graduate, so that neither financial nor educational institutions suffer. 

The Commission believes the combination of the NSSTEA for math and science, and for 

other majors this significantly expanded NSEA will prepare Americans for many forms of service 

and more generally help recruit high-quality civil service and military personnel. 

B. THE PRESIDENTIAL APPOINTMENTS PROCESS

 concerted campaign to improve the attractiveness of service to the nation is the first 

step in ensuring that talented people continue to serve in government. However, 

fundamental changes are also needed to personnel management systems throughout the national 

 

84 Our model is the National Defense Education Act of the late 1950s and 1960s, which provided loan 

forgiveness incentives for those willing to serve in the military or teach in schools with disadvantaged 

students or in disadvantaged areas. That act provided scholarships to those studying hard sciences and 

mathematics, as well as those studying critical foreign languages where the country at large confronted 

significant deficiencies. 

85 National Security Education Act 1991 (Public Law 102-183—December 4, 1991.) 

86 The Marine Corps PLC scholarship program is similar to the ROTC program, but is not affiliated with a 

particular learning institution and is not tied to an actual cadre unit at a specific school. 

87 A limited version of this loan reduction concept is currently under development in a portion of the Civil 

Service. See “Proposed Rules—Repayment of Student Loans,” Federal Register, June 22, 2000, pp. 38791-

38794. 

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security agencies of government. Not least among the institutions needing reform is the 

Presidential appointments system.

The problem with government personnel starts at the top. Unlike many other countries, 

the United States staffs the high levels of its national government with many outside, non-career 

personnel. The most senior of these are Presidential appointees whose positions require Senate 

confirmation. While career personnel provide much-needed expertise, continuity, and 

professionalism, Presidential appointees are a source of many valuable qualities as well—fresh 

ideas, experience outside government, specialized expertise, management skills, and often an 

impressive personal dynamism. They also ensure political accountability in policy execution, by 

transmitting the President’s policies to the departments and agencies of government. Indeed, the 

tradition of public-spirited citizens coming in and out of government is an old and honorable one, 

serving the country well from the days of George Washington. This infusion of outside skills is 

truly indispensable today, when the private sector is the source of so much of the country’s 

managerial and technological innovation. 

What a tragedy, then, that the system for recruiting such outside talent has broken down. 

According to a recent study, “the Founders’ model of presidential service is near the breaking 

point” and “the presidential appointments process now verges on complete collapse.”88 The 

ordeal to which outside nominees are subjected is so great—above and beyond whatever financial 

or career sacrifice is involved—as to make it prohibitive for many individuals of talent and 

experience to accept public service. To take a vivid recent example: “The Clinton Administration 

. . . had great difficulty filling key Energy Department positions overseeing the disposal of 

nuclear waste because most experts in the field came directly or indirectly from the nuclear 

industry and were thus rejected for their perceived conflicts of interest.”89 The problem takes 

several forms. 

First, there are extraordinary—and lengthening—delays in the vetting and confirmation 

process. On average, the process for those appointees who required Senate confirmation has 

lengthened from about two and one-half months in the early 1960s to an extraordinary eight and 

one-half months in 1996—suggesting that many sub-cabinet positions in the new administration 

will be fortunate to be in place by the fall of 2001.90 As Norman Ornstein and Thomas Donilon 

point out: “The lag in getting people into office seriously impedes good governance. A new 

president’s first year—clearly the most important year for accomplishments and the most 

vulnerable to mistakes—is now routinely impaired by the lack of supporting staff. For executive 

agencies, leaderless periods mean decisions not taken, initiatives not launched, and accountability 

not upheld.”91 The result is a gross distortion of the Constitutional process; the American people 

exert themselves to elect a President and yet he is impeded from even beginning to carry out his 

mandate until one-sixth of his term has elapsed. 

Second, the ethics rules—conflict of interest and financial disclosure requirements—have 

proliferated beyond all proportion to the point where they are not only a source of excessive 

delay but a prohibitive obstacle to the recruitment of honest men and women to public service.

 

88 Paul C. Light and Virginia L. Thomas, The Merit and Reputation of an Administration: Presidential 

Appointees on the Appointments Process (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution and The Heritage 

Foundation, April 28, 2000), p. 3. 

89 Norman Ornstein and Thomas Donilon, "The Confirmation Clog," Foreign Affairs, November/December 

2000, p. 91. 

90 Defense Science Board, Final Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Human Resources 

Strategy (Washington, DC: Office of the Secretary of Defense, February 2000), p. 41. 91Ornstein and Donilon, p. 89. 
 91

Stacks of different background forms covering much of the same information must be completed 

for the White House, the Senate, and the FBI (in addition to the financial disclosure forms for the 

Office of Government Ethics). These disclosure requirements put appointees through weeks of 

effort and often significant expense. The Defense Department and Senate Armed Services 

Committee routinely force nominees to divest completely their holdings related to the defense 

industry instead of exploring other options such as blind trusts, discretionary waivers, and 

recusals.92 This impedes recruiting high-level appointees whose knowledge of that industry 

should be regarded as a valuable asset to the office, not reason for disqualification. 

The complexity of the ethics rules is not only a barrier and a time-consuming burden 

before confirmation; it is a source of traps for unwary but honest officials after confirmation. This 

is despite the fact that the U.S. federal government is remarkable for the rarity of real corruption 

in high office compared to many other advanced societies. Yet we proliferate “scandals” because 

of appearances of improprieties, or inadvertent breaches of highly technical provisions. Worse, 

these rules are increasingly matters of criminal rather than administrative remedies. It appears to 

us that those who have written these conflict of interest regulations themselves have little conflict 

of experience in such matters. 

Third, and closely related, are the post-employment restrictions that a new recruit knows 

he or she must endure, particularly appointees subject to Senate confirmation. We will simply 

cease to attract talented outsiders who have a track record of success if the price for a few years 

of government service is to forsake not only income but work in the very fields in which they had 

demonstrated talent and found success. The recent trend has been to add to the restrictions. 

However, we applaud the recent revocation of Executive Order 12834 as an important step in 

removing some unnecessary restrictions.93

A fourth dimension of the problem is the proliferation of Presidential-appointee 

positions. In the last 30 years, the number of Senate-confirmable Presidential-appointee positions 

throughout the federal government has quadrupled, from 196 to 786. Within the Defense 

Department, the figure has risen from 31 to 45 during the same period.94 The growing number of 

appointees contributes directly to the backlog that slows the confirmation process. It also makes 

public service in many of these positions less attractive; as the Defense Science Board noted in 

the case of the Defense Department, “an assistant secretary post may be less attractive buried 

several layers below the secretary than as a number two or three job.”95 Moreover, Presidential 

appointments can hardly serve as a transmission belt of Presidential authority if multiple layers of 

political appointees diffuse accountability and make departments and agencies more cumbersome 

and less responsive. And it runs glaringly counter to the trend in today’s private sector toward 

flatter and leaner management structures. 

 

92 Defense Science Board, p. D-6. 

93 The recently-rescinded Executive Order 12834, signed by President Clinton on January 20, 1993, his first 

day in office, extended to five years the previous one-year ban on an ex-official’s appearance before his or 

her former agency. This restriction was placed on the most senior presidential appointees. All former 

employees face certain limitations, but Senate-confirmable employees paid at the EL-V or EL-IV level (and 

non-career SES appointees whose salaries fall within this range) face additional regulations potentially very 

harmful to their post-service careers. Under Executive Order 12834, they could not lobby their former 

agency for five years, while other appointees are restricted only for one year. See Defense Science Board, 

p. D-7 and the relevant section of the U.S. Code, 18 USC §207. 

94 Defense Science Board, pp. 42-43. 

95 Ibid., p. 43. 
 92

Finally, the appointments process feeds the pervasive atmosphere of distrust and 

cynicism about government service. The encrustation of complex rules is based on the 

presumption that all officials, and especially those with experience in or contact with the private 

sector, are criminals waiting to be unmasked. Congress and the media relish accusations or 

suspicions, whether substantiated or not. Yet the U.S. government will not be able to function 

effectively unless public service is restored to a place of honor and prestige, especially for private 

citizens who have achieved success in their chosen fields. 

We need to rebuild the present system nearly from the ground up, and the beginning of a 

new administration is the ideal time to start. Our recommendations support those made in the 

Defense Science Board’s Human Resource Study, in the joint survey undertaken by the 

Brookings Institution and the Heritage Foundation, and by Norman Ornstein and Thomas 

Donilon. We therefore recommend the following: 

● 40: The Executive and Legislative Branches should cooperate to revise the current 

Presidential appointee process by reducing the impediments that have made highlevel public service undesirable to many distinguished Americans. Specifically, they 

should reduce the number of Senate confirmed and non-career SES positions by 25 

percent; shorten the appointment process; and moderate draconian ethics 

regulations. 

Reducing non-career positions would, as the Defense Science Board has noted, “allow 

more upward career mobility for Senior Executive Service employees and provide greater 

continuity and corporate memory in conducting the day-to-day business affairs of the Defense 

Department during the transition between administrations.”96 Recommendation 43 below to 

create a National Security Service Corps should help ensure that career employees develop the 

qualifications to be eligible to hold senior positions throughout the government. 

The aim of reducing the number of Presidential appointees is not to weaken Presidential 

political authority over the bureaucracy, but to eliminate the excessive layering that clogs the 

government’s functioning in addition to slowing the appointment process. That said, an exact 

balance between political and career appointees cannot be specified in the abstract. Both groups 

include skilled and talented people. But Presidents should be held to a qualitative standard—that 

political appointees, whether for Ambassadors or for policymaking positions in Washington, 

should be chosen for the real talents they will bring and not the campaign contributions they 

brought. [See recommendation 23] 

To streamline and shorten the current appointment process, the President and leaders of 

the new Congress should meet as soon as possible to agree on the following measures. 

● CONFIRM THE NATIONAL SECURITY TEAM FIRST. By tradition, the Senate Foreign 

Relations, Armed Services, and Intelligence committees hold hearings before 

inauguration on the nominees for Secretaries of State and Defense and the Director of 

Central Intelligence, and vote on inauguration day. This practice should continue. Future 

Presidents should also present to the Senate no later than inauguration day his nominees 

for the top ten positions at State and at Defense and the top three posts at CIA. Leaders of 

the relevant committees should agree to move the full slate of appointments to the full 

 

96Ibid., p. 44. 
 93

Senate within 30 days of receiving the nomination (barring some serious legitimate 

concern about an individual nominee).97

● REDUCE AND STANDARDIZE PAPERWORK REQUIREMENTS. The “Transition to 

Governing Project” jointly undertaken by the American Enterprise Institute and the 

Brookings Institution is developing software that will enable appointees to collect 

information once and direct it to the necessary forms. The new President should direct all 

relevant agencies and authorities to accept these computerized forms and to streamline 

the paperwork requirements for future appointees.98

● REDUCE THE NUMBER OF NOMINEES SUBJECT TO FULL FBI BACKGROUND CHECKS. Full 

field investigations should be required only for national security or other sensitive toplevel posts. Most other appointees need only abbreviated background checks, and parttime or lesser posts need only simple identification checks.99 The risks to the Republic of 

such an approach are minor and manageable, and are far outweighed by the benefit that 

would accrue in saved resources and expedited vetting. 

● LIMIT ACCESS TO FULL FBI FILES. Distribution of raw FBI files should be severely 

restricted to the chairman and ranking minority member of the confirming Senate 

committee.100 Nothing deters the recruitment of senior people more than the fear that their 

private lives will be shredded by the leakage of such material to the national media. 

To significantly revise current conflict-of-interest and ethics regulations, the President 

and Congressional leaders should meet quickly and instruct their top aides to make 

recommendations within 90 days of January 20, 2001. This Commission endorses 

retention of basic laws and regulations that prevent bribery and corrupt practices as well 

as the restrictions in the U.S. Code that ban former officials from lobbying their former 

agencies for one year. We also endorse lifetime prohibitions against acting as a 

representative of a foreign government and against making a formal appearance in 

reference to a “particular matter” in which he or she participated personally and 

substantially, or a matter under his or her official responsibilities. However, the 

Commission recommends two important actions: 

● Conduct a comprehensive review of the regulations and statutory framework covering 

Presidential appointments to ensure that regulations do not exceed statutory 

requirements. 

● Make blind trusts, discretionary waivers, and recusals more easily available as 

alternatives to complete divestiture of financial and business holdings of concern. 

The conflict of interest regime should also be decriminalized. Technical or inadvertent 

misstatements on complex disclosure forms, or innocent contacts with the private sector, should 

not be presumptively criminal. The Office of Government Ethics should be enabled and 

 

97 Ornstein and Donilon, p. 97. We also advocate accelerating the appointment process for the 80 key 

science and technology personnel in government. See Section II above, and Science and Technology in the 

National Interest: The Presidential Appointments Process (Washington, DC: National Academies of 

Science, June 30, 2000). The 80 positions of which we speak are listed on p. 8. 

98Ornstein and Donilon, p. 94. 

99 Ibid., p. 95. 100 Former FBI (and CIA) Director William Webster has noted that these files are “often freighted with 

hearsay, rumor, innuendo, and unsubstantial allegations.” Quoted in ibid., p. 95. 
 94

encouraged to enforce the disclosure and post-employment statutes as civil or administrative 

matters; to decide questions expeditiously; and to see its job as clearing the innocent, as well as 

pursuing wrongdoers. 

These recommendations can be accomplished through Executive Branch action, such as 

that which rescinded Executive Order 12834. Other recommendations, however, will require 

Congressional concurrence and action. We therefore urge the new President to take the initiative 

immediately with Congress to agree on future statutory reforms. 

C. THE FOREIGN SERVICE

n effective and motivated Foreign Service is critical to the success of the 

Commission’s restructuring proposal for the State Department [see Section III 

above].Yet among career government systems, the Foreign Service, which is set apart from other 

civilian personnel systems by its specialized entrance procedures and up-or-out approach to 

promotion, is most in need of repair. 

While some believe the Foreign Service has retained much of its historical allure and 

cachet, many close observers contend that the Foreign Service no longer attracts or retains the 

quality of people needed to meet the diplomatic challenges of the 21st century. Overall 

educational competence in areas crucial to a quality Foreign Service—including history, 

geography, economics, humanities, and foreign languages—is declining, resulting in a shrinking 

pool of those with the requisite knowledge and skills for this service.101 The proposed revision to 

the National Security Education Act [recommendation 39 above] is one response to this deficit. 

Data indicate that recruitment is currently the Foreign Service’s major concern.102 There 

are now 25 percent fewer people taking the entrance exam as there were in the mid-1980s. Other 

careers, in corporations and non-governmental organizations, now offer many of the same 

opportunities on which the Foreign Service used to hold the monopoly: living overseas, learning 

foreign languages, and developing negotiating experience. These other opportunities generally 

pay better, do not entail the same level of austerity and danger often faced by Foreign Service 

officers posted abroad, and do not impose the same constraints on two-career families. 

Beyond this lack of flexibility, many of the State Department’s own policies are 

detrimental to attracting and keeping the highest quality people. The recruiting process is 

exceedingly slow, often taking two years from written exam to the first day of work. At a time 

when potential officers have many other career choices they may elect, this is a fatal weakness. 

 

101 According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 30 to 35 percent of students at three different 

grade levels performed below the “basic” level of civics knowledge. 38 percent at the 4th grade level, 41 

percent at the 8th grade level, and 59 percent at the 12th grade level performed below the “basic” level of 

U.S. history knowledge. Roughly 30 percent of students at all grade levels performed below the “basic” 

level in geography. 

102 There are indications that retention may be a looming concern as well. According to data provided by 

the State Department, while most Foreign Service entering classes have shown attrition rates between 12 

and 17 percent by the eighth year of service, two recent classes show figures at 23 and 32 percent. These 

indications are not conclusive but they are supported by two major studies on departmental talent 

management, one completed by McKinsey & Company for the department and the other by the Overseas 

Presence Advisory Panel. Both found that while qualified applicants valued faster advancement and greater 

autonomy, it is precisely those things, along with quality management and respect for their family 

situations, they found lacking once in the Foreign Service. 

A
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The oral exam also works at odds with the goal of attracting those with the range of 

knowledge (foreign policy, economics, cultural studies) and skills (languages, leadership, 

technology) necessary to an effective Foreign Service. The exam’s “blindfolding” policy, 

whereby the examiners who decide who enters the Service know nothing about an applicant’s 

background, has the admirable goal of ensuring a level playing field. But it runs completely 

counter to common sense in selecting the most qualified applicants. 

The lack of professional educational opportunities currently afforded Foreign Service 

officers is also a problem both for the quality of those who stay and as a reason for those who 

leave. While the Foreign Service certainly needs more training in languages and emerging global 

issues, recent studies find an additional problem involving the lack of effective management and 

leadership throughout the State Department.103 We therefore recommend the following: 

● 41: The President should order the overhauling of the Foreign Service system by 

revamping the examination process, dramatically improving the level of on-going 

professional education, and making leadership a core value of the State Department. 

In order to revamp the exam process, changes must be made to shorten the hiring 

process dramatically without compromising the competitiveness of the system. The Commission 

is encouraged by the use of the shorter Alternative Examination Program (AEP) which allows 

applicants (now limited to current government employees) to advance to the oral examination on 

the basis of their professional experience. Contingent upon evaluation of its success, this program 

should be broadened and other innovative approaches encouraged. If the written exam is retained, 

it might be administered by computer, allowing applicants to sit for the test at different times 

throughout the year. 

In addition, the oral exam’s blindfolding policy should end. While we sympathize with 

the aim of fair consideration for all, and with the State Department’s eagerness to avoid legal 

harassment, this approach seriously damages the effectiveness of the examination process. It 

omits consideration of the professional and other experiences candidates may bring to the Foreign 

Service. It also makes it impossible for examiners to counsel applicants on the appropriateness of 

their backgrounds to particular cones (political, economic, consular, public diplomacy, or 

administrative). There is no legal requirement for this practice. 

A successful Foreign Service also requires officers who are consistently building new 

knowledge and skills. As we recommend below for the Civil Service, the Commission endorses 

a 10-15 percent increase in personnel to allow for that proportion of the overall service to be in 

training at any given point.

104 Current State Department professional development, focused 

mostly on languages, must be greatly expanded to ensure a diplomatic corps on the cutting edge 

of 21st century policy and management skills. We agree with the recommendations of McKinsey 

 

103 The State-commissioned report by McKinsey & Company, The War for Talent: Maintaining a Strong 

Talent Pool, emphasized that for the State Department to sustain its talent base, it must improve talent 

management. The final report of the Overseas Presence Advisory Panel built on McKinsey’s finding and 

highlighted that “private sector managers were almost twice as likely as public-sector managers to give 

high performers the best development opportunities and fast-track growth. More than 70 percent of the 

private-sector managers viewed motivating and attending to people as a prime priority, while less than 30 

percent of State Department managers interviewed considered it a top priority.” [Overseas Presence 

Advisory Panel, p. 52.] 

104 Ibid., p. 55. 
 96

and the Overseas Presence Advisory Panel that call for a full range of mandatory educational 

courses in functional topics, languages, leadership, and management. Training milestones should 

be met in advance of promotions or advancements to supervisory positions. 

Beyond problems with the exam process and the lack of professional development 

programs, all levels of the State Department suffer from a lack of focus on leadership and 

management. Improvements will require a cultural shift that must flow from the top. We urge 

future Presidents and Secretaries of State in selecting senior State Department officials to 

consider management strengths and departmental leadership abilities in addition to substantive 

expertise. Our proposal for restructuring the State Department [recommendation 19] is also aimed 

at fostering better management skills. 

At lower levels, too, the State Department must develop sound talent management 

practices. We endorse many of the McKinsey report’s findings: allow leaders more discretion in 

making key talent decisions; reduce time-in-grade requirements to allow the best performers to 

advance more quickly; and improve feedback to allow managers to gain from insights provided 

both from above and below. 

Most of these problems can be handled effectively by the State Department without 

additional legislative mandate; yet some of these changes, particularly promoting professional 

education, require Congress to appropriate additional funds. The Department of State estimates 

that it would cost $200 million annually to create a 10-15 percent training float. The Commission 

endorses such an investment. 

Additionally, the Commission believes we must restore the external reputation of those 

who serve our nation through diplomatic careers. As a means of achieving this, we recommend 

changing the Foreign Service’s name to the U.S. Diplomatic Service. This rhetorical change 

will serve as a needed reminder that this group of people does not serve the interest of foreign 

states, but is a pillar of U.S. national security. 

D. THE CIVIL SERVICE105

hile there is disagreement as to the extent of the crisis in Civil Service quality, 

there are clearly specific problems requiring substantial and immediate attention.106

These include: the aging of the federal workforce; the institutional challenges of bringing new 

workers into government service; and critical gaps in recruiting and retaining information 

technology professionals and those with less-common language skills. Most striking is how many 

of these problems are self-inflicted to the extent that departmental authority already provides 

some remedy if only the institutional will and budgetary resources were also available. Fixing 

these problems will make a major contribution to improving recruitment and retention. 

 

105 The Commission considers personnel from the Departments of State (excluding the Foreign Service), 

Defense, Commerce, Justice, and Treasury and members of the Intelligence Community to constitute the 

core national security members of the Civil Service. Members of the Intelligence Community are governed 

by separate personnel regulations and authorities. 

106 On the general question, compare the pessimistic study led by Paul Volcker [The National Commission 

on the Public Service, Leadership for America: Rebuilding the Public Service (Washington, DC: The 

National Commission on the Public Service, 1989)] with the more optimistic assessment of Joel D. 

Aberbach and Bert A. Rockman [In the Web of Politics: Three Decades of the U.S. Federal Executive

(Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2000).] 

W
 97

A prominent problem confronting all of the Civil Service is its aging workforce. The 

post-World War II baby-boomer generation heeded President Kennedy’s call to government 

service in unprecedented numbers, but the first of this age cohort will turn 55 in 2001. A 

retirement wave that will continue for the next eighteen years will reach crisis proportions in 

many departments. Nearly 60 percent of the entire civilian workforce is eligible for early or 

regular retirement today.107 Within that overall figure, 27 percent of the career Senior Executive 

Service (SES) is eligible for regular retirement now; 70 percent will be eligible within five 

years.108 This growing retirement wave is exacerbated by the small numbers of employees in their 

twenties and thirties in most agencies. When agencies such as the Department of Defense and 

those within the Intelligence Community chose to downsize through hiring freezes, they 

contributed to this trend. 

While some have argued that the “Generation X” cohort is less inclined toward 

government employment, our analysis suggests that this cohort does see government as one of 

several desirable career tracks. If recruiting were resumed, many within this age group would 

seek federal jobs. This is suggested by the fact that the one current mechanism for bringing 

graduate students into government—the Presidential Management Internship program—has 

remained highly competitive.109 

Yet there are still two major problems in converting interest in government positions to 

actual service. First, many young adults have completed or are enrolled in graduate school, and 

thus carry a much heavier student loan burden than their predecessors. Our recommendations for 

expanding student loan forgiveness programs [recommendations 11 and 39] should help mitigate 

this problem. 

Second, the length and complexity of most application and security clearance processes is 

devastating in an economy where private sector firms can make on-the-spot offers. In a survey of 

employees from the Departments of Commerce and the Treasury, fully 54 percent of Treasury 

respondents and 73 percent of Commerce respondents reported that it took at least four months to 

receive an offer from the time they submitted an application.110 Departments must shorten the 

appointment and security clearance process. 

Yet a third major problem for the civil service is the difficulty of attracting and retaining 

information technology (IT) professionals who are in great demand throughout the economy. To 

meet expected demand, the nation will need an additional 130,000 new IT workers each year 

through at least 2006. The federal government will also need more IT capability, requiring 

constant hiring to keep up with requirements. The strong demand for IT professionals in the 

private sector will insure a continuing pay gap between public and private opportunities, making 

 

107 U.S. Office of Personnel Management, The Fact Book: Federal Civilian Workforce Statistics

(Washington, DC: Office of Personnel Management, September 1999). 

108 U.S. Office of Personnel Management and Senior Executives Association, Survey of Senior Executive 

Service (Washington, DC: Office of Personnel Management, 1999); United States General Accounting 

Office, Senior Executive Service: Retirement Trends Underscore the Importance of Succession Planning

(Washington, DC: General Accounting Office, May 2000), p. 2. This latter document offers startling 

figures for individual departments: 77 percent of those at the Department of Commerce, 74 percent of those 

at the Department of Defense, and 71 percent of those at the Department of the Treasury will be eligible for 

regular retirement by 2005 (p. 46). 

109 The Office of the Secretary of Defense has received between 100 and 140 applications each year since 

1997 for six to eight open PMI positions. Data provided by the OSD, July 7, 2000. 

110 Booz-Allen & Hamilton, Inc., Employee Recruitment and Retention Survey Results, August 30, 2000, 

pp. 33. 
 98

it even more difficult for the government to attract needed talent. This is compounded by a 

growing “speed-to-seat metric”—a measure of the time taken to recruit, hire, and place an 

employee. It means that some government IT projects with compressed life-cycles, including 

some too sensitive to contract out, may expire before a new hire can even start the project.111 

Beyond recruiting difficulties, the federal government faces significant IT retention 

challenges. Deficiencies in governmental occupational structures and position descriptions 

contribute to the loss of IT personnel to the private sector. Corporations can alter the role of IT 

personnel rapidly as technology advances, while government position structures are 

comparatively sluggish. As a result, IT position descriptions in the government often do not 

match those in the private sector.112 

These trends pose particular problems for the national security community. IT 

professionals are needed not only for crucial support functions but also to help run sophisticated 

intelligence platforms. Lengthy security clearance processes and less competitive compensation 

packages make recruiting high-quality IT personnel for these purposes very difficult. There are 

also retention problems as younger IT civil servants are lured away by the private sector. The 

National Security Agency (NSA) reports growing attrition rates particularly among young 

professionals, the group most skilled in new technologies and most in demand.113

There is a corresponding problem, though of lesser magnitude, for less common (“low 

density”) languages. The United States faces a broader range of national security challenges in 

the post-Cold War world, requiring policy analysts and intelligence personnel with expertise in 

more countries, regions, and issues. The people most likely to bring these skills are native 

speakers of other languages with direct cultural experiences; yet members of this group often face 

the greatest difficulties in getting a security clearance. We therefore recommend the following: 

● 42: The President should order the elimination of recruitment hurdles for the Civil 

Service, ensure a faster and easier hiring process, and see to it that strengthened 

professional education and retention programs are worthy of full funding by 

Congress. 

The federal government must significantly increase recruiting programs through 

programs like the National Security Education Act [recommendation 39], which will link 

educational benefits to a service requirement. To anticipate the coming bow wave of retirements, 

the government needs to adopt a range of policies that make hiring and promotion practices more 

flexible. 

Some progress has been made, particularly in the IT field, in shortening the length of the 

hiring process. This is crucial to improving government competitiveness. Organizations like the 

Central Intelligence Agency (for its non-clandestine employees) have authorized recruiters to 

negotiate on-the-spot offers—including compensation packages—contingent upon successful 

completion of background investigation and polygraph requirements. These programs should be 

generalized throughout the national security community, not least for critical science and 

technology personnel. 

 

111 CIO Council, Meeting the Federal IT Workforce Challenge (Washington, DC: CIO Council, June 1999), 

p. 15. 

112 Ibid., p. 11. 113 Evidence provided by the National Security Agency. 
 99

The security clearance process itself must be revamped to provide for more efficient and 

timely processing of applications. There are several ways to go about this. One is to re-code 

intelligence community positions to allow some employees to start work before receiving the 

most sensitive security clearances. A bipartisan Executive-Legislative commission could be 

helpful in examining other methods of streamlining the security clearance process, while 

maintaining the rigor required for national security positions. 

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and individual agency personnel 

offices have designed many incentive programs to recruit and retain quality employees.114 But 

many departments and agencies have not used these programs for lack of funds. Because all 

incentive programs are drawn from the same pool of money as that for salaries, administrators 

must trade off incentives for some employees against the ability to hire additional personnel. 

Additional funds must be provided to maximize agencies’ options in recruiting and retaining 

high-quality personnel. 

Similarly, existing authorities provide funds for professional education. Such 

opportunities are crucial in maintaining a knowledgeable cadre of national security professionals. 

Supporting employees’ desire for professional development is also a means of ensuring retention. 

Yet the degree of downsizing in national security agencies has yielded a system whereby the 

workload of an employee on training must be split among others in the office, creating a powerful 

disincentive for managers to allow their best employees to pursue these opportunities. As a 

complement to proposals made for the Foreign Service, the Commission would apply the 

recommendation of the U.S. Overseas Presence Panel to all national security departments and 

agencies: that “the workforce structure and resources available for staff should take into account 

the 10-15 percent of employees who will be in training. . .at any given time.”115 Thus “full 

staffing” of a department or agency should be defined as a number ten to fifteen percent greater 

than the number of available positions. 

e also need to give special priority to measures to secure and retain information 

technology (IT) talent in the most mission-critical areas while finding ways to 

outsource support functions. 

For the mission-critical areas, this means using existing and seeking additional 

authorities to allow direct-hiring and to provide for more market-based compensation. While the 

government cannot completely close the pay gap with the private sector, higher salaries, signing 

bonuses, and performance rewards can narrow it. Some agencies have begun this effort by paying 

senior IT professionals market-based salaries.116 

Further, the Commission endorses the recommendation of the CIO Council, a group of 

departmental and agency Chief Information Officers, to use and expand existing OPM authorities 

 

114 Examples include recruitment and retention bonuses, the use of special pay scales for specific types of 

professionals, and pay banding whereby agencies would have greater flexibility in allocating personnel 

funds among employees of different quality and skills. New regulations currently under review at OPM 

would allow departments to repay federally funded student loans by $6,000 a year up to a maximum of 

$40,000. See “Proposed Rules—Repayment of Student Loans.” 

115 Overseas Presence Advisory Panel, p. 55. 116 The Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) currently has the authority and funding to conduct a five-year 

pilot program through which he can hire up to 39 technical specialists in critical functions and pay them on 

the basis of market standards rather than on the federal pay scale. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has a 

similar program. 

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 100

to lift pay cap restrictions on former Civil Service and military employees.117 For entry-level 

talent, we recommend expanding the newly authorized Cyber Corps, akin to the Reserve Officer 

Training Corps (ROTC) program, whereby the government would pay for two years of a 

student’s schooling in exchange for two years of governmental IT service. 

Efforts to retain young IT professionals should recognize that their career plans will 

likely not include a 30-year or even a ten-year stint in government service. OPM developed 

departmental flexibility for Y2K programs, including temporary appointments (one to four years) 

within the competitive service.118 We believe such authorities should be instituted and expanded 

for IT professionals. In its own interest, the government needs to maximize the ease with which 

transitions can be made between government service and the private sector. Young employees’ 

interest in staying may be prolonged through performance-based retention bonuses and through 

the establishment of a unique and adaptive career path for IT professionals that includes rotational 

assignments and better opportunities for education and responsibility. Such an effort might also 

permit the government to move IT capabilities more fluidly across departments and agencies. 

Where appropriate, outsourcing IT support functions is still needed. NSA has already 

turned development and management of non-classified technology over to a private-sector 

contractor, allowing NSA to focus its in-house IT talent on developing and overseeing core 

intelligence technologies. More programs like this can be used to supplement the other steps 

outlined here. 

The implementation of these proposals for the civil service will require a multifaceted 

approach. We believe the endorsement of these recommendations by the President would set a 

proper tone of importance and urgency. Because many recommendations will affect many 

departments, an interagency coordinating group should be convened to help OPM develop new 

provisions. From there, heads of departments and agencies can take steps to implement them. We 

know that some recommendations, such as improving the recruitment and retention of IT 

professionals, cannot be fully implemented in the near term. In such cases, we urge departments 

to set timelines for reaching goals and, for those issues that cross agency lines such as IT needs, 

departments and agencies should work collaboratively. 

These recommendations also presuppose greater Congressional appropriations devoted to 

making these changes possible. The preceding analysis demonstrates that, in order to allow for 

critical professional education, agency end-strengths must be increased by 10-15 percent, 

requiring a significant increase in personnel funding. 

Beyond training, an aggressive recruitment campaign will require additional funds as 

well. In proposing the information technology “cyber corps” program, the Clinton Administration 

requested $25 million annually to pay for two years of college for 300 students. IT positions that 

pay close to market rates will have considerably higher salaries than is currently the case; 

however, this group would be relatively small. Finally, IT outsourcing proposals are likely to save 

the government money on a net basis since the cost of contracted labor is less than that of paying 

civil servant salaries, benefits, and retirement contributions.119

 

117 CIO Council, p. 13. On the CIO Council, see note 14 in Section I. 118 Ibid., p. 15. 119 Recent NSA outsourcing is estimated to save the government $1 billion over the ten-year life of the 

contract. 
 101

he national security component of the Civil Service is faced with an additional 

problem: the need to develop professionals with breadth of experience in the 

interagency process, and with depth of knowledge about substantive policy issues. Both elements 

are crucial to ensuring the highest quality policy formulation and analysis for the United States 

across a range of issues. They are also key to maintaining a robust national security workforce as 

professionals seek a diversity of experiences along their career paths. 

The Commission’s Phase II report argued that “traditional national security agencies 

(State, Defense, CIA, NSC staff) will need to work together in new ways, and economic agencies 

(Treasury, Commerce, U.S. Trade Representative) will need to work closely with the national 

security community.”120 Better integration of these agencies in policy development and execution 

requires a human resource strategy that achieves the following objectives: expanded opportunities 

to gain expertise and to experience the culture of more than one department or agency; an 

assignment and promotion system that rewards those who seek broad-based, integrative 

approaches to problem solving instead of those focused on departmental turf protection; and the 

erasure of artificial barriers among departments. 

The current Civil Service personnel system does not achieve these objectives because 

career civilians in the national security field rarely serve outside their parent department.121 We 

therefore recommend the following: 

● 43: The Executive Branch should establish a National Security Service Corps (NSSC) to 

enhance civilian career paths, and to provide a corps of policy experts with broadbased experience throughout the Executive Branch. 

Such a National Security Service Corps would broaden the experience base of senior 

departmental managers and develop leaders skilled at producing integrative solutions to U.S. 

national security policy problems. 

Participating departments would include Defense, State, Treasury, Commerce, Justice, 

Energy, and the new National Homeland Security Agency—the departments essential to 

interagency policymaking on key national security issues. Members of the NSSC would not hold 

every position within these departments. Rather, each department would designate Corps 

positions. Members of the participating departments could choose to stay in positions outside the 

NSSC without career penalty. They would continue to be governed by the current Civil Service 

system. 

In order to preserve the firewall that exists between intelligence support to policy and 

policymaking, intelligence community personnel would not be part of the NSSC. A limited 

number of rotational spots, however, should be held in selected interagency intelligence 

community centers (such as the Non-Proliferation Center and the Counter-Terrorism Center) to 

allow members of the Corps to understand better intelligence processes and products. 

While the Foreign Service will remain separate from the NSSC, an organic relationship 

between the Foreign Service and the NSSC needs to exist. Members of the Corps would be 

 

120 Seeking A National Strategy, p. 14. 121 For example, a recent OPM survey of SES personnel indicates that only nine percent of those surveyed 

have changed jobs to work in another agency since becoming an SES member, despite the fact that 45 

percent said that mobility would improve job performance. See U.S. Office of Personnel Management and 

Senior Executives Association, pp. 27-8. 

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eligible to compete for all policy positions at the Department of State’s headquarters while 

Foreign Service officers would be able to compete for NSSC positions in all the participating 

departments. In addition, NSSC personnel could fill select positions in some overseas embassies 

and at military unified commands. Over time, the difference between the Foreign Service and the 

NSSC could blur. 

A rotational system and robust professional education programs would characterize the 

NSSC. In designating positions for Corps members, departments will need to identify basic 

requirements in education and experience. Rotations to other departments and interagency 

professional education would be required in order to hold certain positions or to be promoted to 

certain levels.122 Of course, a limited number of waivers could be granted to allow departments to 

fill particular gaps as necessary. 

While the participating departments would still retain control over their personnel and 

would continue to make promotion decisions, an interagency advisory group will be key to the 

NSSC’s success. This group would ensure that promotion rates for those within the NSSC were at 

least comparable to those elsewhere in the Civil Service. They would help establish the guidelines 

for rotational assignments needed for a Corps member to hold a given position and for the means 

of meeting the members’ educational requirements. Such guidance and oversight will help ensure 

that there are compelling incentives for professionals to join the NSSC. For this type of 

interagency program to be successful, employees must see it as being in their own best interest to 

meet these new requirements. 

The Commission believes such a Corps can be established largely through existing 

departmental authorities and through new regulations from OPM. Specific legislative authority is 

not necessary. 

E. MILITARY PERSONNEL

 

oday the military is having even greater difficulty recruiting quality people than the 

civilian sector of the government. Despite significant post-Cold War force reductions 

in recruiting goals, the Services have missed their quotas in some recent years.123 Moreover, 

recruiting costs have risen by nearly one-third over the last four years, while DoD quality 

indicators of those enlisting have declined by 40 percent.124 Some Services, struggling to fill 

ROTC programs with officer candidates, will continue to fall short for the next three years despite 

a much larger college population and reduced quotas for officer accessions.125

 

122 For example, departments might designate that personnel must hold one assignment outside his or her 

parent department in order to become a member of the SES and another such assignment to be promoted to 

SES-4. [SES pay scales are numbered one through six. An additional rotation is suggested for promotion to 

SES-4 because this is the pay grade at which many SES members serve during their final tours, when they 

generally have the highest level of responsibility for interagency activities.] 

123 Data provided by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, showing both active and reserve recruiting 

results, July 2000. See also William S. Cohen, Annual Report to the President and the Congress

(Washington DC: Department of Defense, 2000), chapter 4. 

124 Statement of the Honorable Rudy De Leon, Under Secretary of Defense (Personnel and Readiness) 

before the Military Personnel Subcommittee of the Armed Service Committee, “Sustaining the AllVolunteer Force: Military Recruiting and Retention,” March 8, 2000. 

125 Department of Defense, Quarterly Readiness Report to Congress, January-March 2000. 

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Even more ominous are the problems in retaining quality personnel. Increased 

operational commitments are being carried out by a smaller number of military forces, which—

along with aging equipment, stringent budgets, depleted family benefits, healthcare deficiencies, 

and spousal dissatisfaction—has engendered an atmosphere of widespread frustration throughout 

military ranks.126 Job satisfaction has declined significantly, and increasing numbers of quality 

people are leaving military service well in advance of retirement, or, in other cases, are retiring as 

soon as they are eligible.127 Moreover, data indicate that it is not just the junior officers who are 

leaving; retention of senior non-commissioned officers (NCOs) has declined as well.128 

The Commission believes retention in the Services is a growing problem in part because 

the triple systems of “up-or-out” promotion, retirement, and compensation do not fit 

contemporary realities. The Defense Officer Personnel Management Act (DOPMA) of 1980129

mandates retirement at a specific time in an officer’s career depending on rank,130 or, in many 

cases, separation before retirement in cases of non-promotion up until the grade of O-4. This 

system itself stems, in part, from a 1947 assumption of a virtually unlimited pool of manpower 

geared for total war mobilization. The current environment, however, is very different. The 

supply of incoming personnel is limited and the skills required more specialized. Moreover, older 

people are not “unfit” for many of today’s critical military tasks, and the country cannot afford to 

squander the investment in training and experience that military professionals possess. The 

military services do not need to retain everyone, but they do need most of all to retain superior 

talent for longer periods. 

Without decentralizing the career management systems, introducing new compensation 

incentives, and providing an array of institutional rewards for military service, the Commission 

 

126 Some numbers illustrate the problem. The Navy is nine hundred pilots short of necessary levels, while 

the Air Force reported the largest peacetime pilot shortage in its history (1,200 pilots short of operational 

requirements). The Air Force pilot loss rate is projected to double by 2002 [William Taylor, S. Craig 

Moore, and C. Robert Roll, Jr., The Air Force Pilot Shortage: A Crisis for Operational Units?

(Washington, DC: RAND, 2000, pp. iii and 1]. Over the past ten years, the Army has experienced a 58 

percent increase in the percentage of Captains voluntarily leaving the military before promotion to Major 

[Information Paper TAPC-ARI-PS, October 22, 1999]. High-quality junior officers are also leaving 

military service earlier. In 1987, 38 percent of the Army’s West Point graduates left military service before 

ten years of active duty—the best retention rate among all Army commissioning sources. In 1999, 68 

percent of West Point graduates left before the ten-year point, the lowest retention rate among all Army 

commissioning sources. [DMDC West DoD Officer Retention Data, July 2000, verified by Army Personnel 

Branch, July 2000]. High-quality Lieutenant Colonels/Colonels and their Navy equivalents (O-5s and O-6s 

who have had Department/Battalion/Squadron/Ship-level commands in their careers) are leaving early, as 

well. The Navy reports that both post-department officers and post-squadron Commanders are separating at 

a rate three times higher than a decade ago. 127 See “Spring 1999 Sample Survey of Military Personnel: Career Intent,” U.S. Army Research Institute 

for the Behavioral and Social Sciences Survey Report, October 1999. 

128 Garnered from ten-year point junior officer retention data provided by Defense Manpower Data Center 

to USCNS/21, July 2000. 

129 DOPMA Public Law 96-513. 130 Those Majors/Lieutenant Commanders not selected for promotion must normally retire at twenty years; 

Lieutenant Colonels and Navy Commanders must retire at 28 years if not selected for promotion to 

Colonel/Captain; Colonels, and Navy Captains have until the 30-years point to make promotion to flag 

officer rank before mandatory retirement; and most flag officers that remain in grade have a 35-year limit 

of commissioned service. It should be noted that most Colonels/Navy Captains know by the time of their 

promotion to O-6 whether they have a chance at further promotion. Most do not, and the incentives 

currently in place encourage those officers to retire at the earliest possible time. The result is a significant 

talent drain of officers who, under the current system, could have served at least five or six additional years. 
 104

believes that the United States will be unable to recruit and retain the technical and educated 

professionals it needs to meet 21st century military challenges. 

hese problems call for four sets of changes. First, the enhancement of the 

professional military must proceed hand in hand with the reinvigorization of the 

citizen soldier. Indeed, confronting many threats to our national security, including those to the 

American homeland, will necessarily rely heavily on reserve military components, as we have 

specified above in Section I, recommendation 6 in particular. 

Second, we must change the ways we recruit military personnel. This means putting 

greater effort into seeking out youth on college campuses and providing grants and scholarships 

for promising candidates. The military must also innovate in such areas as rapid promotion, 

atypical career paths and patterns, and flexible compensation to attract and retain talented 

candidates. The Services must also offer a greater variety of enlistment options, including short 

enlistments designed to appeal to college youth, and far more attractive educational 

inducements.131 This may include scholarships, college debt deferral and relief, and significantly 

enhanced GI Bill rewards in exchange for military service. 

Third, we must change the promotion system. Promotion has been, and remains, a 

primary way to reward performance. But the rigidity of the promotion system often has the effect 

of either taking those with technical specialties away from the job for which they are most 

valuable, or failing to provide timely and sufficient incentives for quality personnel to stay in 

military service. In the Commission’s view, the promotion system needs to be more flexible. 

Current law states that promotion rates must comply with Congressionally-mandated grade tables, 

which specify the number of personnel permitted in each grade by Service.132 This denies needed 

flexibility. Moreover, promotion should be only one of many rewards for military service. The 

Services need the flexibility, beyond new forms of fair and competitive compensation, to provide 

institutional benefits, including more flexible assignments, incentive retirement options, advanced 

education, alternative career paths, negotiable leaves of absence, and rewards for careerbroadening experiences. 

The fourth set of changes must address the military retirement system, which is centered 

on a twenty-year career path. If one serves fewer than twenty years or fails promotion to 

minimum grades, no retirement benefits are forthcoming either for officers or those in the enlisted 

ranks.133 In this “all-or-nothing” system, junior personnel have to commit themselves to a longduration career. For those who make a twenty-year career choice, the system induces them to 

 

131 Charles Moskos, Military Recruitment Survey, Northwestern University Students,” report prepared for 

the Commission, March 2000. 

132 See DOPMA Public Law 96-513 §3202, 8202, 5444, 5442. 133 Military Retirement Act of 1986 (Public Law 99-348). This authorizes military benefits for personnel 

after twenty years of service at 40 percent of their five years’ highest basic pay. Effective October 1, 1999, 

the Military Retirement Act of 1986 (REDUX), U.S. Code, Title 10, §1409(b), was repealed by the 

National Defense Authorization Act 1999 (Public Law 106-65; U.S. Code, Title 10, §1409 (b) which 

restored to the military service members who entered military service after July 31, 1986, 50 percent of the 

highest three years average basic pay for twenty years of active duty service, rather than 40 percent under 

REDUX. Also, it provided for full cost of living adjustments (COLAs) rather than the Consumer Price 

Index (CPI) minus one percentage point under REDUX. 

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leave the military in their early forties.134 In other words, the current system either requires 

separation at mandatory points for each grade, or actively entices all personnel who do make it to 

twenty years of service to leave at or just beyond that point.135 

Talented people in uniform, generally in their early forties, thus confront a choice 

between working essentially at “half pay,” or beginning a second career at a time when they are 

generally most marketable.136 To those with particularly marketable skills (e.g., pilots, 

information technology professionals, and medical personnel), the inducements to leave often 

prove irresistible. But such cases are only the most visible portion of a widespread problem that 

induces high performers of every description to abandon the military profession. Thus the armed 

services lose enormous investments in training, education, and experience at the very moment 

that many mid-grade officers and mid-grade and senior NCOs are poised to make their most 

valuable contributions. 

We urge the President and the Congress to give the Services the flexibility to adapt and 

dramatically reshape their personnel systems to meet 21st century mission needs. The 

1947/1954/1980 legislation137 that defines military career management, coupled with legislation 

that governs military retirement and compensation, gives the Services too little authority to 

modernize and adapt their personnel systems at a time of accelerating change.138 Mandatory 

promotion rates, officer grade limitations for each Service, required separation points under “upor-out,” rigid compensation levels, special pay restrictions and retirement limits, collectively bind 

the Services to the point of immobility. Similar restrictions and disincentives apply to enlisted 

careers and particularly affect senior NCOs and technical specialists. 

Earlier in this section we strongly recommended a major expansion of the National 

Security Education Act (NSEA), as well as the creation of the National Security Science and 

Technology Education Act (NSSTEA), to provide significantly better incentives for quality 

personnel to serve in government—civil and military. The Commission believes that these Acts 

are especially relevant to the recruitment of high-caliber military personnel. In particular, 

programs offering either college scholarships or college loan repayments in exchange for service 

after graduation will make uniformed service more attractive to all segments of the population. 

In addition to the enactment of an expanded NSEA and the creation of a NSSTEA, we 

propose the following complement: 

● 44: Congress should significantly enhance the Montgomery GI Bill, as well as strengthen 

recently passed and pending legislation supporting benefits—including transition, 

medical, and homeownership—for qualified veterans. 

 

134 There is 2.5 percent increase in the retirement percentage of base pay for each year of service past 

twenty years, which stops at 30 years. In addition, 26 years of service is where the last bi-yearly longevity 

salary increase occurs. 

135 DOPMA Public Law 96-513, §633 requires that Lt. Colonels and Navy Commanders who are not listed 

for promotion to the next higher grade be retired upon completion of 28 years of active commissioned 

service. 

136 Half-pay is a term of art referring to the fact that after twenty years’ service, a soldier is entitled to 50 

percent of pay upon retirement. Since a soldier would get half pay even if he were not still in service, 

staying in service can be characterized as working for the other 50 percent—hence the phrase “working for 

half pay.” 

137 See Bernard Rostker, Harry Thie, James L. Lacy, Jennifer H. Kawata, and S.W. Purnell, The Defense 

Officer Personnel Management Act of 1980: A Retrospective (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1993). 138 Defense Science Board, p. 79 
 106

The current version of the Montgomery GI Bill (hereafter GI Bill) is an educational 

program in which individuals first perform military service and then are eligible for educational 

benefits. While in military service, participants must authorize deductions from their salaries, to 

which the government then adds its contribution.139 To receive benefits while still in service, 

service men and women must remain on active duty for the length of their enlistment. To receive 

benefits after service, one must receive an honorable discharge. The GI Bill is both a strong 

recruitment tool and, more importantly, a valuable institutional reward for service to the nation in 

uniform. 

Another important source of reward for military service is Title 38, which provides a 

range of veterans’ benefits including medical and dental care, transition training, and 

authorization for Veterans Administration (VA) homeownership loans. Collectively, VA benefits 

are an institutional reward for honorable military service and integral to the covenant between 

those who serve in the military and the nation itself. Given the historical value, relevance, and 

proven utility of these programs, we recommend restoration and enhancements to them as a way 

of rewarding and honoring military service.

GI Bill entitlements should equal, at the very least, the median education costs of fouryear U.S. colleges, and should be indexed to keep pace with increases in those costs.140 Such a 

step would have the additional social utility of seeding veterans among the youth at elite colleges. 

The Bill should accelerate full-term payments to recipients, extend eligibility from ten to twenty 

years, and support technical training alternatives. The GI Bill’s structure should be an 

institutional entitlement that does not require payments or cost-sharing from Service members. It 

should allow transferability of benefits to qualified dependents of those Service members who 

serve more than fifteen years on active duty. In addition, it should carry a sliding scale providing 

automatic full benefits for Reserve and National Guard personnel who are called to active duty 

for overseas contingency operations. 

We also believe that funding for these GI Bill institutional entitlements is not sufficient 

and should be separated within the defense budget to give the department more flexibility.141

 

139 The program is administered by the Veterans Administration, under agreements with the Secretary of 

Defense and the Secretary of Transportation, who submit an annual request to Congress detailing the 

necessary appropriations. Funds are transferred to the Veterans Administration from the Department of 

Defense Education Benefits Fund administered by the Treasury Department, or from appropriations made 

to the Department of Transportation in the case of the Coast Guard.

140See Veterans Administration web site October 2000, Summary of Educational Benefits under the 

Montgomery GI Bill Active Duty Educational Assistance Program, Chapter 30 of Title 38 U.S. Code and 

Selected Reserve Educational Assistance Program Chapter 1606 of Title 10 U.S. Code. Active duty 

servicemen and women can elect a $100/month reduction in pay for twelve months in exchange for up to 

36 months of educational entitlements. The maximum entitlement rate is $552 per month. However, 

servicemen do not necessarily receive the full $552. Monthly rates are calculated according to the cost of 

tuition. Recipients are entitled to a full 36 months of benefits, not the compounded total of $552 for 36 

months. Reservists do not contribute $100 per month, but receive a maximum of only $263 per month. Bill 

S1402, currently pending Presidential approval, would increase the Active Duty Rate to $650 per month in 

educational entitlements. In the event of death, the $1,200 reduction in pay is refunded, but benefits are 

non-transferable. 

141 The College Board, Trends in College Pricing 2000. The College Board report indicates 2000-01 annual 

costs for a commuter student at a public four-year institution is $9,229 and $7,024 for a two-year 

institution. This far exceeds the current maximum GI Bill entitlement of $552 per month for active duty 

members. 
 107

Additionally, Title 38, should be modified to reinforce medical, transition, and VA 

homeownership benefits for career and retired service members. We support recently proposed 

legislation on this and other veterans benefits, but believe that additional measures are still 

needed. 

Taken together, such changes would fulfill the nation’s promise of real educational 

opportunities and place greater value on the service of military personnel. In addition, those in 

uniform are likely to serve longer to secure these greater benefits. 

he laws that make military personnel systems rigid and overly centralized must be 

altered to provide the required flexibility to meet 21st century challenges. The 

Commission recommends the following: 

● 45: Congress and the Defense Department should cooperate to decentralize military 

personnel legislation dictating the terms of enlistment/commissioning, career 

management, retirement, and compensation. 

Specifically, revised legislation should include the following acts: 

● 1980 DEFENSE OFFICER PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT ACT (DOPMA): Provide Service 

Secretaries increased authority to selectively exempt personnel from “up-or out” career 

paths, mandatory flight assignment gates, the double pass-over rule,142 mandatory 

promotion and officer/enlisted grade sizes, the mandatory retirement “flowpoints” by 

grade, and active duty service limits. The individual Services should be funded to test 

alternative career and enlistment paths that are fully complemented by modified 

compensation, promotion, and retirement/separation packages. 

● 1999 NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT: Permit testing of a conversion of the 

defined benefit systems to a partial defined contribution system, as well as early vesting 

schedules and other progressive alternatives to the current military retirement system. 

Allow the Services to shape modified retirement plans to complement alternative career 

paths and specialty service. 

● U.S. CODE TITLE 37 (Compensation): Correct immediately the pay compression of 

senior NCOs in all the Services and test merit pay systems and alternative pay schedules 

based on experience, performance, and seniority.143 Allow Service Secretaries discretion 

concerning continued flight pay for pilots undergoing non-flying career-broadening 

billets by modifying the 1974 Aviation Career Incentive Act. 

 

142 The double pass over rule refers to officers who have been in the primary zone for promotion to the next 

higher grade but who have been passed over for promotion for two consecutive years. Once such officers 

are passed over twice, they become subject to DOPMAs mandatory “up-or-out” exit flowpoints. 

143 In 1964 senior enlisted leader (E-8s) pay was by comparison to junior enlisted (E-2’s) pay a 7:1 ratio. 

With the pay increases associated with the All-Volunteer Force, the ratio of senior to junior enlisted pay is 

currently 3:1. In other words, in relation to the junior personnel they supervise, senior enlisted service 

members are paid significantly less than senior NCOs were in the draft military. In addition, the advent of 

large enlistment and reenlistment bonuses for junior enlisted personnel menas that ratio of senior to junior 

enlisted pay has compressed even further. 

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● SYSTEM INTEGRATION: Reconcile a new DOPMA system (active duty) with ROPMA 

(Reserves), with the Technician Act (1968), the Guard AGR Act (National Guard), and 

with Civil Service personnel systems to facilitate and encourage increased movement 

among branches. 

his Commission understands that implementing these recommendations will take 

time and require the support of the President, Congress, senior military officers, and 

Defense Department civilian leadership. We urge the creation of an Executive-Legislative 

working group that would set guidelines for service-centered trial programs. The working group 

should also evaluate new forms of enlistment options, selective performance pay, new career 

patterns, modified retirements for extended careers, and other initiatives that may support the 

Services. The group should undertake to estimate the projected costs as well as assess any 

unintended consequences that may result. At the same time, the Congressional Budget Office 

should further define and detail the costs of our proposed enhancements to the GI Bill and other 

veterans’ benefits. 

These recommendations will cost money. Treating the GI Bill’s benefits as an 

entitlement, indexing tuition allotments with rising education costs, extending benefits to 

dependents, and enhancing veteran benefits to include medical, dental, and homeownership 

benefits will incur substantial costs. But we believe that the cost of inaction would be far more 

profound. If we do not change the present system, the United States will have to spend 

increasingly more money for increasingly lower-quality personnel. 

Moreover, balanced against the initial costs of an enhanced National Security Education 

Act and a National Security Science and Technology Education Act would be long-term gains in 

recruiting and retaining quality personnel that would more than offset these costs. A 1986 

Congressional Research Service study indicated that the country recouped between $5.00 and 

$12.50 for every dollar invested in the original GI Bill enacted after World War II.144 We believe 

this would also be the case under our proposed legislation. Moreover, there will be significant 

budgetary savings associated with reducing high first-term attrition, as well as with improving the 

retention of both mid-level enlisted personnel and junior officers, particularly in technical 

specialties.145

 

n sum, the Commission recommends major personnel policy reforms for both the 

civilian and the military domains. For the former, we emphasize the urgent need to 

revamp the Presidential appointment process for senior leadership, to attract talented younger 

cohorts to government service, to fix the Foreign Service, and to establish a National Security 

Service Corps that strengthens the government’s ability to integrate the increasingly 

interconnected facets of national security policy. With respect to military personnel, our 

recommendations point to increasing the attractiveness of government service to high-quality 

youth, providing enhanced rewards for that service, and modernizing military career 

management, retirement, and compensation systems. Each of this Commission’s 

recommendations in the area of the human requirements for national security aims to expand the 

pool of quality individuals, to decrease early attrition, and to increase retention. 

 

144 This resulted from increased taxes paid by veterans who achieved higher incomes made possible by 

college education. 

145 About one-third of all recruits do not complete their initial military obligation. 

T

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The need is critical, but these reforms will go along way to avert or ameliorate the crisis. 

In a bipartisan spirit, we call upon the President and Congress to confront the challenge. Let it be 

their legacy that they stepped up to this challenge and rebuilt the foundation of the nation’s longterm security.
 110

V. The Role of Congress 

his Commission has recommended substantial change in Executive Branch 

institutions, change that is needed if America is to retain its ability to lead the world 

and to assure the nation’s safety. A number of prominent leaders have exhausted themselves and 

frustrated their careers by too aggressively seeking to reform the House or Senate. The 

Legislative Branch, however, must change as well. 

It is one thing to appeal to Congress to reform the State Department or the Defense 

Department, quite another to call on Congress to reform itself. Over the years since World War II, 

the Legislative Branch has been reformed and modernized much less than the Executive Branch. 

Indeed, the very nature of power in Congress makes it difficult for legislators to reform their 

collective institution. Yet American national security in the 21st century, and the prominent role 

of daily global involvement that is the nature of American life in our generation, mandates a 

serious reappraisal of both the individual and collective efforts of Congress and its members. 

Such a reappraisal must begin with a shared understanding of the Legislative Branch’s 

role in the development and assessment of post-Cold War foreign policy. Divided Constitutional 

responsibilities require the Executive and Legislature to work together in order for U.S. foreign 

policy to have coherence. Yet the Executive Branch has at times informed rather than consulted 

Congress. It has often treated Congress as an obstacle rather than as a partner, seeking 

Congressional input mostly in times of crisis rather than in an ongoing way that would yield 

support when crises occur. For its part, Congress has not always taken full responsibility for 

educating its members on foreign policy issues. It is not often receptive to consultation with the 

Executive Branch, as well, and has sustained a structure that undermines rather than strengthens 

its ability to fulfill its Constitutional obligations in the foreign policy arena. 

Several measures are needed to address these shortcomings and they are described below. 

But as an immediate first step we recommend that: 

● 46: The Congressional leadership should conduct a thorough bicameral, bipartisan 

review of the Legislative Branch relationship to national security and foreign policy. 

The Speaker of the House, the Majority and Minority leaders of the House, and the 

Majority and Minority leaders of the Senate should form a bipartisan, bicameral working group 

with select staff and outside advisory panels to review the totality of Executive-Legislative 

relations in the real-time global information age we are entering. Only by having the five most 

powerful members of the Congress directly involved is there any hope of real reform. They 

should work methodically for one year and, by the beginning of the second session of this 

Congress, they should report on proposed reforms to be implemented by the next Congress. The 

President, the Vice President, the National Security Advisor, and senior cabinet officers should 

work directly with this unique panel to rethink the structure of Executive-Legislative relations in 

the national security and foreign policy domains. 

With that as a basis, reforms can and must be undertaken in three crucial areas: 

improving the foreign policy and national security expertise of individual members of Congress; 

undertaking organizational and process changes within the Legislative Branch; and achieving a 

sustained and effective Executive-Legislative dialogue on national security issues. 

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espite the range of foreign policy challenges facing the United States, many current 

members of Congress are poorly informed in this area. Their main electoral 

priorities are generally within domestic policy; foreign policy concerns are often limited to issues 

of concern to special interests or to prominent ethnic groups in their districts. Once in office, 

attention to foreign policy issues generally focuses on pending votes and looming crises. To build 

a broad base of informed and involved members on foreign policy issues, we recommend the 

following: 

● 47: Congressional and Executive Branch leaders must build programs to encourage 

individual members to acquire knowledge and experience in both national security 

and foreign policy. 

In particular, this means that: 

● The Congressional leadership should educate its members on foreign policy and 

national security matters beyond the freshman orientation provided for new members. 

Such education should emphasize Congress’ foreign policy roles and responsibilities. We 

must reinforce the principle of minimal partisanship on foreign policy issues: that politics 

stops at the water’s edge. Effective education of members will ensure a more 

knowledgeable debate and better partnership with the Executive Branch on foreign policy 

issues. It also will allow members to become more effective educators of their 

constituencies about the importance of national security concerns. 

● Members should be encouraged to travel overseas for serious purposes and each 

member should get letters from the President or from the head of their body formally 

asking them to undertake trips in the national interest. A concerted effort should be made 

to distinguish between junkets (pleasure trips at taxpayer expense) and the serious work 

that members need to undertake to learn about the world. A major effort should be made 

to ensure that every new member of Congress undertakes at least one serious trip in his or 

her first term, and is involved in one or more trips each year from the second term on. 

● Legislature-to-legislature exchanges and visits should be encouraged and expanded. 

More funding and staffing should be provided to both accommodate foreign legislators 

visiting the United States and to encourage American legislators and their spouses to visit 

foreign legislatures. Much is to be gained by strengthening the institutions of democracy 

and by improving understanding among elected officials. This should get a much greater 

emphasis and much more institutional support than it currently does. 

● The wargaming center at the National Defense University should be expanded so that 

virtually every member of Congress can participate in one or more war games per twoyear cycle. By role-modeling key decision-makers (American and foreign), members of 

Congress will acquire a better understanding of the limits of American power, and of the 

reality that any action the United States takes invariably has multiple permutations 

abroad. Giving members of Congress a reason to learn about a region, about the 

procedures and systems of Executive Branch decision-making, and about crisis 

interactions will lead eventually to a more sophisticated Legislative Branch. On occasion, 

particularly useful or insightful games should lead to a meeting between the participating 

Congressmen and Senators and key Executive Branch officials. 

D 
 112

embers’ increased fluency in national security issues is a positive step but one that 

must be accompanied by structural reforms that address how Congress organizes 

itself and conducts its business. Several recommendations concerning Congressional structure 

have already been made in this report: to create a special Congressional body to deal with 

homeland security issues (recommendation 7); to consider all of the State Department’s 

appropriations within the Foreign Operations subcommittee (recommendation 22); and to move 

to a two-year budget cycle for defense modernization programs (recommendation 31). To meet 

the challenges of the next quarter century, we recommend Congress take additional steps. 

● 48: Congress should rationalize its current committee structure so that it best serves U.S. 

national security objectives; specifically, it should merge the current authorizing 

committees with the relevant appropriations subcommittees. 

Our discussion of homeland security highlights the complexity and overlaps of the 

current committee structure. The Congressional leadership must review its structure 

systematically in light of likely 21st century security challenges and of U.S. national security 

priorities. This is to ensure both that important issues receive sufficient attention and oversight 

and the unnecessary duplication of effort by multiple committees is minimized. 

Such an effort would benefit the Executive Branch, as well, which currently bears a 

significant burden in terms of testimony. The number of times that key Executive Branch officials 

are required to appear on the same topics in front of different panels is a minor disgrace. At a 

minimum, we recommend that a public record should be kept of these briefings and published 

annually. If that were done, it would become obvious to all observers that a great deal of 

testimony could be given in front of joint panels and, in some cases, bicameral joint panels. While 

we emphasize the need for strong consultation with the Legislative Branch, we need a better 

sense of what constitutes a reasonable amount of time that any senior Executive Branch official 

should spend publicly educating Congress. 

Specifically, in terms of committee structure, we believe action must be taken to 

streamline the budgeting and appropriations processes. In 1974, Congress developed its present 

budget process as a way of establishing overall priorities for the various authorizations and 

appropriations committees. Over time, however, the budget process has become a huge 

bureaucratic undertaking and the authorization process has expanded to cover all spending areas. 

In light of this, there is no longer a compelling rationale for separate authorization and 

appropriations bills. 

This is why we believe that the appropriations subcommittees should be merged with 

their respective authorizing committees. The aggregate committee (for example, the Senate 

Armed Services Committee) should both authorize and appropriate within the same bill. This will 

require realigning appropriations subcommittees. For example, appropriations relating to defense 

are currently dealt with in three subcommittees (defense, military construction, and energy and 

water); under this proposal, all appropriations would be made within the Senate Armed Services 

Committee. 

This approach has at least two important merits. First, it furthers the aim of rationalizing 

committee jurisdiction because all appropriating and authorizing elements relating to a specific 

topic are brought within one committee. Second, it brings greater authority to those charged with 

oversight as well as appropriations. In the current system, power has shifted from the authorizing 

committees to the appropriating committees with a much-narrower budgetary focus. By 

M
 113

combining the two functions, more effort may be paid to examining how foreign policy laws have 

been implemented, what their results have been, and how policy objectives can be better 

achieved. Finally, this new structure may facilitate adoption of two-year budgeting if efforts such 

as those proposed for defense modernization programs prove successful. The merged committee 

could authorize, in less detail, for the two-fiscal-year period while appropriating, in greater detail, 

for the first fiscal year.146

If this important reform were undertaken, then the budget committees in each house of 

Congress would consist of the Chairman and ranking member of each new combined committee. 

As part of the budget function, these two committees would distribute the macro-allocations 

contained in the budget resolution. 

nce Congress has gotten its own house in order, it still remains to ensure that there is 

ongoing Executive-Legislative consultation and coordination. Efforts to do so are 

beneficial not only so that both branches can fulfill their Constitutional obligations but also 

because effective consultation can improve the quality of U.S. policy. We have acknowledged 

this, for example, in our Defense Department planning recommendation, which defers detailed 

program and budget decisions until Congress has marked up the previous year’s submission.147

Because Congress is the most representative branch of government, Executive Branch policy that 

considers a range of Congressional views is more likely to gain public support. The objections 

raised by differing Congressional opinions can refine policy by forcing the administration to 

respond to previously unconsidered concerns. Finally, Congress can force the President and his 

top aides to articulate and explain administration policy—so the American people and the world 

can better understand it. 

Given these benefits, efforts must be undertaken to improve the consultative process. 

Indeed, a coherent and effective foreign policy requires easy and honest consultation between the 

branches. The bicameral, bipartisan panel put forward in recommendation 46 is a good first step 

in this process, but additional processes must be established to ensure that such efforts are 

ongoing. Therefore, we recommend the following: 

● 49: The Executive Branch must ensure a sustained focus on foreign policy and national 

security consultation with Congress and devote resources to it. For its part, 

Congress must make consultation a higher priority and form a permanent 

consultative group of Congressional leaders as part of this effort. 

A sustained effort at consultation must be based on mutual trust, respect, and partnership 

and on a shared understanding of each branch’s role. The Executive Branch must recognize 

Congress’ role in policy formulation and Congress must grant the Executive Branch flexibility in 

the day-to-day implementation of that policy. Congress must also ensure that if it is consulted and 

its criticisms are taken seriously, it will act with restraint and allow the Executive Branch to lead. 

For his part, the President must convey to administration officials the importance of ongoing, 

bipartisan consultation and dialogue. Efforts must not be limited to periods of crisis. Further, 

administration officials should take into consideration the differences in knowledge and 

perspective among members. 

 

146 Two-year budgeting specifically for DoD modernization accounts would entail authorization and 

appropriation for both fiscal years simultaneously, if our recommendation 31is adopted. 

147 See the discussion on page 69 following recommendation 28. 

O
 114

Beyond these general principles, specific mechanisms can facilitate better consultation: 

● Congress should create a permanent consultative group composed of the Congressional 

leadership and the Chairmen and ranking members of the main Congressional 

committees involved in foreign policy. Other members with special interest or expertise 

could join the group’s work on certain issues. The group would meet regularly—in 

informal and private sessions—with representatives of the Executive Branch. While these 

may regularly be Cabinet officials, they may often be at the Under Secretary level. This 

will make possible a regular dialogue with knowledgeable administration officials, 

allowing the Congressional group not only to respond to crises but to be part of the 

development of preventive strategies. The agenda for these meetings would not be strictly 

limited, allowing members to raise issues they are concerned about. The group would 

also meet on an emergency basis whenever the President considers military action abroad 

or deals with a foreign policy crisis. 

● Beyond this interaction between the leadership of both branches, the administration 

must reach out to consult with a broader Congressional group. This will involve 

increasing the number of administration representatives working to consult with Congress 

and assigning high-quality people to that task. The Executive must send mid-level, as 

well as high-level, officials to Capitol Hill and keep closer track of the foreign policy 

views and concerns of every member of Congress. Only through such concerted efforts, 

combined with the aforementioned education initiatives, will there be a critical mass of 

members knowledgeable of and engaged in foreign policy issues. 

● Finally, in order for Congress to be most effective in partnering with the Executive 

Branch, it must undertake its own consultation with a broad group of leaders in science, 

international economics, defense, intelligence, and in the high-technology, venturecapital arena. Congress is far more accessible to this expertise than the Executive Branch 

and should work to bring these insights into consultations. To do this, however, Members 

of Congress need regular and direct dialogue with experts without the screen of their 

staffs. The best experts in these fields are vastly more knowledgeable than any 

Congressional staff member, and there needs to be a routine system for bringing members 

of Congress in touch with experts in the areas in which they will be making decisions.148

All four parts of the National Academies of Science should play key roles in bringing the 

most knowledgeable scientists and engineers in contact with members of the Legislative 

Branch.149 Policy institutions with deep reservoirs of expertise on defense and foreign 

policy, too, can help build Congressional fluency with these issues with a measure of 

detachment and independent perspective. Similar institutions need to be engaged in other 

areas. 

n effective national security policy for the 21st century will require the combined 

resources of the Executive and Legislative Branches. While much of this report has 

rightly focused on the needs for reform within Executive Branch structures and processes, 

corresponding efforts must be undertaken for Congress. We believe that a tripartite effort focused 

on the foreign policy education of members, the restructuring of the Congressional committee 

 

148 A problem well described years ago in C.P. Snow, Science and Government (Cambridge, MA: Harvard 

University Press, 1961). 

149 Note 27 in Section II, on page 34, lists these four constituent parts. 

A
 115

system, and stronger Executive-Legislative consultative efforts will go a long way to ensuring 

that the United States can meet any future challenges. 
 116

A Final Word 

ased on its assessment of the next 25 years (Phase I), this Commission has devised a 

strategy (Phase II) and a program of reform to aid in the achievement of that strategy 

(Phase III). We propose significant change, and we know that change takes time. We also know 

that some proposals, however insightful and practical they may be, are never implemented for 

lack of determined leadership or appropriate method. 

We are optimistic that the new administration and the new Congress will pursue the 

recommendations made here because we believe those recommendations are persuasive on the 

merits. We are also mindful that, following the 2000 election, the opportunity for the Executive 

and Legislative Branches together to concentrate on bipartisan efforts to advance the national 

interest will be particularly appealing. Our recommendations, from a Commission composed of 

seven Democrats and seven Republicans, fall entirely into that category. 

ut what of a method? The President may choose any of several models for 

implementing this Commission’s recommendations: an independent advisory 

commission overseen by the Vice President or some other senior official; a prestigious Special 

Advisor working with the Executive Office of the President; a joint Executive-Legislative 

commission with one co-chairman appointed by the President and one by the House and Senate 

leadership; a group of “Wise Men” drawn from former high government officials of both parties 

and from the private sector; a special NSC committee; or some combination of these possibilities. 

The specific method adopted, however, is a secondary matter. What is crucial is that the 

President create some mechanism to ensure the implementation of the recommendations proffered 

here. We therefore recommend the following: 

● 50: The President should create an implementing mechanism to ensure that the major 

recommendations of this Commission result in the critical reforms necessary to 

ensure American national security and global leadership over the next quarter 

century. 

The reason this is necessary is that the President, along with all of his top national 

security advisors, will be busy enough dealing with immediate policy issues. Unless the job of 

implementing reform is taken seriously, and unless the chosen mechanism designates senior 

officials to be responsible and accountable for guiding reform, the momentum for real change 

will quickly dissipate. 

In our view, this would be tragic. The difference, for example, between a properly 

reformed Defense Department and the one we have today may be measured in tens of billions of 

dollars saved each and every year. The difference between a more effective organization for the 

Department of State and the crippled organization of today may be measured by opportunities lost 

in preventing devastating crises abroad that affect American interests and values alike. The 

difference between a better way of managing science and education and the way it is done now 

may be measured by the capacity for U.S. global leadership a quarter century hence. The 

difference between a government personnel system that can attract and keep the highest caliber 

human capital and one that cannot may be measured by the success or failure of the full range of 

U.S. national security policies. The difference between modern government organization for 

B 

B 
 117

homeland security and the diffuse accretion of agencies and responsibilities we have today may 

be measured in tens of thousands of American lives saved or lost. The stakes of reform are very 

high. 

This Commission has done its best to propose serious solutions for deadly serious 

problems. It is now up to others to do their best to ensure that our efforts are put to their best use 

for the sake of the American people. That is a task measured in leadership. 
 118

Index 

2 MTW, 76, 78 

Acquisition process, x, 8, 63, 70, 71, 73, 74, 75, 78 

Agency for International Development, U.S., xi, 52, 53, 54, 59, 60, 61 

Agriculture, Department of, 34, 38 

Ambassadors, United States, xii, 23, 47, 61, 62, 92, see also United Nations, Permanent 

Representative to the 

Appropriations subcommittees, xvii, 58, 111 

Arms control, 12, 52 

Army, 77 

Atomic Energy Commission, U.S., 37-38 

Authorizing committees, xvii, 111 

Ballistic-missile defense, see National Missile Defense

Base Realignment and Closures (BRAC), 66 

Bioscience, 38-39, see also National Advisory Commission on Bioscience

Biological agents, 11, 16 

Biotechnology, 2, 3, 7, 37-38 

Border Patrol, viii, 15-18 

Brown-Rudman Commission (Commission on the Roles and Capabilities of the United States 

Intelligence Community), 83 

Budget, 16, 47, 48, 55, 59 

 functional budgeting, 34 

 Department of Defense budget, 68, 73, see also Planning, Programming, and 

 Budgeting System (PPBS)

 two-year budgeting, xiii, 73, 112 

 Department of State budget, 55-56 

 National Foreign Intelligence Program (NFIP) budget, xiv, 84 

 national security budget, 49 

 R&D budget, 32, 33, 34; 

Centers for Disease Control, 15, 26 

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 18, 84, 92, 98, 101 

Chemical agents, 16 

Circular A-76, see Office of Management and Budget (OMB)

Citizen soldier, 104 

Civil liberties, 11 

Civil Service, xv, xvi, 86, 87, 89, 95, 97, 98, 100, 101, 108 

Civilian personnel, see Personnel, civilian

Clinton Administration, 90, 100 

Coast Guard, U.S., viii, 12, 16, 17, 18 

Commander-in-Chief (CINC), regional, 62-63, 65-66, 69 

 Supreme Allied Commander-Atlantic (SACLANT), 66

Commerce, Department of, xiv, xvi, 34, 52, 58, 62, 80, 97, 101 

Congress, x, xi, xvii, xviii, 8-11, 17, 26-28, 32, 39, 42, 47, 49, 53, 54, 58-59, 63-64, 66- 67, 72-

75, 78, 84, 88, 92, 94, 98, 100, 107-108, 110-116 

 Congressional Reform, viii, 110-117 

 Congressional leadership, xvii, 110 

 Congressional Budget Office, 108 

 Congressional Research Service, 35 

Counter-terrorism, see terrorism
 119

Critical infrastructure, 10, 13, 14, 18, 19, 23, 24, 81 

 Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office (CIAO), 19 

 President’s Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection (PCCIP), 18 

Customs Service, viii, 12, 15-18 

Cyber, 10, 13, 14, 17, 19, 23, 31, 82 

 Cyber Corps, 100 

Defense, Department of, viii, x, xii, xiii, xiv, xvi, 8, 10-11, 13, 18, 20, 23-25, 34, 47-48, 52-53, 

62-81, 91-92, 94, 101-102, 107-108, 110, 113, 116 

 Secretary of, xii, xiii, 21-22, 25, 63, 65-66, 68-69, 71-73, 92 

 Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), 23, 65, 76, 81 

 Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Planning, 64 

 Office of the Under Secretary for Policy, 64 

 Special Operations Low-Intensity Conflict (SOLIC) 

 Under Secretary for Space, Intelligence, and Information, 81 

 See also homeland security, Assistant Secretary of Defense for 

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), 36, 69 

Defense industrial base, xii, xiii, 30, 31, 70 

Defense Officer Personnel Management Act (DOPMA), 103, 107, 108 

Defense Planning Guidance (DPG), 67 

Defense Program Review, 77 

Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), 64 

Director of Central Intelligence, see intelligence

Domestic Policy Council, xi, 52 

Economics, v, xi, 47, 51-52, 88, 94, 95, 113 

Education, science and mathematics, v, viii, 30-46, 47 

 Department of Education, 42, 43, 44, 116 

 Endowments, 36, 44 

Educational incentives, see National Security Science and Technology Education Act and 

National Security Education Act of 1991 

Energy, Department of, xvi, 2, 22, 34, 36, 90, 101 

Engineering, see science and technology

Environmental Protection Agency, 22 

Executive Branch, ix, x, xviii, 8-11, 16, 26-28, 33, 47-48, 50, 88, 92, 101, 110-116 

Executive-Legislative, xvii, 11, 26, 28, 66, 99,108, 109, 112, 114, 115

Executive Order 12834, 92 

Federal Acquisition Regulations (FARS), xiii, 75 

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), 18-21, 91, 93 

Federal Communications Commission (FCC), 20, 23 

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), viii, 15, 17, 21, 26 

Federal Response Plan, 20, 22 

Food and Drug Administration, 38 

Force Structure, 48, 63, 68, 71, 76-78, 99 

Foreign assistance programs, 50, 52-53, 55-56, 58-59, 61 

Foreign Operations subcommittee, 58, 112 

Foreign Service, xv, xvi, 52, 59, 87, 89, 94-96, 102, 108, see also U.S. Diplomatic Service 

General Accounting Office, 35 

Glenn Commission (National Commission on Mathematics and Science Teaching for the 21st

Century), 42 

Health and Human Services, Department of, 15, 22, 26, 34 

Historically Black Colleges and Universities, 45 

Homeland security, vi; xi, 10-29, 49, 76 
 120

 Assistant Secretary of Defense for, ix, 23, 24 

 Congressional role in, ix, 26-29, 112 

 Medical Community, role in, 20, 26 

 National Homeland Security Agency (NHSA), vi, viii, xvi, 15, 17-20, 25, 28, 

 77, 101 

 Critical Information Technology, Assurance, and Security Office 

 (CITASO), 19, 20, 24 

 Directorate for Critical Infrastructure Protection, 17-20, 23 

 Directorate for Emergency Preparedness and Response, 18, 20-21, 26 

 Directorate of Prevention, 17-18 

 Defense Coordinating Officer, 21-22 

 Federal Coordinating Officer, 21-22 

House of Representatives, 10, 110, 116 

 House leadership, see Congressional leadership

Immigration and Naturalization Service, Department of, 15, 16, 46 

Information technology (IT), 16, 24, 37, 61, see also personnel, information technology

Information Sharing and Analysis Centers (ISACs), 19, 20 

Institutional Redesign, viii, x-xiv, 47-85 

Intelligence, 3, 12-13, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 28, 47, 78-79, 81, 114; community, x, xiv, 8, 11, 22-23, 

48, 80, 82-85, 97, 101; 

 Director of Central Intelligence, xiv; 49, 80, 82, 84, 92 

 human intelligence (HUMINT), 22, 83-84 

 intelligence estimates, 23, 76 

 National Intelligence Council, 23 

 technical intelligence, 22, 84-85 

International Affairs Budget (Function 150), 58 

Joint Chiefs of Staff, Chairman of the, 49, 80 

Joint Forces Command, 21, 24, 66 

Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC), 65 

Joint Staff, xii, 65, 69 

Joint Task Force-Civil Support, 22, 24 

Joint Warfighting Capability Assessment (JWCA), 65 

Justice, Department of, viii, xvi, 15, 20, 22, 58, 62, 101 

Law enforcement, 11, 17, 20, 28, 50, 52 

Legislative Branch, xviii, 11, 16, 28, 92, 110, 114-116 

Major Force Programs, xiii, 64, 77 

Marine Corps, 77 

Military, xiv, xv, xvi, 41-42, 49, 62, 65-66, 70, 78-79, 87 

Military Personnel, see personnel, military

Montgomery GI Bill (GI Bill), xvi, 104, 106-108, see also personnel, military

Nanotechnology, 3, 31, 33, 37, 39 

National Academy of Science, 34, 35, 37, 114 

National Advisory Commission on Bioscience, 38 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), xiv, 36, 81 

National Bioethics Advisory Commission, 38 

National Crisis Action Center (NCAC), 17, 18, 21, 22 

National Defense University, 111 

National Domestic Preparedness Office, 21 

National Economic Council, xi, 51, 52, 80 

National Foreign Intelligence Program (NFIP), see budget

National Guard, ix, xvi, 10, 14, 17, 20, 21, 24, 25, 26, 89, 106, 108 
 121

 Army National Guard, 25 

National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA), 80 

National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC), 19 

National Institutes of Health, 37 

National Institute of Standards and Technology, 34 

National Intelligence Council, see intelligence

National laboratories, ix, 37 

National Math and Science Project, 42 

National Military Strategy (NMS), 67-68 

National Missile Defense (NMD), 13, 80 

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), xiv, 81 

National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), 80 

National Research Council, 44 

National Science Board, 34, 35 

National Science Foundation, 34, 44 

National Science and Technology Council, 33, 36-37, 80 

National Security Act of 1947, 8, 49, 83 

National Security Advisor, xi, 48, 50-51, 53, 110 

 Deputy National Security Advisor, 52 

National Security Agency (NSA), 98, 100 

National Security Council (NSC), viii, x, xi, xiv, 15, 24, 26, 48-49, 51-53, 62-64, 68, 80, 83, 116 

 National Security Council staff, 47, 49-50, 80-81, 101 

National Security Education Act of 1991 (NSEA), xv, xvi, 89, 94, 98, 105, 106, 108 

National Security Science and Technology Education Act, ix, xvi, 41, 43, 44, 86, 88-89, 97, 104-

106, 108 

National Security Service Corps (NSSC), xvi, 92, 101, 102, 108 

National Security Space Architect (NSSA), 81 

National Security Strategy (NSS), 67, 78 

National Security Teaching Program, 41-43, 45 

National Technical Information Service, 34 

National Writing Project, 42-43 

Navy, 17

New World Coming, see Phase I

Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs), 103, 105, 107 

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs), 3, 53, 54 

nonproliferation, 12, 49, 52, 60 

Non-Proliferation Center, 102 

Quadrennial Defense Review, xii, 68-69 

Office of Government Ethics, see Presidential appointment process

Office of Management and Budget (OMB), 20-21, 33-35, 48-49, 67, 80 

 Circular A-76, 66-67 

Office of Personnel Management (OPM), 35, 99, 100, 102 

Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), 33-35, 37, 46, 80 

 President’s Science Advisor, ix, 35-37 

Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), see Defense, Department of

Overseas Advisory Presence Panel, 96, 99 

Patent and Trademark Office, U.S., 34 

President’s Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection (PCCIP), see critical infrastructure 

Personnel, 19, 35, 86-109, 116 

 civilian, 86-89, see also Civil Service, Foreign Service, National Security Service 

 Corps, and Presidential appointment process 
 122

 information technology, 96-100 

 military, 86, 88-89, 102-109 

 recruitment 86-87, 89 

 retention, 103, 109 

 professionalism, 86, 90, 104 

 recruitment, 86-88, 90, 94, 98, 102 

 retention, 86-89, 103, 109 

 scientific and technical personnel, 30, 35 

Phase I, v, vi, viii, 2, 6, 10, 60, 86, 116 

Phase II, v, vi, viii, xiii, 2, 5, 77, 83, 86-87, 101, 116 

Planning, Programming, and Budgeting System (PPBS), 67-69 

Political appointment process, see Presidential appointment process

President, x-xii, xv, xviii, 14-15, 21, 25, 32, 35, 46-50, 52, 55, 58, 61-63, 68-69, 80, 83- 84, 88, 

90, 93-94, 96, 98, 108, 110, 113-114, 116 

Presidential appointment process, xv, 68, 89-94 

Presidential Decision Directive 63 (PDD-63), 18 

Public-private, 12, 13 

Research and development, 30-34, 36, 72-73, 84 

Reserves, xvi, 21, 89, 104, 106, 108 

Reserve Officer Personnel Management Act (ROPMA), 108 

Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC), 89, 100, 103 

Science and technology, viii, 11, 17, 30-46, 49, 84, 86-88, 114, 116 

 President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), 33, 37 

 See also National Science and Technology Council (NSTC), National Security Science 

 and Technology Education Act (NSSTEA), and White House Office of Science and 

 Technology Policy (OSTP) 

Seeking a National Strategy, see Phase II

Senate, 10, 90, 91, 110, 116

 Services Armed Services Committee, 91, 112 

 Senate Arms Control Observer Group, 28 

 Senate leadership, see Congressional leadership

Senior Executive Service (SES), 92, 97 

Service, government, 86-109 

 Institutional rewards for, 

Space, xiv, 2, 8, 48 

 Space Policy, 78-81 

 Interagency Working Group on Space, xiv, 80 

 National Security Space Architect, xiv, 81 

State, Department of, x-xi, xiv, xvi, 8, 23, 47-48, 50, 52-63, 80, 87, 94-96, 101-102, 110, 112, 

116 

 Secretary of, xi- xii, 49, 53-55, 57-59, 62-63, 92, 96 

 Strategic Planning, Assistance, and Budget Office, 56, 58, 60-61 

 Under Secretaries of State, 53-54, 57-60 

Strategic planning, iv, viii, xi-xii, 48-49, 55, 64, 82, see also State, Strategic Planning, 

Assistance, and Budget Office 

Teachers, 39-46 

 National Security Teaching Program, 41-43, 45 

Terrorism, xiv, 5, 12-14, 16, 21-23, 25, 26, 81 

 Counter-terrorism, xi, 18, 28, 47-49, 59 

 Counter-Terrorism Center, 102 

Trade Representative, United States (USTR), 51, 52, 101 
 123

Transportation, Department of, 15, 80 

Treasury, Department of, xvi, 15, 51-52, 84, 97, 101 

 Secretary of, xi, 51-52, 62 

United Nations, Permanent Representative to the, xii, 61 

“Up or Out” personnel systems, 94, 103, 105, see also personnel

U.S. Agency for International Development, see Agency for International Development, U.S. 

U.S. Code, 93 

 Title 37, 107 

 Title 38, 106-107 

U.S. Diplomatic Service, 96 

Veterans, xvi, 105, 106, 108 

Veterans Administration (VA), 106-107 

Weapons of mass destruction, 5, 7, 10, 12, 18, 21, 23, 25-28, 30, 77 

Weapons of mass disruption, 10, 28 

White House staff, 49-51, 91 
 124

APPENDIX 1 

The Recommendations 

his appendix lists all of the Phase III Report’s major recommendations in order of 

their presentation. The recommendations are numbered sequentially and grouped by 

Section. The page on which the recommendation appears in the report is noted in the box. Those 

recommendations in red type indicate recommendations on which Congressional action is 

required for implementation. Those in blue type can be implemented by Executive Order. Those 

in green type can be implemented by the head of an Executive Branch department or agency, or 

by the Congressional leadership, as appropriate. 

Securing the National Homeland 

1: The President should develop a comprehensive strategy to heighten America’s ability to 

prevent and protect against all forms of attack on the homeland, and to respond to such 

attacks if prevention and protection fail. (p. 11) 

2: The President should propose, and Congress should agree to create, a National 

Homeland Security Agency (NHSA) with responsibility for planning, coordinating, and 

integrating various U.S. government activities involved in homeland security. The Federal 

Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) should be a key building block in this effort. (p. 

15) 

3: The President should propose to Congress the transfer of the Customs Service, the 

Border Patrol, and Coast Guard to the National Homeland Security Agency, while 

preserving them as distinct entities. (p. 15)

4: The President should ensure that the National Intelligence Council: include homeland 

security and asymmetric threats as an area of analysis; assign that portfolio to a National 

Intelligence Officer; and produce National Intelligence Estimates on these threats. (p. 23) 

5: The President should propose to Congress the establishment of an Assistant Secretary of 

Defense for Homeland Security within the Office of the Secretary of Defense, reporting 

directly to the Secretary. (p. 23) 

6: The Secretary of Defense, at the President’s direction, should make homeland security a 

primary mission of the National Guard, and the Guard should be organized, properly 

trained, and adequately equipped to undertake that mission. (p. 25) 

 

7: Congress should establish a special body to deal with homeland security issues, as has 

been done with intelligence oversight. Members should be chosen for their expertise in 

foreign policy, defense, intelligence, law enforcement, and appropriations. This body should 

also include members of all relevant Congressional committees as well as ex-officio 

members from the leadership of both Houses of Congress. (p. 28)

 T
 125

Recapitalizing America’s Strengths in Science and Education 

8: The President should propose, and the Congress should support, doubling the U.S. 

government’s investment in science and technology R&D by 2010. (p. 32)

 

9: The President should empower his Science Advisor to establish non-military R&D 

objectives that meet changing national needs, and to be responsible for coordinating budget 

development within the relevant departments and agencies. (p. 34) 

10: The President should propose, and the Congress should fund, the reorganization of the 

national laboratories, providing individual laboratories with new mission goals that 

minimize overlap. (p. 37) 

11: The President should propose, and Congress should pass, a National Security Science 

and Technology Education Act (NSSTEA) with four sections: reduced-interest loans and 

scholarships for students to pursue degrees in science, mathematics, and engineering; loan 

forgiveness and scholarships for those in these fields entering government or military 

service; a National Security Teaching Program to foster science and math teaching at the K12 level; and increased funding for professional development for science and math teachers. 

(p. 41) 

12: The President should direct the Department of Education to work with the states to 

devise a comprehensive plan to avert a looming shortage of quality teachers. This plan 

should emphasize raising teacher compensation, improving infrastructure support, 

reforming the certification process, and expanding existing programs targeted at districts 

with especially acute problems. (p. 43)

13: The President and Congress should devise a targeted program to strengthen the 

historically black colleges and universities in our country, and should particularly support 

those that emphasize science, mathematics, and engineering. (p. 45)

Institutional Redesign 

14: The President should personally guide a top-down strategic planning process and 

delegate authority to the National Security Advisor to coordinate that process. (p. 48) 

15: The President should prepare and present to the Congress an overall national security 

budget to serve the critical goals that emerge from the NSC strategic planning process. 

Separately, the President should continue to submit budgets for individual national security 

departments and agencies for Congressional review and appropriation. (p. 49) 
 126

16: The National Security Council (NSC) should be responsible for advising the President 

and for coordinating the multiplicity of national security activities, broadly defined to 

include economic and domestic law enforcement activities as well as the traditional national 

security agenda. The NSC Advisor and staff should resist the temptation to assume a 

central policymaking and operational role. (p. 51) 

17: The President should propose to the Congress that the Secretary of Treasury be made a 

statutory member of the National Security Council. (p. 52) 

18: The President should abolish the National Economic Council, distributing its domestic 

economic policy responsibilities to the Domestic Policy Council and its international 

economic responsibilities to the National Security Council. (p. 52) 

19: The President should propose to the Congress a plan to reorganize the State 

Department, creating five Under Secretaries, with responsibility for overseeing the regions 

of Africa, Asia, Europe, Inter-America, and Near East/South Asia, and redefining the 

responsibilities of the Under Secretary for Global Affairs. These new Under Secretaries 

would operate in conjunction with the existing Under Secretary for Management. (p. 54)

 

20: The President should propose to the Congress that the U.S. Agency for International 

Development be consolidated into the State Department. (p. 56) 

21: The Secretary of State should give greater emphasis to strategic planning in the State 

Department and link it directly to the allocation of resources through the establishment of a 

Strategic Planning, Assistance, and Budget Office. (p. 56) 

22: The President should ask Congress to appropriate funds to the State Department in a 

single integrated Foreign Operations budget, which would include all foreign assistance 

programs and activities as well as all expenses for personnel and operations. (p. 58)

23: The President should ensure that Ambassadors have the requisite area knowledge as 

well as leadership and management skills to function effectively. He should therefore 

appoint an independent, bipartisan advisory panel to the Secretary of State to vet 

ambassadorial appointees, career and non-career alike. (p. 62) 

24: The Secretary of Defense should propose to Congress a restructuring plan for the Office 

of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy that would abolish the office of the Assistant 

Secretary for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict (SOLIC), and create a new 

office of an Assistant Secretary dedicated to Strategy and Planning (S/P). (p. 64)

25: Based on a review of the core roles and responsibilities of the staffs of the Office of the 

Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the military services, and the CINCs, the Secretary of 

Defense should reorganize and reduce those staffs by ten to fifteen percent. (p. 65) 
 127

26: The Secretary of Defense should establish a ten-year goal of reducing infrastructure 

costs by 20 to 25 percent through outsourcing and privatizing as many DoD support 

agencies as possible. (p. 66) 

27: The Congress and the Secretary of Defense should move the Quadrennial Defense 

Review to the second year of a Presidential term. (p. 68) 

28: The Secretary of Defense should introduce a new process that would require the 

Services and defense agencies to compete for the allocation of some resources within the 

overall Defense budget. (p. 69) 

29: The Secretary of Defense should establish and employ a two-track acquisition system, 

one for major acquisitions and a second, “fast track” for a limited number of potential 

breakthrough systems, especially those in the area of command and control. (p. 71) 

30: The Secretary of Defense should foster innovation by directing a return to the pattern of 

increased prototyping and testing of selected weapons and support systems. (p. 72) 

 

31: Congress should implement two-year defense budgeting solely for the modernization 

element of the DoD budget (R&D/procurement) because of its long-term character, and it 

should expand the use of multiyear procurement. (p. 73)

32: Congress should modernize Defense Department auditing and oversight requirements 

by rewriting relevant sections of U.S. Code, Title 10, and the Federal Acquisition 

Regulations. (p. 75) 

33: The Secretary of Defense should direct the DoD to shift from the threat-based 2MTW 

force sizing process to one which measures requirements against recent operational activity 

trends, actual intelligence estimates of potential adversaries’ capabilities, and national 

security objectives once formulated in the new administration’s national security strategy.

(p. 76) 

34: The Defense Department should devote its highest priority to improving and furthering 

expeditionary capabilities. (p. 78) 

35: The President should establish an Interagency Working Group on Space (IWGS) at the 

National Security Council to coordinate all aspects of the nation’s space policy, and place on 

the NSC staff those with the necessary expertise in this area. (p. 80) 

36: The President should order the setting of national intelligence priorities through 

National Security Council guidance to the Director of Central Intelligence. (p. 83) 
 128

37: The Director of Central Intelligence should emphasize the recruitment of human 

intelligence sources on terrorism as one of the intelligence community’s highest priorities, 

and ensure that operational guidelines are balanced between security needs and respect for 

American values and principles. (p. 83)

38: The intelligence community should place new emphasis on collection and analysis of 

economic and science/technology security concerns, and incorporate more open source 

intelligence into analytical products. Congress should support this new emphasis by 

increasing significantly the National Foreign Intelligence Program (NFIP) budget for 

collection and analysis. (p. 84) 

The Human Requirements for National Security 

39: Congress should significantly expand the National Security Education Act (NSEA) to 

include broad support for social sciences, humanities, and foreign languages in exchange for 

military and civilian service to the nation. (p. 89) 

40: The Executive and Legislative Branches should cooperate to revise the current 

Presidential appointee process by reducing the impediments that have made high-level 

public service undesirable to many distinguished Americans. Specifically, they should 

reduce the number of Senate confirmed and non-career Senior Executive Service (SES) 

positions by 25 percent; shorten the appointment process; and revise draconian ethics 

regulations. (p. 92)

41: The President should order the overhauling of the Foreign Service system by revamping 

the examination process, dramatically improving the level of on-going professional 

education, and making leadership a core value of the State Department. (p. 95) 

42: The President should order the elimination of recruitment hurdles for the Civil Service, 

ensure a faster and easier hiring process, and see to it that strengthened professional 

education and retention programs are worthy of full funding by Congress. (p. 98) 

43: The Executive Branch should establish a National Security Service Corps (NSSC) to 

enhance civilian career paths, and to provide a corps of policy experts with broad-based 

experience throughout the Executive Branch. (p. 101) 

44: Congress should significantly enhance the Montgomery GI Bill, as well as strengthen 

recently passed and pending legislation supporting benefits—including transition, medical, 

and homeownership—for qualified veterans. (p. 106) 

45: Congress and the Defense Department should cooperate to decentralize military 

personnel legislation dictating the terms of enlistment/commissioning, career management, 

retirement, and compensation. (p. 107) 
 129

The Role of Congress 

46: The Congressional leadership should conduct a thorough bicameral, bipartisan review 

of the Legislative Branch relationship to national security and foreign policy. (p. 110) 

47: Congressional and Executive Branch leaders must build programs to encourage 

individual members to acquire knowledge and experience in both national security and 

foreign policy. (p. 111) 

48: Congress should rationalize its current committee structure so that it best serves U.S. 

national security objectives; specifically, it should merge the current authorizing 

committees with the relevant appropriations subcommittees. (p. 112) 

49: The Executive Branch must ensure a sustained focus on foreign policy and national 

security consultation with Congress and devote resources to it. For its part, Congress must 

make consultation a higher priority and form a permanent consultative group of 

Congressional leaders as part of this effort. (p. 113) 

50: The President should create an implementing mechanism to ensure that the major 

recommendations of this Commission result in the critical reforms necessary to ensure 

American national security and global leadership over the next quarter century. (p. 116)
 130

APPENDIX 2

Charter of the U.S. Commission on National 

Security/21st Century 

SEC. 1. ESTABLISHMENT AND PURPOSE.

The Department of Defense recognizes that America should advance its position as a 

strong, secure, and persuasive force for freedom and progress in the world. Consequently, there is 

a requirement to: 1) conduct a comprehensive review of the early 21st Century global security 

environment, including likely trends and potential "wild cards"; 2) develop a comprehensive 

overview of American strategic interests and objectives for the security environment we will 

likely encounter in the 21st Century; 3) delineate a national security strategy appropriate to that 

environment and the nation's character; 4) identify a range of alternatives to implement the 

national security strategy, by defining the security goals for American society, and by describing 

the internal and external policy instruments required to apply American resources in the 21st 

Century; and 5) develop a detailed plan to implement the range of alternatives by describing the 

sequence of measures necessary to attain the national security strategy, to include recommending 

concomitant changes to the national security apparatus as necessary. A Commission, the U.S. 

Commission on National Security/21st Century (USCNS/21), will be established to fulfill this 

requirement, supported by a Study Group. Two individuals who have national recognition and 

significant depth of experience and public service will oversee the efforts of this Commission and 

serve as its Co-chairpersons. The study effort shall be conducted by a Study Group, composed of 

individuals who will be appointed as Department of Defense (DoD) personnel, in accordance 

with Section VI below. Based on the results of this study and the Commission's consideration 

thereof, the USCNS/21 will advance practical recommendations that the President of the United 

States, with the support of the Congress, could begin to implement in the Fiscal Year 2002 

budget, if desired. 

SEC. II. BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS 

(a) CO-CHAIRPERSONS.- The Secretary of Defense, in consultation with the 

Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and the Secretary of State, shall select two 

Co-chairpersons to oversee the study effort and to co-chair the U.S. Commission on National 

Security/21st Century. The Co-chairpersons shall be prominent United States citizens, with 

national recognition, significant depth of experience, and prior public service. 

(b) MEMBERSHIP.- The Secretary of Defense, in consultation with the Assistant to 

the President for National Security Affairs and the Secretary of State, shall select 15-17 

individuals to serve as a board of Commissioners to the study, drawing on accomplished and 

prominent United States citizens and reflecting a cross-section of American public and 

private sector life. 

(c) OPERATION.- The Commissioners shall meet at the discretion of the 

Co-chairpersons to provide visionary leadership and guidance for the study effort, and to 

consider appropriate recommendations to the Secretary of Defense and the President, based 

on the results of the study. The Co-chairpersons shall provide oversight for the study effort. 
 131

The USCNS/21 will be chartered separately and operated as a Federal advisory committee in 

accordance with the Federal Advisory Committee Act (Public Law 92-463), as amended. 

(d) PERIOD OF APPOINTMENT; VACANCIES.- All Commissioners shall be 

appointed for the life of the study effort. Vacancies shall be filled in the same manner as the 

original appointment, in accordance with the Commission's charter. 

SEC. III. DUTIES.

(a) COMPREHENSIVE REVIEW.- The study will define America's role and purpose in 

the first quarter of the 21st Century through an integrated analysis, and identify the national 

security strategy in political, economic, military, societal, and technological terms that must be 

implemented for America to fulfill that role and achieve its purpose. This study shall include the 

following: 

(1) A description of the national security environments that the United States will 

likely encounter in the 21st Century, and an evaluation of the security threats which can be 

reasonably expected in political, economic, military, societal, and technological terms. 

(2) A comprehensive overview of American domestic and international strategic 

interests and objectives for the security environment we will likely encounter in the 21st Century. 

(3) Delineation of the national security strategy that must be implemented to 

achieve America's objectives in the 21st Century. 

(4) Identification of the range of alternatives to implement the national security 

strategy, by defining the domestic security goals for American society, and by describing the 

internal and external policy instruments required to apply American resources in the 21st 

Century. 

(5) Development of a detailed plan to implement the range of alternatives by 

describing the sequence of measures necessary to attain the national security strategy. 

(b) MATTERS TO BE CONSIDERED.- In carrying out the study, the USCNS/21 shall 

develop specific findings and recommendations for each of the following: 

(1) Identification of nations, supranational groups, and trends that may assist the 

fulfillment of U.S national security strategy. 

(2) Identification of nations, supranational groups, and trends that may pose military, 

economic, or technological threats to fulfillment of the United States national security strategy. 

(3) Identification of societal forces that enable the attainment of United States national 

security strategy, and recommendations to exploit those forces. 

(4) Identification of societal forces that inhibit the attainment of the United States 

national security strategy, and recommendations to overcome those inhibitors. 

(5) Identification of the roles to be played by the Armed Forces and Federal civilian 

agencies of the United States in attainment of the United States national security strategy. 
 132

(6) The adequacy of the current national security apparatus to meet early 21st Century 

security challenges, and recommendations to modify this apparatus as necessary. 

(7) Examination of existing and/or required international security arrangements, to 

include recommendations for modification, as appropriate. 

(8) Recommended course(s) of action to secure the active support of an informed 

American public for the implementation of our national security strategy in the 21st Century. 

SEC. IV. METHODOLOGY. 

The USCNS/21 will accomplish its mission in three phases, as set forth below. 

(a) PHASE ONE.- Phase One will examine and describe the kind of nation the United 

States will be in the early 21st Century and the range of likely international security environments 

that we can reasonably anticipate. The goal will be to establish the domestic and international 

contexts in which the United States will exist in the next century. The study will seek to identify 

the most likely domestic and international trends, taking account of less likely or "wild card" 

events, such as the spread of weapons of mass destruction, technological breakthroughs, natural 

disasters, or regime changes abroad. This phase will predict the possible international security 

environments with consideration of the interrelationships of the various sectors involved. Phase 

One will terminate with the submission by the Co-chairpersons, after consultation with the board 

of Commissioners, of a report to the Secretary of Defense describing the range of potential 

domestic and international environments as they relate to national security. 

(b) PHASE TWO.- Existing national interests and objectives will be reviewed and 

analyzed for applicability in the early part of the next century. If appropriate, modifications will 

be recommended to bring the policy objectives into line with the anticipated global environment. 

Where necessary objectives and interests have not yet been clearly articulated for security arenas 

in which the United States must function in the future, the USCNS/21 will recommend 

appropriate objectives. These objectives should encompass all critical American security 

concerns. Delineation of national security strategy (or strategies) for the early part of the 21st 

Century will complete Phase Two of the study. A proposed strategy will be constrained by only 

the following factors: it must support attainment of our national security objectives, it must be 

acceptable to the American people, and it must be feasible within current (or projected) resource 

availability. (For the purposes of this study, an acceptable national security strategy is one that is 

reasonably consistent with the projected values and desires of the American people, taking into 

account the ability of confident national leaders to move public opinion in the direction of 

rational responses to new national challenges). The goal of Phase Two is to describe America’s 

interests and objectives in a comprehensive, attainable, and supportable national security strategy 

that gives the Executive and Legislative Branches policy options for allocation of national 

resources and for domestic and international strategic initiatives. Phase Two will terminate upon 

the submission by the Co-chairpersons, after consultation with the board of Commissioners, of a 

report to the Secretary of Defense which meets this goal. 

(c) PHASE THREE.- As needed, the USCNS/21 will propose measures to adapt existing 

national security structures or to create new structures where none exists. These measures must be 

appropriate to the range of anticipated international environments identified in Phase One and the 

national security objectives identified in Phase Two. Selected measures may require some 

modification of certain institutions, processes and structures in order to improve their relevance in 

the first two decades of the 2lst Century and enhance their positive impact upon the national 

security process. When appropriate, cost and time estimates to complete these improvements and 
 133

a recommended sequence of actions will be provided. The end result of Phase Three will be an 

institutional road map for the early part of the 21st Century, provided as a report from the U.S. 

Commission on National Security/21st Century to the Secretary of Defense, with detailed 

recommendations for each major segment of the United States government's national security 

apparatus. 

SEC. V. REPORTS. 

All reports shall be submitted in unclassified form, but may include classified annexes. 

The Secretary of Defense will transmit a copy of each report to the Congress. 

(a) PHASE ONE.- The Co-chairs shall submit to the Secretary of Defense a report on 

Phase One of the study, as outlined in Section IV(a), not later than September 15, 1999. 

(b) PHASE TWO.- The Co-chairs shall submit to the Secretary of Defense a report on 

Phase Two of the study, as outlined in Section IV(b), not later than April 14, 2000. 

(c) FINAL REPORT.- The Co-chairs shall submit to the Secretary of Defense a final 

report, including assessments and recommendations and the institutional road map outlined in 

Section IV(c), not later than February 16, 2001. 

SEC.VI. PERSONNEL AND ADMINISTRATIVE SUPPORT.

(a) ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT SERVICES.- The U.S. Commission on 

National Security/21st Century will be supported by the Study Group and its staff. The Study 

Group, as a DoD organizational element, will receive administrative and other support services 

from the Director, Administration and Management, including four individuals detailed to 

support the Study Group, consistent with the budgetary parameters established in Section VIII. 

Additional administrative and support services requested by the Co-chairpersons or the Executive 

Director (which position is provided for in paragraph (d)(1), below) in support of the USCNS/21 

will be furnished by DoD as necessary and appropriate. These support requirements will be 

administered by the Director, Administration and Management, in conjunction with other DoD 

officials, as appropriate. 

(b) SECURITY CLEARANCES.- Insofar as expeditious processing of personnel security 

clearances is essential to the timely completion of the study, DoD will expedite personnel security 

clearance procedures for access to classified information for Study Group personnel and staff to 

the extent permitted by law and Executive Order, when requested by the Executive Director. 

(c) BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS APPOINTMENT AND COMPENSATION.- 

Commissioners of the USCNS/21, including the Co-chairpersons, who are not full-time officers 

or employees of the United States shall be appointed by the Secretary of Defense as special 

government employees. Such members may serve with or without compensation and shall be 

allowed travel expenses, including per diem in lieu of subsistence, in accordance with the Board's 

charter. 

(d) STUDY GROUP APPOINTMENT AND COMPENSATION. 

(1) EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR.- The Secretary of Defense, upon advice of the 

Co-chairpersons, shall select an Executive Director. The Executive Director shall be appointed to 

a limited term (not to exceed three years), Senior Executive Service position within DoD. The 

Executive Director shall supervise the Study Group and its staff, with full authority, in 

accordance with applicable law and regulations, and merit system principles. 
 134

(2) MEMBERSHIP.- The Secretary of Defense, in consultation with the 

Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, the Secretary of State and the Executive 

Director, will select sufficient individuals with diverse experience and expertise to fill positions 

as members of the Study Group. All Study Group members shall be United States citizens with 

widely-recognized expertise in fields relevant to the Study Group's national security objectives. 

Members should be innovative and creative practitioners or strategists in their respective fields of 

endeavor. The Study Group members shall be appointed under an appropriate authority which 

allows for an assignment of a temporary duration. Terms for such appointments shall not exceed 

the length of the study, but may be such shorter period of time as determined by the Executive 

Director. Vacancies shall be filled by the Executive Director, with the approval of the Secretary 

of Defense. 

(e) STAFF APPOINTMENT AND COMPENSATION.- The Executive Director may 

select for appointment as DoD employees, in accordance with paragraph VI(a), above, and 

applicable Civil Service laws and regulations and DoD policies, up to twelve individuals. 

Selectees who are not currently full time DoD military or civilian personnel will be given limited 

term appointments for up to the length of the study, in accordance with section VI(a) above, to 

support the study Group. 

(f) TEMPORARY AND INTERMITTENT SERVICES.- The Executive Director may 

procure temporary and intermittent services under section 3109(b) of title 5, United States Code, 

at a rate of pay not to exceed the daily rate of pay for a GS-15, step 10 in accordance with such 

title. 

SEC. VII. TERMINATION OF THE STUDY.

The study will terminate not later than 30 days after the Co-chairpersons submit the final 

report to the Secretary of Defense, or no later than March 15, 2001, whichever is earlier.150

SEC. VIII. FUNDING.

Except as provided herein, the operating costs of the study, including the compensation, 

travel, and per diem allowances for the Commissioners and the Study Group members and staff, 

will be paid by the Department of Defense. The overall cost for this project (excluding the cost of 

the four detailees described in section VI(a) above) may not exceed $10.44 Mil, without prior 

approval by the Secretary of Defense or designee. These funds are expected to be obligated as 

follows: FY 1999-$1.43 Mil; FY 1999-$3.76 Mil; FY 2000-$3.73 Mil; and FY 2001-$1.52 Mil. 

William S. Cohen, Secretary of Defense SEPT 2, 1999 

 

150 The termination date of the study was moved to July 31, 2001 in October 2000. 
 135

APPENDIX 3 

Commissioner Biographical Sketches and 

Staff Listing 

Anne Armstrong, Regent, Texas A&M University System and Trustee and Chairman 

of the Executive Committee, Center for Strategic and International Studies. Previous 

positions and affiliations: Counselor to the President under the Nixon and Ford 

Administrations; U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom; Chairman, President’s 

Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board; Commissioner, Commission on the Organization 

of Government for the Conduct of Foreign Policy; Commissioner, Commission on 

Integrated Long-Term Strategy. 

Norman R. Augustine, Chairman, Executive Committee Lockheed Martin Corporation. 

Previous positions and affiliations: Under Secretary of the Army; Assistant Director of 

Defense Research and Engineering, Office of the Secretary of Defense; Chairman, 

American Red Cross; Chairman, National Academy of Engineering; President, Boy 

Scouts of America; Chairman, Defense Policy Advisory Committee on Trade; Chairman, 

Defense Science Board; Member of Faculty, Princeton University. 

John Dancy, Director of International Media Studies and Visiting Professor of 

Communications, Brigham Young University. Previous positions and affiliations: Chief 

Diplomatic Correspondent, NBC News; Congressional Correspondent, NBC News; 

Senior White House Correspondent, NBC News; Member, Federal Advisory Committee 

on Gender-Integrated Training and Related Issues; Fellow, Joan Shorenstein Center for 

Press, Politics, and Public Policy, Harvard University. 

John R. Galvin, Dean Emeritus, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts 

University. Previous positions and affiliations: General, United States Army (Retired); 

Supreme Allied Commander Europe; Commander in Chief, United States European 

Command; Commander in Chief, United States Southern Command; State Department 

Special Envoy (Rank of Ambassador) negotiations, Bosnia; Olin Distinguished Professor 

of National Security, United States Military Academy; Distinguished Policy Analyst, 

Mershon Center, Ohio State University. 

Leslie H. Gelb, President, Council on Foreign Relations. Previous positions and 

affiliations: Editor, New York Times Op-Ed page; Columnist for New York Times; New 

York Times National Security and Diplomatic Correspondent; Senior Associate, 

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Assistant Secretary of State, Director of 

the Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs; Director of Policy Planning and Arms Control 

for International Security Affairs at the Department of Defense. 
 136

Newt Gingrich, CEO of The Gingrich Group, an Atlanta based management consulting 

Firm; political commentator for FOX News Network; Senior Fellow at The American 

Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.; distinguished Visiting Fellow at The Hoover 

Institution at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. Previous positions and 

affiliations: Former Speaker of the United States House of Representatives; United States 

House of Representatives, Georgia; former Professor of History and Environmental 

Studies, West Georgia College.

Lee H. Hamilton, Director, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and 

Director of The Center on Congress at Indiana University. Previous positions and 

affiliations: United States House of Representatives, Ninth District, Indiana; Ranking 

Democratic Member, Committee on International Relations; Member and Former 

Chairman, Joint Economic Committee; Former Chairman, Committee on Foreign Affairs; 

Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress; October Surprise Task Force; Select 

Committee to Investigate Covert Arms Transactions with Iran; Permanent 

Select Committee on Intelligence. 

Gary Hart, Counsel to Coudert Brothers. Previous positions and affiliations: United 

States Senator, Colorado; Senate Armed Services Committee; Senate Intelligence 

Committee; Author: America Can Win: The Case for Military Reform 

(with William S. Lind, 1985), and The Minuteman (1998). 

Lionel H. Olmer, Senior partner in the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & 

Garrison. Previous positions and affiliations: Undersecretary of Commerce for 

International Trade; Executive Secretary, President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory 

Board; international business development associations; U.S. Navy officer specializing 

in cryptology. 

Donald B. Rice, President and CEO of UroGenesys, Inc. Previous positions and 

affiliations: Secretary of the Air Force; President and Chief Executive Officer, the 

RAND Corporation; President and Chief Operating Officer, Teledyne, Inc.; Assistant 

Director, Office of Management and Budget; Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense 

(Resource Analysis); Director of Cost Analysis, Department of Defense; President, 

Institute of Management Sciences; Director of the Defense Resource Management 

Study; Chairman, National Commission on Supplies and Shortages; Director of 

Amgen, Inc.; Wells Fargo & Company, Vulcan Materials Company, Scios Inc. 

(Chairman of the Board), Unocal Corp., and Pilkington Aerospace. 

Warren B. Rudman, Partner in the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and 

Garrison; Chairman, President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board; Co-chair of the 

Concord Coalition; Member, Sharm el-Sheikh Fact Finding Committee (examining the 

recent crisis between the Israelis and Palestinians). Previous positions and affiliations: 

United States Senator, New Hampshire; Chairman, Special Oversight Board for DoD 

Investigations of Gulf War Chemical and Biological Incidents; Vice Chairman, 

Commission on Roles and Capabilities of the U.S. Intelligence Community; Co-author of 
 137

1985 Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Deficit Reduction Law; Vice-Chairman of Senate Select 

Committee Investigating Arms Transfers to Iran; Chair, Senate Ethics Committee; Senate 

Appropriations Committee; Senate Intelligence Committee; Senate Government 

Affairs Committee and Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations; Attorney 

General of New Hampshire; President, National Association of Attorneys General; 

United States Army (Captain, Retired); Platoon Leader and Company Commander 

during the Korean War. 

James R. Schlesinger, Senior Advisor to Lehman Brothers and Chairman of the 

MITRE Corporation. Previous positions and affiliations: Secretary of Defense; 

Secretary of Energy; Director, Central Intelligence Agency; Chairman, Atomic 

Energy Commission; Assistant Director, Bureau of the Budget (OMB); Director of 

Strategic Studies, RAND Corporation; Professor of Economics, University of Virginia. 

Harry D. Train II, Manager, Hampton Roads Operations, Science Applications 

International Corporation. Previous positions and affiliations: Admiral, United 

States Navy (Retired); Commander-in-Chief, United States Atlantic Command 

NATO Supreme Allied Commander, Atlantic; Commander-in-Chief, United States 

Atlantic Fleet; Commander, United States Sixth Fleet; Director of Joint Staff; 

Senior Fellow, Joint & Combined Warfighting School, Joint Forces Staff College; 

Member of Defense Science Board Task Force on Information Warfare Defense; 

Mentor, Defense Science Studies Group. 

Andrew Young, Chairman of GoodWorks International and President-Elect of the 

National Council of Churches. Previous positions and affiliations: U.S. Ambassador to 

the United Nations; Chairman, Southern Africa Enterprise Development Fund; 

United States House of Representatives, Fifth District, Georgia; Mayor of Atlanta; 

Co-Chairman, Centennial Olympic Games; Executive President, Southern Christian 

Leadership Conference. 
 138

National Security Study Group 

Staff Listing 

Executive Director Research Staff 

Charles G. Boyd Erin C. Conaton, Research Staff Director 

 Chris Dishman 

Deputy Executive Director Garrick Groves 

Arnold Punaro Christopher Hall 

 Mark Kohut 

Chief-of-Staff Kelly Lieberman 

Hank Scharpenberg William Lippert 

 Kathleen Robertson 

Study Group Coordinator Rachel Schiller 

Pat Allen Pentland Betsy Schmid 

 

Senior Study Group Advisor Support Staff 

Lynn E. Davis James Freeman, Administrative Officer 

 Annette Atoigue 

Study Group Members Carmen Augustosky 

Patti Benner Antsen Marilyn Bridgette 

Lyntis Beard Jamie Finley 

Jeff Bergner John Gardner 

Coit Blacker Marvin Goodwin 

Chris Bowie Michele Hutchins 

Ivo Daalder Diane Long 

Rhett Dawson Jonathan Nemceff 

Keith A. Dunn Gerald Posey 

Charles Freeman Tom Prudhomme 

Adam Garfinkle Paula Siler 

Richard Haass Cynthia Waters 

Keith Hahn 

Frank Hoffman 

Charles Johnson 

Robert Killebrew 

Richard Kohn 

Bill Lewis 

Jim Locher 

Charles Moskos 

Williamson Murray 

Barry Posen 

Peter Rodman 

Barbara Samuels 

Kori Schake 

James Thomason 

Ruth Wedgwood 
 139

National Security Study Group 

Advisors, Contractors, and Consultants 

Senior Military Advisors 

General (ret) Michael P.C. Carns 

General (ret) William Hartzog 

Vice Admiral (ret) Richard D. Herr 

Admiral (ret) Joseph Lopez 

General (ret) Richard I. Neal 

Contractors 

Barry Blechman, Darcy Noricks, Mary Locke, and the DFI International team 

Fred Frostic, George Raach, Maria Alongi, David Dye, Kristin Craft, and the Booz-Allen & 

Hamilton team 

William M. Wise 

Consultants 

Charles Barry 

Daniel Byman 

Lieutenant General (ret) Patrick M. Hughes 

Major General (ret) William E. Jones 

James Lindsay 

Paul Byron Pattak 

General (ret) Daniel Schroeder 

Jeremy Shapiro 

Charles D. Vollmer 

Lee Zeichner