ndupress.ndu.edu SF No. 293 1 

There are few issues of greater intrinsic importance to the United States 

than national security reform—or one riper for resolution. Twenty 

years ago most senior leaders were skeptical of allegations that the 

national security system was “broken”; they believed the system functioned well 

enough to manage the Nation’s most pressing problems. Since then numerous 

prominent experts have been sounding the alarm from inside the system and 

from without.1 No fewer than nine blue-ribbon groups have argued in favor of 

system reforms (see tables 1 and 2).2 The overwhelming majority of scholars 

publishing independently on the issue favor reform.3 During the 2008 Presidential election, the momentum in favor of national security reform was so strong 

that many thought it was inevitable. This presumption was reinforced when 

President Barack Obama appointed well-known proponents of reform to senior 

positions in the National Security Council staff, Department of State, Department of Defense (DOD), and Intelligence Community.4

 Yet reform did not take 

place during the Obama administration, and so far it has not been an issue in the 

2016 Presidential race, either. This paper examines why reform was sidetracked, 

whether it could emerge as a campaign issue during the 2016 Presidential election, and why it is in candidates’ and the Nation’s interest that it does.

The Case for Reform

Before identifying reform obstacles, it helps to provide context by explaining 

the scope and definition of the topic and summarizing the arguments in favor of 

reform. The term national security system means the group of interacting, interrelated, and interdependent U.S. national security institutions that form a complex 

whole to provide critical security functions, including strategic warning, strategy, 

resource allocation, issue management, capability-building, system management, 

and performance oversight from the President and Congress down to personnel 

National Security Reform and 

the 2016 Election

By Christopher J. Lamb and Joseph C. Bond

STRATEGIC FORUM

National Defense University

About the Authors

Christopher J. Lamb is Director of 

the Center for Strategic Research 

(CSR), Institute for National Strategic 

Studies, at the National Defense 

University. He is also the former Study 

Director for the Project on National 

Security Reform. Joseph C. Bond was 

a Research Assistant in CSR and holds 

a Master of Arts in Government from 

Regent University.

Key Points

◆ Over the past 20 years, there has 

been a sea change in senior leader 

views on national security reform 

from skepticism to support. Nine 

major studies argue the national 

security system cannot generate or 

integrate the capabilities needed 

to manage security problems well. 

The system is “broken.”

◆ Yet there are major obstacles to reform. Inexperienced U.S. Presidents 

discover system limitations too 

late, when it is politically difficult to 

correct them; experts who have not 

studied system behaviors underestimate their liabilities; and leaders 

in the Department of Defense are 

more likely to favor reform than 

their counterparts in other departments, which creates a bureaucratic 

backlash against reform.

◆ However, two key prerequisites 

for success are in place: galvanizing cases of unsustainable performance, and in-depth problem 

analysis that reveals the origins of 

the same. A third prerequisite is 

committed leadership. With that in 

mind, the authors identify several 

reasons why Presidential candidates should embrace national 

security reform during the 2016 

campaign.

March 2016

CENTER FOR STRATEGIC RESEARCH
2 SF No. 293 ndupress.ndu.edu

Sample Senior Leader 

Comments on the National 

Security System

“We end up spending incredible amounts of time 

that just kind of suck the life out of you at the end 

of the day spending 4, 5, 6 hours in interagency 

meetings and the reason is, is because the 

organization of the government fit the last Century 

instead of this Century.”

—Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 2003

“Wars of the 20th century taught us the need for 

joint operations rather than separate army, navy 

or air operations, as manifested in the GoldwaterNichols Act. 9/11 taught us that we cannot afford 

to act as independent agencies. Our success against 

the enemy largely derives from our mastery of 

joint, highly integrated operations that unify all the 

elements of national power into a coherent whole.”

—Ambassador (and Senior Intelligence Official) 

Henry Crumpton, 2006

“Over the years the interagency system has become 

so lethargic and dysfunctional that it materially 

inhibits the ability to provide the vast power of 

the U.S. Government on problems. You see this 

inability to synchronize in our operations in Iraq and 

Afghanistan, across our foreign policy, and in our 

response to [Hurricane] Katrina.”

—General Wayne Downing, USA, 2006

“The essential ingredient for victory is . . . a 

comprehensive strategy that draws together all 

the resources of the U.S. Government [and] a new 

national security structure that can make it work. . . . 

There are too many bureaucratic impediments. . . . It’s 

too hard to balance elements that should be working 

together but are instead competing.”

—General John Abizaid, USA, 2007

“[There is still] no effective, consistent mechanism 

that brings a whole interagency team to focus on a 

particular foreign policy issue.”

—Ambassador Ryan Crocker, 2009

“America’s interagency toolkit is a hodgepodge of 

jerry-rigged arrangements constrained by a dated 

and complex patchwork of authorities, persistent 

shortfalls in resources, and unwieldy processes.”

—Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, 2010

“To put it bluntly, we’re trying to face 21st century 

threats with . . . a bureaucracy that sometimes seems 

to have been designed for the Byzantine Empire, 

which, you will recall, didn’t end well. We’re still 

too often rigid when we need to be flexible, clumsy 

when we need to be agile, slow when we need to 

be fast, focused on individual agency equities when 

we need to be focused on the broader whole of 

government mission.” 

—Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michèle 

Flournoy, 2010

“The complexity of the security environment . . . 

demands . . . a highly disciplined and adaptive military 

force . . . immersed in interagency skills and attributes.”

—Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, USA, 2013

“Despite thirteen years of experience—and 

innumerable opportunities to learn lessons from 

both successes and mistakes—there have been few 

significant changes in our cumbersome, inefficient, 

and ineffective approach to interagency operations 

in the field. [Our] current decisionmaking framework 

is an ineffective, stovepiped diplomatic, military, and 

intelligence chain of command relying on complex 

Washington decisionmaking procedures that operate 

by committee. It often produces confusion, mixed 

signals and slow reactions.”

—Admiral Dennis Blair, USN (Ret.), Ambassador 

Ronald E. Neumann, and Admiral Eric Olson, USN 

(Ret.), 2014

Note: These quotations are among the more colorful 

ones, but there are many more similar expressions of 

concern about the need for national security reform. 

The authors maintain a 40-page compendium of 

senior leader quotations on national security reform 

that is available upon request via email to lambc@

ndu.edu.
ndupress.ndu.edu SF No. 293 3 

deployed in the field.5 The term reform means correcting 

the problems that experts agree are crippling the system’s 

ability to generate desired outcomes—about which there 

is a great deal of consensus.

The nine major studies arguing for reform unanimously agree that the United States cannot integrate the 

efforts of its national security organizations well enough 

to pursue a common purpose. In other words, executive 

branch departments and agencies too often compete 

instead of collaborate, making it difficult if not impossible to achieve national security objectives. The majority 

of these studies also assert the system cannot produce 

the capabilities needed to effectively counter complex 

emerging security threats. It tends to overemphasize the 

military at the expense of other elements of power and 

invest in military capabilities for conventional rather 

than unconventional threats. Most people would agree 

that an enterprise is broken if it cannot generate and 

integrate the capabilities required to manage problems 

well. Studies also emphasize the system is too centralized, slow, and reactive rather than anticipatory.

These system liabilities, highlighted by the terror 

attacks on 9/11 and thereafter by U.S. travails in Iraq 

and Afghanistan, helped stimulate multiple studies on 

system performance. The Project on National Security Reform is a case in point. Its major study, Forging 

a New Shield, offers an explanation for system performance problems. It argues that, structurally and legally, 

the current system is dominated by its large functional 

organizations. The system supports the equities of those 

strong departments and agencies at the expense of integrating their expertise and capabilities. The singular focus of those functional organizations on their core missions also helps explain the system’s inability to generate 

needed niche capabilities, particularly those required 

for nontraditional missions such as cyber security and 

irregular warfare. The result is poor performance that 

prompts executive branch intervention.

The White House intensely manages poor performance in an attempt to impose greater cooperation 

among the departments and agencies and, along with 

Congress, to promote investments in critically needed 

capabilities. The President and his small staff, however, 

are typically far removed from the problem and have only 

the capacity to intervene in a few select cases. This leaves 

important problems unaddressed in a timely way, and 

many emerging problems ignored completely. Moreover, 

the small National Security Council staff—consumed 

by the need to turn around performance in a handful 

of areas—cannot manage the system as a whole. Thus, 

strategic direction is weak, and system-wide needs such 

as better knowledge and human resource management 

are overlooked. The legislative branch, which mirrors the 

executive branch structure by aligning oversight committees with major departments, inadvertently reinforces 

these limitations.

We advocate solutions proffered in Forging a New 

Shield, but other workable reform options have been 

suggested (see tables 1 and 2). Complex problems frequently require a multifaceted fix, and there are often 

various ways to solve a problem. Any President intent 

on reform would want to be confident he or she understands the underlying causes of poor performance, but 

then could choose to implement a variety of solutions 

deemed fiscally and politically feasible. The main reason 

reform has yet to take place is not lack of agreement on 

problems or solutions (although there is more consensus on the former than the latter), but rather the existence of major political, substantive, and bureaucratic 

obstacles.

Political Challenges

Congress has overridden Presidential opposition to 

enact major national security reforms in the past. The 

National Security Act of 1947, the Goldwater-Nichols 

Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 

(which elevated joint military operations in DOD) and 

the creation of the Department of Homeland Security in 

2003 are cases in point.6 Scholars debate what it would 

take to move Congress to pass legislation now to fix the 

national security system, but clearly it would be much 

more likely to occur with Presidential support and more 
4 SF No. 293 ndupress.ndu.edu

Problems Studies Solutions Studies

Poor interagency 

cooperation

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 New or revised interagency 

mechanisms

2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 6, 9

Cannot produce needed 

capabilities

3, 4, 5, 8, 9 Empowering existing positions with 

new roles/authorities

1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9

System is reactive and not 

anticipatory

1, 3, 5 New interagency personnel system 

and training/education programs

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 9

System is slow and overly 

centralized 

2, 6, 9 New strategy guidance (for example, 

quadrennial/biannual reviews)

1, 5, 6, 7, 9

Congress reinforces 

problems

6, 8, 9 Establish new management 

positions/offices

1, 3, 4, 6, 9

New interagency processes 1, 2, 3, 5

New budgeting process 1, 2, 7, 9

Table 1. Top Problems and Solutions Identified by Blue Ribbon Commissions

Key to Studies

1. Transforming Defense: National Security in the 21st Century, Report of the National Defense Panel (Department of Defense, December 1997)

2. The U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century (also known as the Hart-Rudman Commission)

3. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (Government Printing Office, 2004)

4. Beyond Goldwater-Nichols: U.S. Government and Defense Reform for a New Strategic Era, Phase 2 Report 

(Center for Strategic and International Studies [CSIS], July 2005)

5. Project Horizon Progress Report (Project Horizon, 2006)

6. CSIS Commission on Smart Power: A Smarter, More Secure America (CSIS, 2007)

7. Forging a World of Liberty Under Law: U.S. National Security in the 21st Century, Final Report of the Princeton 

Project on National Security (The Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, 2006)

8. America’s Role in the World: Foreign Policy Choices for the Next President (Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, 2008)

9. Forging a New Shield (Project on National Security Reform, 2008).

likely to be successful with a partnership between the executive and legislative branches.7

Recent Presidents, however, have not taken action 

on reform. One reason is lack of experience. Since World 

War II, only 2 of 12 Presidents (Dwight D. Eisenhower 

and George H.W. Bush) were experienced national security professionals. Almost all Presidents arrive in office 

with much stronger domestic than foreign policy credentials and agendas to match. They also arrive in office 

flush with electoral victory and, arguably, a commensurate 

degree of hubris that inclines them to think their administrations will avoid the problems that beset their predecessors.8

 Consequently, Presidents typically learn about 

national security on the job and especially how to manage 

the sprawling national security apparatus.

It is not uncommon to see early mishaps, such as the 

Bay of Pigs fiasco that blindsided the John F. Kennedy 

administration. President Kennedy learned from that 

experience and rebounded to manage the Cuban missile 

crisis much better. The same could be said of more recent 

administrations. President Bill Clinton recovered from a 

1993 disaster in Mogadishu, Somalia, to achieve success 
ndupress.ndu.edu SF No. 293 5 

in Bosnia. President George W. Bush was able to reverse 

a disastrous situation in Iraq with a change of strategy 

and a surge of U.S. forces that recovered the initiative 

and stabilized the country. President Obama was embarrassed by the 2009 al Qaeda Christmas bombing attempt 

on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 that appeared easily 

preventable but bounced back to oversee the successful 

raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan.

Over time Presidents learn what it takes to increase 

the chances of better performance. But they can only 

intervene in a small number of cases. By the time experience demonstrates the need for a better system that 

only requires a manageable number of interventions, the 

President is on the defensive. Presidents are loath to candidly acknowledge poor performance in the early years 

of their administrations for fear of making a second term 

less likely. If the President wins a second term, the political capital for carrying reforms through to fruition is 

much reduced by the President’s lame-duck status.

Reform is not possible without strong Presidential backing. National Security Advisor General James 

Jones, USMC (Ret.), was one of the many officials who 

supported reform that President Obama appointed to 

positions of authority on his national security team. He 

assumed his White House duties fresh from service in 

the Project on National Security Reform and began to 

implement a reform agenda. Jones, however, soon fell 

out of favor with the President and his political advisors 

who were intent on giving priority attention to domestic issues such as health care and the economy. The remaining reform advocates in the Obama administration 

could not engineer change without the support of the 

President and his new National Security Advisor.

It also is true that the popularity of national security reform diminished after the 2008 elections. Because 

national security reform did not take place when conditions appeared most propitious, those interested in the 

topic are now more sober about the prospects for reform. Any candidate considering whether to promote 

national security reform now as part of his or her party’s 

platform would likely hear a variety of arguments about 

its feasibility.

Common Feasibility Arguments

Some skeptics assert performance limitations are not 

fixable. This debate often hinges on whether one emphasizes continuity or change in the security environment. 

System performance expectations are more modest for 

those impressed by the enduring, anarchic nature of the 

international system with its numerous actors and competing interests. In such circumstances, even the most 

powerful nations can control only so much. Setbacks—

even an occasional catastrophe—are unavoidable, even if 

it is not politic to say so. Observers with this perspective 

are more tolerant of poor outcomes, chalking them up to 

the limits of power.

Other Problems Other Solutions

Foreign-domestic divide in organizational duties 

and authorities

Partner with nongovernmental organizations

Missing strategic guidance Reform or create new international or niche capability 

organizations

Inability to make resource tradeoffs Empower existing organizations for better interagency 

coordination

Insufficient leadership Establish a new department

Confused roles (who does what)

Lack of institutional knowledge

No interagency personnel managment

Table 2. Other Problems and Solutions
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The Tale of Two Burning Bushes

Everyone working in the national security system acknowledges the President as chief executive and 

the need to accommodate Presidential style and preferences. That does not mean, however, that the system 

supports the President well. A comparison of the two Bush Presidencies illustrates the point.

President George H.W. Bush was an experienced national security leader who took office determined 

to minimize “the inevitable personality conflicts and turf disputes that would spring up between Cabinet 

members, advisors, and departments.”1

 His national security advisor, Brent Scowcroft, is widely admired for 

helping President Bush succeed in this aspiration. Even so, during his first year in office, Bush stumbled into 

an invasion of Panama precipitated by poor interagency coordination (the Department of Justice indicted 

General Manuel Noriega without informing other departments) and then poorly executed the aftermath of 

the invasion for the same reason (the Department of Defense shut out other departments).2

 After that, Bush 

and Scowcroft centralized major national security decisions in a “core group close to the President,” which 

improved performance but exhausted the small staff and restricted decision capacity. Thereafter the administration concentrated on just two major issues—managing German reunification and the Gulf War—both 

of which it did quite well.

President George W. Bush had a different leadership style than his father. He had little experience in 

national security and by his own account was prone to make “gut” calls. Nevertheless, he was saddled with 

the same interagency troubles that fouled his father’s Panama operation. In his memoir, he deplored interagency squabbling following 9/11 and admitted he was unable to stop it.3

 After learning on the job that 

the system would fail without his intervention, he did what his father had done and centralized decisionmaking in the White House to avert disaster in Iraq.

This same pattern is evident in other administrations regardless of the President’s decisionmaking style 

or preferences, and it generates the same behaviors. President Bill Clinton, for example, failed in Somalia 

and Haiti before getting more deeply involved and centralizing decisionmaking on Bosnia in the White 

House.4

 Similarly, the administration of President Barack Obama suffered a number of foreign policy embarrassments before centralizing decisionmaking in the White House to the point that Secretary Robert M. 

Gates would state that it “was by far the most centralized and controlling in national security of any I had 

seen since Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger ruled the roost.”5

In other words, all these Presidents chose the time-honored expedient of working around the system 

rather than the much more difficult task of reforming it for better, consistent performance. This is precisely the 

point Ambassador Richard Holbrooke was making in his 1971 Foreign Affairs article, “The Machine that Fails.” 

(See the penultimate paragraph in this paper.)

1

 George Bush and Brent Scowcroft, A World Transformed (New York: Vintage, 1998), 18.

2

 Richard H. Shultz, Jr., In the Aftermath of War: U.S. Support for Reconstruction and Nation-Building in Panama Following Just Cause

(Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University Press, 1993).

3

 George W. Bush, Decision Points (New York: Crown Publishers, 2010), 88.

4

 Ivo Daalder, Getting to Dayton: The Making of America’s Bosnia Policy (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, April 2000), 

170–171.

5

 Robert M. Gates, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War (New York: Vintage, 2014), 585.
ndupress.ndu.edu SF No. 293 7 

Reformers are more impressed with changes to 

the security environment and the need to evolve with 

those changes. They note we have now entered the information age, in which knowledge diffusion is enabling 

smaller groups to inflict potentially catastrophic damage 

on nation-states. They argue this increasingly complex 

and dynamic security environment requires reforming organizations, so they can generate desired outputs 

faster and with better integration of functional expertise. National security reformers argue that organizations that do not reform in this manner face extinction, 

such as “E.F. Hutton, TWA, General Foods, RCA, and 

Montgomery Ward,” and that only “exclusive missions 

and the willingness of the American people to bear huge 

financial burdens during times of war have allowed the 

government’s national security institutions to delay organizational change.”9

Another version of the “not fixable” argument asserts 

the U.S. Government is constitutionally inefficient. This 

view is sometimes encapsulated in the quip that American government was designed by geniuses not to work. 

The assumption is that poor national security system performance is a natural outgrowth of the Constitution’s system of checks and balances on centralized power. Vesting 

separate functions and powers in the legislative, executive, 

and judicial branches of government does entail inefficiences. However, the major system limitations identified 

by reformers—unified effort and fielding appropriate capabilities—are largely executive branch problems.

To be sure, Congress plays a role in both problems. 

The congressional committee structure reinforces competition among and sometimes within departments and 

agencies, but the President as chief executive has primary 

responsibility for unified effort. In the case of fielding 

capabilities to deal with nontraditional threats, Congress 

plays a larger role. It can be tight-fisted with funding, 

particularly for nonmilitary capabilities. But typically it 

gives the President what he requests or even more, both 

in terms of organizations and budgets. Congress allocated huge amounts of resources for Afghanistan and Iraq, 

but the executive branch failed to field the capabilities 

that irregular warfare experts argued were needed. For 

example, DOD suffered embarrassing scandals over its 

inability to provide body armor, properly protected vehicles, and overhead surveillance. Existing executive 

branch organizational cultures explain these capability 

shortfalls rather than a parsimonious Congress.10

Yet another version of the “not fixable” argument 

lays the blame on the President-centric nature of the U.S. 

national security system. Because the Constitution gives 

the President so much authority over national security 

matters, many conclude the President’s decisionmaking 

and leadership style are the major factors constraining 

system performance.11 One academic critic of the Project 

on National Security Reform offered a pithy summary 

of this view in testimony to Congress, stating: “It’s the 

President, stupid.”12 He meant the President’s personal 

preferences and predilections determine system performance and cannot be controlled through the fixes advocated by reformers. Some take the argument further and 

assert Presidents actually like the current system precisely 

because it is so responsive to their preferences. In a 2010 

assessment of national security reform prospects, Harvey 

Sicherman argued to “those who would try to transform 

the system” that “it endures because [P]residents who 

understand it, like it.”13

There is little to no evidence that Presidents like the 

system. Assuming they do because otherwise they would 

change it trivializes the challenge of fixing a broken system and ignores the many Presidential complaints that 

the system is unresponsive to their needs (see “The Tale 

of Two Burning Bushes”). As one observer notes, “Every 

new administration comes to office . . . assuming that the 

interagency process would serve [its] needs,” and “every 

administration discovers it has to reinvent the interagency 

wheel.”14 Rather than liking the system, “every [P]resident 

since Eisenhower has complained of his inability to move 

the bureaucracy in the directions he wished to go” and 

“sought means and methods by which [he] could be more 

flexible and agile in dealing with the issues before [him].”15

Other skeptics believe performance problems are minor and easily corrected with simple fixes such as better 
8 SF No. 293 ndupress.ndu.edu

education, planning, or leadership. Better leadership is a 

particularly common bromide, one often summarized in 

the observation that “personalities matter.” Many senior 

leaders agree, asserting that if they maintain good relations with counterparts from other departments or agencies, their example should trickle down and improve cooperation among subordinates.

Yet good senior leader relations are not guaranteed, 

nor do they necessarily trickle down. President George 

W. Bush’s national security team was considered a 

“dream team” because the principals were experienced 

luminaries who knew and respected one another. Yet 

these relationships degenerated quickly. As for trickledown collaboration, it has its limits. Secretary Robert Gates believed a personal effort to get along with 

Secretary Hillary Clinton “would radiate throughout 

our departments and the rest of the government,” but 

their relatively harmonious relations did not prevent 

enduring tension between Ambassadors and military 

commanders in the field.16 Similarly, Secretary Donald 

Rumsfeld was determined to get along with Central 

Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director George Tenet because “close, visible personal cooperation between the 

two of us at the top could . . . encourage a joint approach for those down the chain of command.”17 Yet 

DOD-CIA tensions were an ongoing problem during 

the Bush administration.

What leaders discover is that William Edwards 

Deming was right about a bad system beating a good 

person every time. Good leadership is one necessary element of high organizational performance, but not the 

only one. Organizational structure, process, culture, and 

other variables also exert powerful influences over behaviors that affect performance. Over the years many system 

reforms focused on a single organizational performance 

variable have failed. The Clinton administration’s attempt to fix interagency planning is an example, as is the 

Bush administration’s attempt to manage nation-building missions better.18 The same could be said of efforts to 

improve interagency collaboration by reforming personnel management. Congress considered, and the Obama 

administration recently mandated, cross-organizational 

experience for senior executives, but such measures will 

have limited impact without complementary reforms 

and so long as civil service careers remain under the control of parent organizations.19

Successful reforms take holistic organizational approaches to improving performance. When advocates of 

national security reform refer to a “Goldwater-Nichols” 

for the interagency community, as they often do, they are 

calling for comprehensive reforms that cover authority 

relationships, process, culture, personnel incentives, and 

other organizational elements. Both the empirical record 

and academic literature support the notion that system 

performance is a complex problem requiring a comprehensive, multidisciplinary solution (see table 3).20

Some observers argue that conditions for reform are 

not ripe. For example, it has been argued that national 

security organizations should be designed to support 

the grand strategy they execute and that grand strategy requires a bipartisan consensus.21 Since a bipartisan consensus on grand strategy is not likely any time 

soon, there is no logic to guide organizational reform 

and the issue is moot. The problem with this argument 

is that grand strategy is not a prerequisite for the kind of 

fundamental national security reforms currently needed. 

Executing any strategy well requires unified effort and 

supporting capabilities. The current system’s inability to 

provide these basic functions could be rectified without 

a bipartisan strategy consensus, which is why leaders 

across the political spectrum have spoken out in favor 

of reform.

A final argument that needs to be addressed is cost. 

Some wrongly assume national security reform means an 

expensive restructuring that would entail large new bureaucracies such as the Department of Homeland Security.22 That need not be the case. For example, the Project on 

National Security Reform recommended only a small staff 

augmentation that easily could be supplied from the millions of civil servants currently in the system. Other than 

that, all the recommended changes address authorities, 

responsibilities, processes, leadership, and organizational 
ndupress.ndu.edu SF No. 293 9 

culture. These proposals are politically and organizationally difficult but not costly in terms of budget outlays.

Moreover, well-executed reforms would conserve resources. The more than $1.6 trillion that the United States 

spent in Afghanistan and Iraq failed to produce desired 

outcomes and often wasted large amounts of funds. The 

Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction asserts a lack of unified strategy, planning, and effort meant U.S. activities could not “actually contribute 

to overall national goals there” and instead risked having 

“agencies and projects work at counter purposes, spend 

money on frivolous endeavors, or fail to coordinate efforts 

to maximize impact.”23 The Special Inspector General for 

Iraq made similar observations, asking Congress to consider large-scale, comprehensive reforms that would “promote better integration among DOD, [the U.S. Agency 

Table 3. Survey of Other Sources on National Security Reform

Category of Sources Findings

Books, Articles, and 

Public Policy Institute 

Publications*

The authors consulted 35 sources since 2001 on national security reform: 14 books 

(5 of which were Army War College publications); 7 policy institute reports; and 14 

articles (some of which were Congressional Research Service reports). All but two 

identify the inability to integrate diverse department and agency efforts as the key 

problem. All but two address national security reform from a holistic organizational 

or multivariate organizational viewpoint. All but six identify the need for reform.

Academic Textbooks† Textbooks are an exception to the trend in greater interest in and support for 

national security reform. Only two of seven popular textbooks produced over the 

past decade mention national security reform. One of the books unambiguously 

recommends a list of reforms. Notably, it was actually written at the height of 

interest in national security reform (around 2008). The other textbook not only 

notes that the national security system is outmoded and needs reform but also 

argues that the system is President-centric and that the President must provide the 

necessary leadership and vision.

Congress* A search of the ProQuest congressional database for hearings published, House 

and Senate reports, Congressional Research Service reports, and committee 

prints from 2001 through 2015 revealed sustained congressional interest in better 

interagency collaboration and/or national security reform; specifically: 7 Senate or 

House full committee hearings and 11 subcommittee hearings; 9 Congressional 

Research Service reports; and 25 committee prints.

*

Books, articles, and congressional hearings: copies of the list of publications can be requested by emailing 

lambc@ndu.edu.

†

Academic textbooks: The 2009 edition of American National Security promotes national security reform, 

and the 2013 edition of National Security: Policymakers, Processes, and Politics noted the need for it but defers 

to the President for making it happen. The seven textbooks are Kent M. Bolton, U.S. National Security and Foreign Policymaking after 9/11: Present at the Re-creation (Rowman & Littlefield, 2007); Harvey Sapolsky, Eugene 

Gholz, and Caitlin Talmadge, U.S. Defense Politics: The Origins of Security Policy (Routledge, 2008); Amos A. Jordan et al., American National Security, 6th ed. (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009); Richard K. Betts, American 

Force: Dangers, Delusions, and Dilemmas in National Security (Columbia University Press, 2011); Sam C. Sarkesian, John Allen Williams, and Stephen J. Cimbala, U.S. National Security: Policymakers, Processes, and Politics, 

5th ed. (Lynne Rienner, 2012); Donald M. Snow, National Security for a New Era, 5th ed. (Routledge, 2013); and 

Jack A. Jarmon, The New Era in U.S. National Security: An Introduction to Emerging Threats and Challenges (Rowman & Littlefield, 2014).
10 SF No. 293 ndupress.ndu.edu

for International Development], and the Department 

of State.”24 Copious documentation from these sources 

links massive waste to the structure and processes of our 

current national security system and suggests the Nation 

cannot afford not to fix the profligate system it now has.

Bureaucratic Obstacles

Although national security reformers and skeptics can 

be found in every organization in the national security system, their distribution is uneven. A disproportionate number of supporters come from DOD, and a disproportionate 

number of the skeptics come from the Department of State, 

and to a lesser extent the CIA. Both State and CIA have 

cultures that celebrate individual capabilities rather than 

organizational performance. They have highly selective 

entry standards, and promotion is largely dependent upon 

individual achievements. In contrast, DOD accepts a wide 

cross-section of the American populace, and the higher its 

members rise, the more promotion depends on the ability to perform well as groups and organizational units. In 

addition, military leaders have seen how the GoldwaterNichols legislation improved DOD performance and are 

thus more inclined to believe reform can be effective rather 

than the empty administrative exercise that often accompanies changes of leadership.

This organizational imbalance in the origins of reformers and skeptics complicates the chances of reform. Leaders from other national security components often leap to 

the conclusion that DOD—the largest and most powerful member of the national security enterprise—is trying 

to impose its organizational model on the rest of the system. This assumption reinforces their resistance to reform. 

Reportedly it was just this concern that muted Secretary 

Gates’s support for national security reform. He wanted 

State or some other element to take the lead, reasoning that 

if DOD did so, it would provoke a backlash against reform.

The State Department is the most resistant to reform 

in part because it is so prone to nostalgia for a bygone era 

when it exercised greater influence. Ambassador Richard 

Holbrooke’s classic 1971 “back to the future” case for reform raises just this issue.25 Holbrooke highlights many 

of the same problems cited now to justify reform. He lamented the system’s inability to produce unified purpose 

and effort. He noted that in a crisis the President and 

his aides could sometimes decide on policy and—if it involved few enough agencies and people—perhaps even 

carry it out. But, he argued, the “number of issues that can 

be handled in this personalized way is very small.”26

Ambassador Holbrooke explained poor system performance with one system attribute: the “sheer, unmanageable size” of the system. He thought too many people and 

organizational layers had sprouted up within national security departments and agencies. Even worse, he stated, the 

number of organizations involved had grown exponentially. 

He dismissed critics who charged State with incompetence 

for not taking charge of the morass of competing “chains 

of command,” arguing that “at its present size and with its 

present structure,” the system “cannot be pulled together 

under any central agency—not even the White House.”27

Even in 1971 there was no way for the State Department to turn back the clock or reverse growth trends, and 

the system has only increased in size and diversity since 

then. More than 30 organizations are now represented in 

U.S. Embassies overseas compared to the 16 Holbrooke 

bemoaned. Since Holbrooke complained about size, other distinguished State leaders such as Lawrence Eagleburger have commented on State’s declining ability to 

manage increasingly complex governmental processes.28

Some attribute declining influence to State’s relative poverty compared to DOD and advocate a rebalancing of 

budgets in favor of diplomacy.29 Still others lament weak 

leadership, yearning for the days when strong Secretaries 

of State were primus inter pares exercising disproportionate sway over U.S. foreign and national security policy.

What State leaders need to understand is that State’s 

declining influence is a symptom rather than the cause 

of poor national security system performance. The system 

does not perform poorly because Presidents downgrade 

their relationships with Secretaries of State. Presidents 

downgrade State’s leadership role because the multidisciplinary problems confronting the Nation require multifunctional (that is, interagency) responses. State neither 
ndupress.ndu.edu SF No. 293 11 

desires nor currently has the means to lead interagency 

teams well.30 It argues the opposite, but in truth, and for 

reasons sometimes beyond its control, most Ambassadors 

never rise above their status as State employees and their 

Country Teams perform poorly as a result.

As a State Department advisory group has noted, 

“Other agencies often view the Ambassador as the Department’s representative, rather than the President’s.”31

State rates and rewards Ambassadors for maintaining 

access to foreign government officials, so Ambassadors 

are reluctant to risk these relationships. If forcefully promoting foreign agricultural sales, defense security cooperation, or other U.S. interests would alienate host-nation 

officials, then many Ambassadors would demur, valuing 

access above impact. This preference is reinforced by the 

system’s inability to generate strategy at higher levels that 

could better inform a local Ambassador’s priorities. Representatives from other departments and agencies who 

see an Ambassador protecting his or her access more than 

promoting their organizational interests feel justified in 

working around the Ambassador (and are often encouraged by their parent organizations to do so).

State’s advisory group rightly concluded that the “Ambassador is left with the responsibility, but not the authority, to coordinate the activities and address the often competing needs of the mission.”32 Holbrooke made the same 

point in 1971. He acknowledged that State was not up to 

serving as the “Presidential agent of coordination” but then 

insisted that “no one is equipped to run the foreign affairs 

machine today—a machine that fails.” Although he misdiagnosed the problem, attributing too much to the mere 

size of the then much smaller national security system, 

Holbrooke rightly understood that restoring coherency to 

the management of diverse security issues required major 

reform. He argued for “a complete remodeling” backed by a 

President “personally committed to action.”

Factors Favoring Reform

Political, substantive, and bureaucratic obstacles to national security reform make it a difficult but not an impossible proposition. As has been observed, the odds always 

favor the pessimist in any great undertaking, but “all the 

great changes have been accomplished by optimists.” In the 

case of national security reform, there is reason to be more 

optimistic than usual because the majority of prerequisites 

for successful reform are already in place.

Galvanizing disasters help propel reform forward. 

Pearl Harbor, the mismanagement of the invasion of 

Grenada, and the terror attacks on 9/11 helped stimulate, respectively, the 1947 national security act, 1986 

Goldwater-Nichols, and the 2003 creation of the Department of Homeland Security and National Counterterrorism Center. But all of these reforms were also accompanied by in-depth studies that provided direction 

(the Eberstadt report, Senate Armed Services Committee Defense Organization report,33 and Hart-Rudman 

reports, respectively) and extraordinary leadership that 

guided the reforms successfully to final fruition.

The first two of these three prerequisites for reform are 

already in place on the eve of the 2016 Presidential election. The Nation has experienced a cumulative disaster in 

poor system performance over the past decade and a half 

of war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Despite expending prodigious amounts of blood and treasure, sweeping enemy 

forces from the field, and targeting terrorists and insurgent 

leaders on an industrial scale, the United States could not 

engineer the outcomes it wanted in those countries. This 

happened because the national security system “had no 

guiding strategy, worked at cross-purposes, and did not 

furnish the capabilities necessary for irregular warfare.”34

Senior leaders from both the Bush and Obama administrations expressed great frustration with these impediments in their memoirs. On occasion, they were able to 

mitigate or temporarily overcome them, “but in the main, 

these problems persisted through 15 years of war.”35 Most 

the majority of prerequisites for 

successful reform are already in 

place
12 SF No. 293 ndupress.ndu.edu

leaders now understand that unless the national security 

system is reformed, it will not prove effective at managing 

cyber attacks, space warfare, eroding strategic deterrence, 

state-sponsored economic espionage, novel antiaccess/

area-denial strategies, or other emerging security challenges. Hence the broad support for reform and the associated 

in-depth studies advocating it (tables 1 and 2).

Recommendations

The third reform prerequisite is committed political 

leadership. One way to overcome the political obstacles 

identified earlier is to adopt reform as a policy priority 

during the Presidential campaign, preferably by both parties. A model in this regard would be military transformation, a priority the Bush and Al Gore campaign teams 

both adopted in the 2000 election. Both parties believed 

transforming U.S. military capabilities made sense, which 

ensured the issue would receive priority attention after 

the election.

Numerous academics, journalists, national security 

experts, and leaders in and out of government—some indirectly and others directly through their advice to candidates and later the President’s transition team—have 

the potential to influence whether political parties adopt 

national security reform as a priority. Two important considerations are whether the issue would resonate with the 

public and whether reform would increase the chances 

of a successful first term in office. A strong case could be 

made in the affirmative for both propositions.

The public’s interest in national security is malleable, 

but clearly the sense of urgency generated by the 9/11 

terror attacks has dissipated. As others have noted,36 polls 

indicate Americans are more concerned about the economy, unemployment, illegal immigration, health care, and 

other domestic issues than national security, which rests 

near the bottom of the list when the public is asked to 

identify “the most important problem facing the country 

today.”37 U.S. foreign policy elites strongly support international engagement and are concerned about the decline 

in U.S. prestige over the past decade, but not the public.38

Large majorities across the political spectrum agree that 

the United States “should concentrate on problems at 

home” rather than “be active in world affairs.”39 Concern 

about terrorism in particular is sharply down from the 

immediate aftermath of 9/11 when about half of those 

polled agreed that it was the country’s most important 

problem. That figure has hovered around 1 or 2 percent 

in recent years despite periodic spikes in response to terrorist atrocities.40

However, there is reason to believe that if candidates 

promote national security reform, the public would be supportive. Recent polls indicate public concern about national 

security shot up after the terrorist attacks in Paris, California, and Brussels.41 More generally, public distrust of and 

dissatisfaction with the government are running at historic 

highs (70+ percent majorities).42 Thus the notion that government performance needs to be improved should be an 

easy sell. Polling also suggests the public would be supportive if the candidates explain the purpose of reform is to 

better protect the homeland, reduce wasteful spending, and 

partner more effectively with other countries.43

Given the trend in expert opinion favoring reform, 

one might assume most advisors would recommend it 

to a candidate. However, there is no guarantee that this 

would be the case. Advisors would probably find it easier 

to assert the system could be managed well despite its 

limitations than to explain what it would take to improve 

performance. In addition, self-confident candidates running for President may be prone to think their leadership skills alone are sufficient to tame the unruly national 

“How confident are you that the 

current national security system 

can prevent terrorists from using a 

weapon of mass destruction in the 

United States, and if you are not 

highly confident, how do you intend 

to reform it?”
ndupress.ndu.edu SF No. 293 13 

security system—despite all the evidence to the contrary. 

Ultimately the deciding factor may well be whether candidates conclude that promoting national security reform 

would advance their political fortunes. A strong argument 

could be made that this is the case, both before and after 

the election.

Americans are skeptical of both political parties’ foreign policy and national security records. Since 2000, the 

percentage of Americans dissatisfied with “the position 

of the United States in the world today” increased from 

45 percent to more than 60 percent, and the percentage 

who believe leaders in other countries do not have much 

respect for the U.S. President increased to large majorities by 33 and 38 points, respectively, during the Bush and 

Obama administrations.44 Presidential candidates in both 

parties are trying to portray themselves as competent national security leaders without tying themselves too closely 

to their party’s unpopular records. A public disillusioned 

with government performance in general is not likely to 

be impressed by efforts to walk such fine lines.

An alternative to tap-dancing around unpopular records is readily available to any candidate. He or she could 

simply tell the American people that the national security 

system is broken and prone to produce poor and sometimes disastrous results no matter who inhabits the White 

House. This has the triple advantage of being true, well 

documented, and believed by the large majority of national security experts inside the Washington Beltway. They 

could cite any number of studies or experts, including the 

trio of national security luminaries who recently explained 

in detail how our “cumbersome, inefficient, and ineffective approach to interagency operations” handicaps our 

national security performance, and why our “ineffective, 

stove piped diplomatic, military and intelligence chain of 

command” that relies on “Washington decision making 

procedures that operate by committee . . . often produces 

confusion, mixed signals, and slow reactions.”45

An even more compelling reason for candidates 

to support national security reform is to maintain their 

popularity after they are elected. The next President will 

inherit a system that is sure to come up short against 

complex threats. When that happens, the news media and 

public demand an accounting, and Presidents promise investigations and answers. This happened to not only President Bush but also President Obama. After al Qaeda’s 

2009 Christmas day plot to blow up Northwest Airlines 

Flight 253, it was discovered that the United States had 

been forewarned of the attack. Initially administration 

officials claimed “the system worked” because passengers 

thwarted the attack, but then agreed the system “failed 

miserably.” After an investigation, the President declared 

that “the incident was not the fault of a single individual 

or organization, but rather a systemic failure across organizations and agencies . . . to integrate and understand 

the intelligence that we already had.” President Obama 

promised to “learn from” and “correct these mistakes.”46

This explanation would have been more compelling if the 

President had already been on record favoring reform.

It is not hard to imagine a similar near or actual catastrophe in the future. The most likely worst case event 

would be nuclear terrorism. As Graham Allison asks in 

his compelling analysis of the subject, if Presidents ignore our unpreparedness and terrorists succeed in attacking us with weapons of mass destruction, “how will the 

President explain why he spent [time] engaged in other 

pursuits?”47 Allison calls nuclear terrorism the “ultimate 

preventable catastrophe” and lists 10 elements of a prevention plan, almost all of which depend on unified effort 

from the executive branch—something the current system notably lacks. Allison argues that citizens and elected 

representatives should challenge Presidential candidates 

Presidential candidates have to 

choose who they are going to 

believe: those who maintain, “It’s 

the President, stupid,” or those 

who argue, “It’s the system,” 

which justifies support for national 

security reform
14 SF No. 293 ndupress.ndu.edu

on the issue. He makes a good point. The question that 

needs to be posed is, “How confident are you that the current national security system can prevent terrorists from 

using a weapon of mass destruction in the United States, 

and if you are not highly confident, how do you intend to 

reform it?”

Conclusion

Over the past 20 years, there has been a sea change 

in senior leader views on national security reform. Numerous studies and individual senior leaders representing 

a massive body of expertise have concluded the national 

security system is not serving the Nation well. As with 

any large organizational reform effort, fixing the system would be politically, substantively, and bureaucratically challenging. Yet major prerequisites for success are 

in place, and the only missing requirement for success is 

committed political leadership.

Presidential candidates have to choose who they are 

going to believe: those who maintain, “It’s the President, 

stupid,” which puts the entire onus of future national security system performance on their shoulders, or those 

who argue, “It’s the system,” which justifies support for 

national security reform. The good advice that Ambassador Holbrooke offered four decades ago should inform 

the candidates’ deliberations:

The person who has the most to gain from a massive 

reform of the foreign affairs machine—besides the 

American taxpayer—is the President himself. If 

a manageable and responsive apparatus is a true 

Presidential priority, then he personally must 

order major changes. Each President must decide 

whether or not he will attempt major changes, or 

instead choose to build small, personally loyal, bypass 

mechanisms with which to carry out policy on those 

matters of overwhelming high-level interest.48

Recent Presidents have chosen the bypass mechanisms, a mistake the finalists in the 2016 election campaign do not have to repeat. Candidates could demonstrate their knowledge of national security affairs, their 

gravitas, and their own political savvy by embracing 

national security reform as a policy priority during the 

Presidential campaign. Doing so could be the first best 

national security decision the next President makes.

Notes 1 For example, during their tenures, several Secretaries of Defense 

and Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff called for national security 

reform, including Donald Rumsfeld, Robert M. Gates, and General 

Peter Pace, USMC.

2 The groups and their reports are Transforming Defense: National Security in the 21st Century, Report of the National Defense Panel 

(Washington, DC: Department of Defense, December 1997); The 

U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century (also known as 

the Hart-Rudman Commission); National Commission on Terrorist 

Attacks Upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report: Final 

Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United 

States (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 2004); Beyond 

Goldwater-Nichols: U.S. Government and Defense Reform for a New 

Strategic Era, Phase 2 Report (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic 

and International Studies [CSIS], July 2005); Project Horizon Progress 

Report (Washington, DC: Project Horizon, 2006); CSIS Commission 

on Smart Power: A Smarter, More Secure America (Washington, DC: 

CSIS, 2007); Forging a World of Liberty Under Law: U.S. National 

Security in the 21st Century, Final Report of the Princeton Project on 

National Security (Princeton: The Woodrow Wilson School of Public 

and International Affairs, 2006); America’s Role in the World: Foreign 

Policy Choices for the Next President (Washington, DC: Institute for 

the Study of Diplomacy, 2008); and Forging a New Shield (Washington, DC: Project on National Security Reform, 2008).

3 Virtually all published products examining the performance of 

the national security system argue in favor of reform. Among hundreds 

of books, articles, and reports on the subject, only a handful dispute the 

need for reform. Where possible we cite the exceptions in this paper.

4 Notable appointees of President Barack Obama from the Project on National Security Reform include James Jones, Dennis Blair, 

Ashton Carter, Michèle Flournoy, and Jim Steinberg. Hillary Clinton 

also had expressed support for the project.

5 Forging a New Shield, 23ff, 623.

6 Charles A. Stevenson, America’s Foreign Policy Toolkit: Key Institutions and Processes (Los Angeles, CA: CQ Press, 2013), 106.

7 David P. Auerswald and Colton C. Campbell, Congress and the 

Politics of National Security (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 

2012), 3ff.

8 Forging a New Shield provides examples for both Democratic 

and Republican administrations, 23ff.

9 James R. Locher III, Statement before the Senate Armed 

Services Committee, 30 Years of Goldwater-Nichols Reforms, 

Washington, DC, November 10, 2015, available at <www.c-span.org/

video/?400331-1/30-years-goldwaternichols-reform>.

10 Senior leaders in general acknowledge these shortfall areas. See 

Christopher J. Lamb with Megan Franco, “National-Level Coordination and Implementation: How System Attributes Trumped Leadership,” in Lessons Encountered: Learning from the Long War, ed. Richard 

D. Hooker, Jr., and Joseph J. Collins (Washington, DC: NDU Press, 

2014). Secretary Gates is eloquent on this point in Duty: Memoirs of 

a Secretary at War (New York: Knopf, 2014), particularly concerning 

armored vehicles and theater surveillance assets. Similarly, the Special 

Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) cites multiple 

deficiencies in the management of resources by the executive branch 
ndupress.ndu.edu SF No. 293 15 

rather than the dearth of resources provided in any area by Congress. 

See Hard Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience (Washington, DC: 

SIGIR, 2009), 331–337.

11 See William W. Newmann, “The Structures of National 

Security Decision Making: Leadership, Institutions, and Politics in 

the Carter, Reagan, and G. H. W. Bush Years,” Presidential Studies 

Quarterly 34, no. 2 ( June 2004); and Patrick Haney, “Foreign-Policy 

Advising: Models and Mysteries from the Bush Administration,” 

Presidential Studies Quarterly 35, no. 2 ( June 2005). Both do a good job 

of surveying the literature that emphasizes a President-centric view 

of the system, but Newmann concludes the President’s personal trust 

relationships are especially influential, whereas Haney admits it is hard 

to understand how Presidents can simultaneously appear constrained 

by exogenous forces and yet repeatedly demonstrate their unilateral 

control over the system.

12 I.M. Destler, “The Project on National Security Reform: 

Commentary and Alternative Views,” No. 111-27, Testimony before 

the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the Committee 

on Armed Services, House of Representatives, 111th Cong., 1st sess., 

March 19, 2009.

13 Harvey Sicherman, “The National Security Council System: 

It’s Not Much, But We Like It,” in National Security Reform 2010: 

A Mid-Term Assessment, ed. Joseph R. Cerami, Robert H. Dorff, and 

Matthew H. Harber (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 

2011), 80.

14 Gordon Adams, “Implementing Smart Power: An Agenda for 

National Security Reform,” S. Hrg. 110-687, Testimony before the 

Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate, 110th Cong., 2nd sess., 

April 24, 2008.

15 Stephen A. Cambone, A New Structure for National Security 

Policy Planning (Washington, DC: CSIS, 1998), 46.

16 Gates, 92.

17 Donald Rumsfeld, Known and Unknown: A Memoir (New York: 

Sentinel, 2011), 375–376.

18 See the discussion of Presidential Decision Directive 56, “Managing Complex Contingency Operations,” in Christopher J. Lamb, 

“Redesigning White House and Interagency Structures,” in Civilian 

Surge: Key to Complex Operations, ed. Hans Binnendijk and Patrick M. 

Cronin (Washington, DC: NDU Press, 2009).

19 Robert Hale and Ronald Sanders, “Developing Civilian 

Defense Department Leaders,” Defense News, January 25, 2016. For 

congressional interest on this topic, see Catherine Dale, National Security Professionals and Interagency Reform: Proposals, Recent Experience, 

and Issues for Congress, RL34565 (Washington, DC: Congressional 

Research Service, September 26, 2011).

20 Of the 35 sources on national security reform the authors 

consulted (9 books, or 14 if the 5 books by the Army War College are 

included; 7 policy institute reports; and 14 articles), all but 2 address 

national security reform from a holistic organizational or multivariate 

organizational viewpoint. See table 3.

21 This literally is the bottom line in D. Robert Worley, Orchestrating the Instruments of Power: A Critical Examination of the U.S. National 

Security System (Raleigh, NC: Lulu Press, 2012), 474. Cambone also 

argues that “a major overhaul of the National Security Act of 1947” is 

not possible for this reason. See Cambone, 2.

22 James Jay Carafano, “What Reformers Miss about ‘Whole of 

Government’ Solutions to National Security,” National Interest, December 8, 2015, available at <http://nationalinterest.org/feature/whatreformers-miss-about-whole-government-solutions-14539>.

23 Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), High-Risk List (Washington, DC: SIGAR, December 2014), 

available at <www.sigar.mil/pdf/spotlight/High-Risk_List.pdf>.

24 SIGIR, Iraq Reconstruction: Lessons in Program and Project 

Management 3 (Washington, DC: SIGIR, March 2007), 14.

25 Richard Holbrooke, “The Machine That Fails,” Foreign Affairs, 

January 1, 1971, available at <http://foreignpolicy.com/2010/12/14/

the-machine-that-fails/>.

26 Ibid.

27 Ibid.

28 Lawrence S. Eagleburger, interviewed by Leonard J. Saccio, 

“The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs 

Oral History Project,” August 13, 1988.

29 Ambassador Robert Hunter, letter to the editor, Washington 

Post, March 5, 2013, in response to David Ignatius, “In a Crisis, Who 

Should Take Charge?” op-ed, March 3, 2013. See also, America’s Role 

in the World.

30 Accordingly, some advocate reforming the Department of State 

so that it could effectively lead such teams. See Ambassador (Ret.) Edward Marks, “A ‘Next Generation’ Department of State: A Proposal for 

the Consolidation of the Management of Foreign Affairs,” American 

Diplomacy, March 2010, available at: <www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/

item/2010/0103/oped/op_marks.html>.

31 America’s Overseas Presence in the 21st Century: The Report of the 

Overseas Presence Advisory Panel (Washington, DC: Department of 

State, 1999), 64.

32 Ibid.

33 Defense Organization: The Need for Change, Staff Report to 

the Committee on Armed Services, U.S. Senate, 99th Cong., 1st sess., 

October 16, 1985.

34 This quotation and the broader summary of performance in 

Afghanistan and Iraq is drawn from Lamb with Franco, 242.

35 Ibid.

36 Kori Schake, “The GOP Is Not Going to Win This Election 

on Foreign Policy,” Foreign Policy, June 15, 2015, available at <http://

foreignpolicy.com/2015/06/15/gop-republican-foreign-policy-hawkishness-will-not-win-presidential-election/>.

37 Justin McCarthy, “Americans Name Government as No. 1 U.S. 

Problem,” Gallup.com, March 12, 2015, available at <www.gallup.com/

poll/181946/americans-name-government-no-problem.aspx>.

38 “Public Sees U.S. Power Declining as Support for Global 

Engagement Slips: Section 1: America’s Global Role,” Pew Research 

Center, Washington, DC, December 3, 2013, available at <www.

people-press.org/2013/12/03/section-1-americas-global-role/>.

39 “Beyond Red vs. Blue: The Political Typology—Section 9: Foreign Policy and National Security,” Pew Research Center, Washington, 

DC, May 4, 2011, available at <www.people-press.org/2011/05/04/section-9-foreign-policy-and-national-security/>. The exception was the 

far left or “solid Liberals,” who split evenly on the issue: 47–47 percent. 

Also, “Most (52%) agree that the U.S. should ‘mind its own business 

internationally and let other countries get along the best they can on 

their own’—the first time that number has been a majority since 1964.” 

Also, “For the first time in surveys dating back nearly 40 years, a majority (53%) says the United States plays a less important and powerful 

role as a world leader than it did a decade ago (up 12 points since 2009 

and more than doubled since 2004).” See “Public Sees U.S. Power 

Declining as Support for Global Engagement Slips.”

40 Frank Newport, “Americans’ Satisfaction with Security from 

Terrorism Drops,” Gallup.com, January 19, 2015, available at <www.gallup.com/poll/181199/americans-satisfaction-security-terrorism-drops.

aspx>. The majority of Americans are satisfied with the Nation’s security from terrorism, although that sentiment fell last year from about 

70 to 60 percent. See “National Security Concerns Are Growing,” 

Rasmussen Reports, May 1, 2015, available at <www.rasmussenreports.

com/public_content/politics/general_politics/april_2015/national_security_concerns_are_growing>.
16 SF No. 293 ndupress.ndu.edu

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National Strategic Studies provides advice to the Secretary of Defense, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and 

unified combatant commands through studies, reports, 

briefings, and memoranda. The center conducts directed 

research and analysis in the areas of strategic and regional studies and engages in independent and leading-edge 

research and analysis in related areas.

The Strategic Forum series presents original research by 

members of NDU as well as other scholars and specialists in national security affairs from the United States and 

abroad. The opinions, conclusions, and recommendations 

expressed or implied within are those of the contributors 

and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Defense 

Department or any other agency of the Federal Government. Visit NDU Press online at ndupress.ndu.edu.

Christopher J. Lamb

Director

Center for Strategic Research

William T. Eliason

Director

NDU Press

INSTITUTE FOR NATIONAL STRATEGIC STUDIES

R.D. Hooker, Jr.

Director for Research

and Strategic Support

41 “Some 40% of those polled say national security and terrorism 

should be the government’s top priority, and more than 60% put it 

in the top two, up from just 39% eight months ago.” See Janet Hook, 

“Poll Finds National Security Now a Top Concern,” Wall Street Journal, 

December 14, 2015.

42 Jennifer Agiesta, “Dissatisfaction, Anger Dominate Year-End 

Reviews of Washington,” CNN.com, December 29, 2015, available at 

<www.cnn.com/2015/12/29/politics/cnn-orc-poll-views-of-government/>; and Eric Juesse, “Latest Gallup: Dissatisfaction with U.S. 

Government Soars: ‘15 Years of Unmitigated Rotten Government,’” 

Global Research, March 13, 2015, available at <www.globalresearch.ca/

latest-gallup-dissatisfaction-with-u-s-government-soars-15-years-ofunmitigated-rotten-government/5436352>.

43 For example, Americans strongly support multilateralism. See 

“Beyond Red vs. Blue: The Political Typology.”

44 “U.S. Position in the World,” Gallup.com, available at <www.

gallup.com/poll/116350/position-world.aspx>.

45 Dennis Blair, Ronald Neumann, and Eric Olson, “Fixing Fragile States,” National Interest, August 27, 2014.

46 “Remarks by the President on Strengthening Intelligence and 

Aviation Security,” Washington, DC, January 7, 2010, available at 

<www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-strengthening-intelligence-and-aviation-security>.

47 Graham Allison, Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable 

Catastrophe (New York: Times Books/Henry Holt, 2004), 206–209.

48 Holbrooke.