2. Guidelines for Interagency Operations (1995)

When the United States undertakes military operations, the U.S. Armed Forces are only one component of a national-level effort involving the various instruments of national power: economic, diplomatic, informational, and military. Instilling unity of effort at the national level is necessarily a cooperative endeavor involving a variety of Federal departments and agencies. (1) Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Pub 1, Joint Warfare of the U.S. Armed Forces Today's national security environment finds even our small unit leaders thrust into the multiagency arena. U.S. military forces are routinely committed to operations which are interagency by nature. Yet, top-down guidance as well as information about the techniques and processes for interagency coordination and integration seem slim. Where does the unified commander and his staff find the guidance for planning such operations and working with other agencies of government? This chapter recalls the policy development and coordination process of the NSC, briefly reviews a new proposal that could facilitate strategic direction to operational elements, then discusses the available military doctrine. It begins with the NSC process. NATIONAL DIRECTION Guidance and procedures for coordinating and integrating the efforts of government agencies seemingly could branch from the NSC system that has evolved since the National Security Act of 1947. Conceived to coordinate policy issues, the NSC ebbs and flows in importance according to Presidential usage. For example, at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the NSC had fallen into disuse. During the crisis, an ad-hoc Executive Committee was formed to advise President John F. Kennedy. A few years later, President Lyndon Johnson's Tuesday Luncheon Group largely supplanted the NSC staff and system for coordinating Vietnam War policy. Aside from the variation in its role in national policy-making, the NSC process and staff organization are not designed to execute policy decisions in the sense of coordinating interagency operations afield. Figure 1 shows the NSC organized to match the leadership style and needs of President Clinton. (Note that under the NSC are committees and other interagency groups. (2)) By the process that has evolved in recent years, NSC interagency groups constitute the principal mechanism for developing policy advice and recommendations for Presidential consideration. These groups formulate, recommend, coordinate, and monitor the implementation of national security policy and strategy. Often a government department such as Department of State or Defense will take the lead or chair of an interagency group. If not, the group will be chaired by a member of the NSC staff. Typically, these are organized in a hierarchy that affords flexibility and invites several tiers of the national leadership and their staffs to participate in the consensus process. After the NSC is a Principals Committee (the NSC without the President or Vice President) chaired by the National Security Advisor to the President and convened for only the most important matters. Next is a Deputies Committee, with participation at the undersecretary level, chaired by the Deputy National Security Advisor or an undersecretary. It conducts the routine business of the NSC system and it serves as the crisis management cell. Additional subordinate level groups, called Interagency Working Groups, are manned at the staff action officer level to investigate specific fields of interest. It has been observed that traditional functions of the NSC and its staff are concerned with administration, crisis management, and policy in all its aspects: coordination, integration, supervision, adjudication, formulation and advocacy: (3) The supervision function is of great importance, but it must not be confused with an operational role for the staff. …