World Politics Review: Restructuring the U.S. National Security Architecture by Michael Cohen, ASP senior fellow
From Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay to repairing America’s impaired global image, precious energy and political capital is being spent extricating America from the disastrous impact of the Bush administration’s stewardship of U.S. foreign policy. But as catastrophic as the individual policies were, the greatest damage of the Bush years may have been in diverting U.S. attention away from the fundamental transformations taking place in the global arena, changes on which Obama and his foreign policy team are now being forced to play catch-up.
More and more, the underpinnings of American power are being challenged by a host of aggressive and increasingly prominent transnational and non-state forces. While the U.S. maintains its fixation on the threat of jihadist terror, a new and arguably more pressing set of global issues have emerged — including climate change, migration, global health pandemics, cybersecurity threats, nuclear proliferation and illicit criminal networks. A 21st-century national security strategy must prioritize these issues and place them front and center in the policymaking process.
But in both focus and capabilities, the United States is increasingly ill-prepared and ill-equipped to deal with these emerging challenges. Instead of charting a desperately needed new course, current U.S. national security strategy — driven by inflated conceptions of U.S. power and interests — is impeding the need for real and lasting reform. At a moment in history when the changing dynamics of global politics demand a new foreign policy toolbox and mindset, the United States remains handcuffed by a national security infrastructure and strategy that is deeply mired in 20th-century thinking.
Obstacles to Reform
The impediments to real reform run deep. Turf wars and stovepiping failed to stave off the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11th and today still handicap the effective prevention of potential future strikes. The abdication of congressional oversight contributed to the disaster of Iraq, and a strong congressional voice was again absent during the recent national debate on escalation in Afghanistan. The national security bureaucracy remains predicated on an institutional model born during the Cold War and seems impervious to substantial overhaul. An over-reliance on the military — and lack of support for crumbling civilian agencies — has contributed to a growing militarization of American foreign policy and the continued propensity to seek out military solutions to the country’s security challenges. Perhaps worst of all, the incessant focus on threats rather than opportunities, baseless charges of American “weakness” and veneration of platitudinous American exceptionalism only serves to constrain the will of political leaders to chart a new and better course.
Each of these problems are reflective of a national security apparatus that has yet to realistically define America’s interests in the world, the true nature of the threats facing the country and above all, move beyond short-term crisis management to long-term strategic planning.
A Glass Half Full
While Obama deserves credit for his effort to rhetorically move the country’s foreign policy conversation in a new and more modest direction, he must also shoulder part of the blame for the failure to change the country’s foreign policy mindset. Fifteen months into his presidency, Obama has not only failed to offer a coherent national security strategy, he has also allowed his ambitious foreign policy goals to be sidetracked by an escalation of the war in Afghanistan. In fact, his effort to lay out a more restrained foreign policy agenda came at the tail end of a speech in which he called for 30,000 more troops to be sent to Afghanistan!
The stark divide between words and actions is perhaps most clearly demonstrated by the administration’s approach to counterterrorism. In August, John Brennan, the President’s top counterterrorism advisor publicly called on the U.S. to move away from the war on terrorism as an organizing principle of U.S. foreign policy decision-making. Nonetheless, the administration continues to allow its foreign policy agenda to be dominated by the logic of the “war on terrorism” narrative.
In addition to the $33 billion price tag for the Afghan Surge, the lion’s share of the administration’s foreign aid request this past year went to Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan, illustrating the outsized role these countries still play in the U.S. foreign policy mindset. Moreover, relations with key allies in Europe and Russia have been determined and even distorted by Afghanistan policy.
Of course, the U.S. cannot ignore issues like terrorism or stability in South Asia, and there are legitimate political constraints in trying to disengage from the war in Afghanistan that inhibit Obama’s effort to change course. Nonetheless, the process of preparing the United States for a “changed mindset” in how it relates to the rest of the world and how it uses the country’s vast global power is not one that can continue to be indefinitely delayed by “political realities.”
Perhaps worst of all, Obama’s Afghanistan decision perpetuates the most dangerous aspect of America’s foreign policy mindset: the lack of limitations placed on American power and ambition. Defining American “interests” in the broadest possible terms and adhering to the myth of American omnipotence only serves to encourage the misguided notion that not only every problem around the world is America’s problem, but that America has the capabilities to impose an “American solution.” In short, this is no way for a superpower to behave — assuming it wants to remain a superpower.
So what is to be done? As the past year has made clear, turning around the aircraft carrier that is American foreign policy is a daunting proposition. The problem however is that incremental or piecemeal reform is not only insufficient, it actually risks making the situation worse, by offering only the veneer of real change.
Here are five things — both large and small — that Obama can do now to begin changing course.
1) Transform the National Security Council into a strategic planning department. Perhaps the greatest impediment to a more realistic American foreign policy is the lack of effective long-term strategic planning. Crisis management rules the day for a national security council staff that is overworked and under-resourced. The Project for National Security Reform has wisely recommended that the NSC create a discrete and permanent strategy directorate with a focus on medium- and long-term strategy development. But such a move perhaps does not go far enough. The NSC should be fundamentally redirected toward providing long-term regional and functional assessments of U.S. interests as well as setting national priorities for investment geared toward confronting potential challenges and seizing opportunities.
The NSC would be fundamentally responsible for matching resources to strategy, coordinating the interagency process and ensuring that agencies are actually implementing the president’s national security agenda. To date, there is no official U.S. document that makes these connections. Long-term strategic planning must play a more robust role in foreign policy deliberations, as the failure to set priorities leads the U.S. to try and make its influence felt in every corner of the globe. This is the fundamental cause of both America’s tactical overstretch and the glaring disconnect between U.S. foreign policy aspirations and capabilities.
2) Trim the Pentagon’s fat. There is no greater symbol of America’s strategic drift and over-reliance on outmoded ideas of security than the Pentagon’s bloated $600 billion budget. Although Defense Secretary Robert Gates managed to remove some of the low-hanging fruit from last year’s budget, U.S. defense spending remains out of proportion to actual threats to American security, and hinders long-overdue strategic deliberations about how the military should be best resourced for dealing with future challenges.
The most recent version of the Quadrennial Defense Review only delays this process by continuing to view U.S. military dominance and the ability to “extend a global defense posture . . . to prevail across all domains” as essential to U.S. security.
While it’s probably unrealistic in the near-term to expect the sort of wide-ranging reorganization that is necessary, the Obama administration can begin by not loading more responsibilities on the Pentagon’s plate — such as climate change or cybersecurity — that can be better handled by civilian agencies. Transferring responsibilities like funding authorities for security training back to State Department, or supporting a new agency to handle stability and post-conflict operations, would also wisely spread more of the bureaucratic burden across government. A smaller military, or at the very least more respect for other elements of national security planning, might also contribute to a more restrained view of the country’s national interests and a diminished inclination to rely on the use of military force.
Moreover, the Pentagon must rationalize its spending by focusing on those elements of national power where the U.S. has strong comparative advantages — information technology, research and development, special operations and force projection — and thinking more systematically about the role of contractors in the composition of force structure and fulfillment of mission requirements.
3) Rebuild the civilian agencies. No matter what the future national security strategy of the United States looks like, it’s almost impossible to contemplate a scenario where rebuilding America’s broken civilian agencies would not be a top priority. Over the past 20 years, these agencies have seen their budgets squeezed, their morale drop and their responsibilities parceled out to other agencies, particularly the Pentagon. Repairing the damage will not happen overnight, but it must begin sooner rather than later.
On the most basic level, this means increasing resources for the State Department and the Agency for International Development, and hiring more consular and political officers (a step that has already begun). But it also means radically rewriting the mandates of these agencies in order to improve their capacity to respond to transnational issues and their ability to work closely with non-governmental organizations. Matt Armstrong has offered the inspired suggestion that State must evolve to become both a “Department of State and Non-State” that focuses not only on state-to-state relations, but also America’s relationship with private, non-state actors. Armstrong’s suggestion that the entire department be reconfigured into regional bureaus — aligned with the Pentagon’s combatant commanders — is worthy of consideration as well.
Beyond such measures, delineation of responsibilities in the national security bureaucracy is of critical importance. The State Department should maintain its focus on diplomacy, but USAID should be given government-wide responsibility for development and democracy-promotion, efforts that are now highly fragmented and spread out among multiple agencies, including the Department of Defense. A stand-alone agency modeled after the British Department for International Development would go a long way toward more effectively asserting the role of development in U.S. foreign policy. Finally, the Millennium Challenge Corporation deserves far more resources, prominence and time to realize its ambitious and long-term agenda for promoting good governance.
4) Fix the global architecture. Although not directly a domestic obstacle, in an era where transnational issues are likely to dominate America’s foreign policy agenda, the Obama administration must look for ways to put its stamp on global governance architecture by promoting cooperative multilateral arrangements that further U.S. interests. Such moves can further the effort to rebuild the country’s battered civilian agencies, which share many of the same core competencies and approaches of multilateral agencies.
More than 60 years ago, at another time of a great transition in global affairs, the United States pushed for a new global system that not only promoted U.S. interests, but furthered the interests of key allies. Obama has a rare opportunity to trod a similar path today. The decision to expand the G-8 to the G-20 last fall was a smart and important step in the right direction. A 50 percent increase in support for United Nations peacekeeping and payment of outstanding U.N. dues was another. Fixing multilateral institutions like the U.N., particularly its functional agencies like UNICEF and UNDP, should be a top priority — and a critical means of lightening the diplomatic load for the United States.
Finally, for far too long the U.S. has been subsidizing the security arrangements of other countries. At a time when the national debt stands at $12 trillion — and fiscal pressure is increasing — the U.S. should be actively supporting the creation of more robust regional security institutions to lessen the load on the United States.
5) Get America’s house in order. If the U.S. wants to continue being a great power and an economic dynamo, it can no longer traffic in the simplistic platitudes of American exceptionalism, and instead must accept that America is actually falling behind the developing world in key areas. If the U.S. does not devote greater priority to areas such as increasing broadband Internet penetration and health care access, and improving the country’s education performance (particularly at the primary level), then American power, influence and economic competitiveness will suffer. For years, policy advocates have made the case for a more direct connection between the strength of America’s domestic economy and its international standing, but policymakers must take up — and broaden — the cause. Quite simply, the soundness of the nation’s domestic sources of power should be treated not just as key domestic priorities, but as essential elements of America’s national security.
To be sure, none of these challenges will be solved with any sort of relative ease, in part because they depend on a fundamental change in the national mindset. But without these changes, the United States will see its power and influence continue to decline. For far too long, America has been unsuccessful in adjusting to an evolving global environment — allocating resources inappropriately, inflating security risks and failing to exercise restraint in its political ambitions. The time for real and lasting reform is now.
Michael Cohen writes on politics and national security. He is a senior fellow at the American Security Project and blogs at Democracy Arsenal.
