Administrator's Forum Hears Call for U.S. Security Reform
FrontLines - July 2009
The U.S. national security system—including USAID and the State Department—is in a state of “organized dysfunction” and urgently needs far-reaching reform, said James Locher, executive director of the Project on National Security Reform (PNSR), speaking at the second Administrator’s Forum held June 1 in the Ronald Reagan Building.
Locher noted that the system is “dominated by rigid bureaucratic and highly competitive agencies.”
The Forum, which provides open discussion about issues of importance to USAID staff, is currently presenting a series of speakers on “smart power” and development. Locher was invited to speak on national security reform and the role of development
in a smart power approach.
As a staff member of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, Locher directed the bipartisan effort that resulted in the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986, which ended some of the rivalry among the military services. At USAID’s June forum, he proposed reforms that would similarly improve joint effort across civilian U.S. departments and agencies.
“Threats require that we work horizontally across government,”
he said.
In December, the congressionally
funded PNSR released a study of the national security system
and proposed reforms called “Forging a New Shield.” More than 300 national security experts provided input to the report.
“These reforms will probably take 10 years,” Locher told the USAID forum.
Several members of the PNSR’s Guiding Coalition have gone on to senior positions in the Obama administration such as National Security Advisor Gen. James Jones, Undersecretary of Defense Michele Flournoy, Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg, and Director of National Intelligence Adm. Dennis C. Blair.
Locher said that U.S. response to the 9/11 attacks and Hurricane Katrina are signs of system failure.
The need to reform the system is greater now due to the complexity
of modern international problems and the speed at which change “comes at us,” he said.
“We have powerful agencies but a weak integrating mechanism,” he said. He noted that the National Security Council has “no power” and a small $8.6 million budget, but it represents “the most important
organization in the world.”
And when representatives of the various agencies meet to deal with crises, each one thinks he or she is there to defend their own agency.
Having spent years as a congressional staff aide, Locher said that Capitol Hill is part of the problem as there is “no ability
to look at the whole of government”
because committees look at issues in a parochial way.
To see the complete text of the PNSR report, go to www.pnsr.org.
★ —B.B.
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