Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

cipherbrief

Welcome! Log in to stay connected and make the most of your experience.

Input clean

Trump’s NSC: A Bureaucratic Balancing Act

Trump’s NSC: A Bureaucratic Balancing Act

The appointment of Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster as National Security Advisor was not the Trump Administration’s first shake-up on the National Security Council, and it is unlikely to be the last. The Trump Administration’s decision to upend the NSC’s organization is an effort to correct what many believed had become a bloated bureaucratic structure that could not attain its key goals.

The NSC is a handpicked advisory committee charged with directing the expedient flow of national security information to and from the President. The staff includes the Principals Committee, which includes the secretaries of state, treasury, and defense, among others, and numerous staff members underneath these principal advisors. Over time, presidents have expanded the NSC to draw more decision-making power into the White House, diverting it from its core mission.

Keep reading...Show less
Access all of The Cipher Brief’s national security-focused expert insight by becoming a Cipher Brief Subscriber+ Member.

Related Articles

Riding the Tiger: Why Xi and Putin’s ‘Axis of Autocracies’ Could End the Way Churchill Predicted

“Dictators,” Churchill observed, “ride to and fro on tigers from which they dare not dismount.” “And,” he added, “the tigers are getting [...] More

Putin's Drone Hit a NATO Nerve in Poland, Opening an Opportunity for Ukraine

Putin's Drone Hit a NATO Nerve in Poland, Opening an Opportunity for Ukraine

EXPERT INTERVIEW – More Western leaders and national security experts are now saying that Russia’s recent drone incursion into Poland was not a [...] More

Ex-Spy Warns of Case Officer Tactics in Trump-Putin Dynamic

EXPERT Q&A – After Friday’s meeting in Alaska between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, former CIA senior officer and [...] More

​The Weekend Interview: Former CIA Station Chief on Strategic Global Hotspots

​The Weekend Interview: Former CIA Station Chief on Strategic Global Hotspots

WEEKEND INTERVIEW: The signing of a peace framework between the President of Armenia and the Prime Minister of Azerbaijan on Friday at the White [...] More

Two Existential Threats: CIA’s Reputation vs. Democracy’s Survival

OPINION -- In his recent Cipher Brief essay, CIA's Latest Existential Challenge, former CIA senior officer Mark Kelton argues that the Central [...] More

Can the U.S. Fix a Broken System of Acquiring Weapons?

Can the U.S. Fix a Broken System of Acquiring Weapons?

DEEP DIVE – It’s a rare area of bipartisan agreement in Washington: a belief that the U.S. must reform the way it develops and obtains its weapons. [...] More

{{}}