Jim Jones On A New NSC

One of the ways we hope this site distinguishes itself from others is by paying attention to what people in power say. Sounds common enough -- but if the official isn't a President or a leading member of Congress, we tend to ignore them. News coverage of the Munich Conference rightly focused on Vice President Biden's careful words on Russia, NATO and Afghanistan. Few paid attention to the speech by the new national security adviser, James L. Jones, a speech within which he laid out the rationale for a massive reorganization of the National Security Council.  He'd given hints in an interview with an American newspaper a few days before. But before the security professionals in Munich, he spelled out what he meant.


Gen. Jones, who has been attending the Munich conference since 1980, apologized in advance for a speech that was focused on the structure, rather than the content, of national security.  The guiding principle, he said, was "pragmatism."  Obama "knows that we must deal with the world as it is" -- asymmetrical, unstable, with primary threats arising from porous borders, proliferation, narco-terrorism, economic collapse and global warming.  "To be blunt, the institutions and approaches that we forged together through the 20th century are still adjusting to meet the realities of the 21st century.  And the world has definitely changed, but we have not changed with it.  But it is not too late, and this is the good news," Jones said.
To better carry out the president's priorities, "the National Security Council must respond to the world the way it is and not as we wish it were," he said. Its principles? (Here, Jones cites Groucho Marx: "These are our principles.  And if you don't like them, we have others.")    One -- the NSC will focus on strategy, not tactics. It will step back.  At the same time, it will increase its capacity to coordinate among different agencies of government -- "increasing numbers of agencies," James said.  More views will be brought into the NSC and will be considered "throughout the policy making process."  Another principle: transparency of process, so that the government, the American people and the world understands what is going on.  A fourth principle: agility. "We face nimble adversaries and all of us will have to confront fast-moving crises - from conflict and terrorism to new diseases and environmental disasters," he said.  Again, note the definition of what constitutes a national security crisis here.

"To give you just a few examples, the NSC today works very closely with President Obama's National Economic Council, which is led by Mr. Larry Summers, so that our response to the economic crisis is coordinated with our global partners and our national security needs.  The NSC has worked closely with the White House Counsel's office as we implement the President's orders to ban torture and close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay.  The National Security Council is undertaking a review to determine how best to unify our efforts to combat terrorism around the world while protecting our homeland.  And this effort will be led by Mr. John Brennan.

"The National Security Council will be at the table as our government forges a new approach to energy security and climate change that demand broad cooperation across the U.S. Government and more persistent American leadership around the world.  And the NSC is evaluating how to update our capacity to combat the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction while also placing a far higher priority on cyber security." 

Indeed, the NSC almost becomes an NC -- a national, inter-governmental coordinating council for threats, defined broadly.