From Penn Today: "John Gans, director of communications and research at Perry World House, discusses his new book that captures the stories and inner workings of National Security Council staff."
// Peter Beinart
John Bolton's new chief of staff comes from the Center for Security Policy, a group that was largely shunned by conservatives in Washington—but is making a comeback in the Trump era.
(CNN) By the start of John Bolton's second week as national security adviser, five top officials at the National Security Council had already resigned under pressure, been fired or decided to leave.
Michael Rubin | Washington Examiner
By Andrew A. Hill & Douglas Douds, War Room: “American national security strategy is generally unimaginative. It is too often constrained by a rigid, unimaginative pursuit of optimal objectives… It needs the constructive, creative impulse that characterizes great strategy.”
By John T. Kuehn, Divergent Options: “The Project for National Security Reform (PNSR) began looking at this issue in 2008 and found that NSA 47 no longer fit the strategic environment we are currently facing or will face in the 21st Century.”
When new White House chief of staff John Kelly huddled with senior staff on his first day at work, he outlined a key problem in President Donald Trump’s White House that he planned to fix: bad information getting into the president’s hands. Kelly told the staff that information needed to flow through him — whether on paper or in briefings — because the president would make better decisions if given good information. - Politico
NSC
National security adviser H.R. McMaster, who has waged a pitched battle with other senior staff for control over policy and personnel on the National Security Council, is taking advantage of the shield offered by the arrival of his old military colleague John Kelly as White House chief of staff. - Politico
Empowered by a new chief of staff and goosed by a president angry over a lack of progress, National Security Adviser Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster is sweeping out some of the White House’s most fervent ideologues and Trump loyalists. But McMaster has to move fast, senior administration officials tell The Daily Beast. – The Daily Beast
After a protracted battle between the White House and the CIA over candidates, President Donald Trump has hired a career CIA analyst to become his senior director for Africa, two people familiar with the matter told BuzzFeed News. – Buzz Feed
James Kitfield writes: Taken as a group, Trump’s generals have tended to see their mission as twofold: The first job is to correct what senior military officers see as the mistakes of the Obama administration, a hesitancy to use force or commit troops that many allies perceived as a retreat from traditional U.S. commitments in the world. The second job—and the far riskier one—is to mitigate the damage caused by their boss. – Politico
- Kelly gives McMaster cover as he goes to war in White House
- Kelly imposes discipline, cuts down on back channels to Trump
By Lachlan Markay, Asawin Suebsaeng, & Kimberly Dozier, The Daily Beast: “The national security adviser is purging the Trump White House of hardliners. But the ‘nationalists’ are quickly moving to strike back.”
5 Reasons H.R. McMaster Is the Right Leader for a Tough President
By Jim Carafano, Walter Lohman, Tom Spoehr, Luke Coffey, David Shedd and Nile Gardiner, The Daily Signal: “In national security adviser H.R. McMaster, the president has a leader of the National Security Council who has made a career of fighting for national security interests that involve very real sacrifice.”
- McMaster fires Cohen-Watnick and Higgins from the NSC
- Michael Warren: Inside the McMaster-Bannon war
By Shane Savitsky, Axios: “Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the senior director for intelligence at the NSC, was shown the door yesterday by McMaster, who, according to a White House official, decided that "a different set of experiences is best-suited to carrying that work forward."”
mcmaster_brings_a_touch_of_eisenhower_to_the_nsc_-_wsj.pdf |
By Phillip Breton, Michael Gaffney, Michael Langan, and Amanda Werkheiser, Strategy Bridge: “The national security enterprise needs modernization. Traditional challenges from nation-states, non-state actors and trans-regional or multi-domain threats can disrupt U.S. national interests and global peace. Dealing with these challenges requires the application of all instruments of national power to achieve U.S. national security goals. No single element of national power can comprehensively address global challenges for the U.S., nor can a single U.S. government department or agency meet those challenges alone.”