on what's happening in the UK system. Godd to see that our Brit cousins are eminently adaptable.

Certainly, the US strategy system leave much to be desired. When it is done well, it is done very well; at other times it is horrid. NDU has published - both hardcopy and online - NSC 68 and its predecessors with an essay by Paul Nitze. It is a superb strategy in its NSC 4 iteration and was well executed for over 40 years. Congress did us a service in Goldwater-Nichols by reiquring the Executive Branch to publish its National Security Strategy. The requirement to do so each year has been honored in the breach beginning with the Clinton administration but it is still published often enough along with other strategy documents. The unintended consequence it that these documents for public consumption are often more PR than strategy but they usually contain enough so that the public and the bureaucracy understands where the Administration wants to go, how it plans to get there, and generally the resources it thinks it needs.

I teach a course on National Security Policy in which I lay out the NSC decision-making system (including strategizing). Then, when I think my students believe that we have a fully rational system, I draw a diagram on the board of the Washington policy community above the line and the Field below the line. Then I draw in command and coordination lines. When I am done I have made a mess - which is the intent of the author of the exercise, Ambassador David Passage.

Cheers

JohnT