In this provocative and thoughtful book, Amy Zegart challenges the conventional belief that national security agencies work reasonably well to serve the national interest as they were designed to do. Using a new institutionalist approach, Zegart asks what forces shaped the initial design of the Central Intelligence Agency, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the National Security Council in ways that meant they were handicapped from birth.
Ironically, she finds that much of the blame can be ascribed to cherished features of American democracy—frequent elections, the separation of powers, majority rule, political compromise—all of which constrain presidential power and give Congress little incentive to create an effective foreign policy system. At the same time, bureaucrats in rival departments had the expertise, the staying power, and the incentives to sabotage the creation of effective competitors, and this is exactly what they did.
Historical evidence suggests that most political players did not consider broad national concerns when they forged the CIA, JCS, and NSC in the late 1940s. Although President Truman aimed to establish a functional foreign policy system, he was stymied by self-interested bureaucrats, legislators, and military leaders. The NSC was established by accident, as a byproduct of political compromise; Navy opposition crippled the JCS from the outset; and the CIA emerged without the statutory authority to fulfill its assigned role thanks to the Navy, War, State, and Justice departments, which fought to protect their own intelligence apparatus.
Not surprisingly, the new security agencies performed poorly as they struggled to overcome their crippled evolution. Only the NSC overcame its initial handicaps as several presidents exploited loopholes in the National Security Act of 1947 to reinvent the NSC staff. The JCS, by contrast, remained mired in its ineffective design for nearly forty years—i.e., throughout the Cold War—and the CIA’s pivotal analysis branch has never recovered from its origins. In sum, the author paints an astonishing picture: the agencies Americans count on most to protect them from enemies abroad are, by design, largely incapable of doing so.
Originally Posted by AmericanPride
As one who has spent almost an equal amount of time in the near east and the far east -- the Orient -- the features that most impact are the Tribal nature of most ME populations and, even more so, the deeply embedded habit of Taarof in the region.That certainly smacks of Orientalism. What features of North African, Arab, and Central Asian societies make them "not amenable to centralized control by anything but main force"?Perhaps. However if the action to which the force is committed is based on unattainable goals due to the ignorance of the civilian policy makers who ordered that commitment success is improbable, necessary or not......I'm not concerned with their necessity; though once committed to action, achieving a favorable outcome regardless of the original cause(s) becomes a necessity.Why? Inadequate troop strength due to decisions by the political leadership (not to mention really serious infighting among said 'leaders'); inadequate training of the force for the mission assigned. There's more but there's plenty of egg for a whole lot of faces and as many or more were senior civilian AND military leaders over several administrations....The political leadership made such preparations, including the establishment of the Coalition Provisional Authority and the facilitation of Iraqi government working groups. But the military did not provide the necessary security measures to assist the political process. Why?
Not necessarily so on what those pressures dictate. You may be correct on what happens and likely are but it does not have to be that way, we have choices...And this in turn pressures cuts in personnel and training, reducing combat power all around. Not to mention competition with other domestic agendas and social programs.
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