If you wanted to propose the most significant changes in the U.S. national security architecture in half a century, James Locher III would be a logical choice to lead the effort. A key architect of the Goldwater-Nichols defense reforms of the 1980s, Locher went on to cajole warring factions in the Balkans to embrace a joint national security system. As executive director of the Project on National Security Reform, Locher this week unveiled a blueprint for a revamped 21st-century national security system. He recently spoke with National Journal's James Kitfield. Edited excerpts from that interview follow. Visit the archives page for more Insider Interviews.
NJ: With so many burning crises already in their inbox, why would a new Obama administration and Congress want to undertake fundamental national security reforms?
Locher: Well, I think Republicans and Democrats alike agree that the system is broken, and that makes people receptive to change. They watched the 9/11 attacks, and the problems the United States encountered in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the botched response to Hurricane Katrina. All of those setbacks are not coincidental. They have organizational root causes. And if we don't address those causes and adjust a badly misaligned national security structure, we'll continue to suffer major setbacks time after time.
NJ: What do you consider the root cause of those failures?
Locher: In simple terms, the challenges we confront in the 21st century are horizontal problems whose solutions require collaborative work across the government. Yet we're trying to deal with those challenges with a government that is vertically oriented into stove-piped agencies and departments. The boundaries between those agencies are non-permeable, rigid and bureaucratic. There are powerful incentives designed into the system that reinforce an inward-looking culture where people are not rewarded for putting the national interest above the agency interest. In fact, mavericks who do so often put their careers at risk.
NJ: So we have a mismatch between fluid threats and rigid governmental structures and responses?
Locher: Look at terrorism and you see the problem. The terrorism threat requires the cooperation of many foreign governments, so the State Department must get closely involved. The Pentagon is critical to the manhunt. Law enforcement and the Department of Justice are equally central. Every element of the intelligence community is involved. The Treasury Department is charged with trying to cut the money flow to terrorists. The Department of Health and Human Services is responsible for managing the consequences of an attack with weapons of mass destruction. So the problem requires a complex, coordinated response that the government is incapable of mounting. That's the cause of our recent failures.
NJ: If the national security system is so dysfunctional, why has it survived for more than half a century?
Locher: Though it had some inherent weaknesses and noted failures, the system worked reasonably well during the Cold War. Most people in government today grew up with it, so it's also the only system they've ever known. That makes it difficult for people to imagine fundamentally reforming it to confront 21st-century challenges. We faced the same inertia with the Goldwater-Nichols reforms [of the Pentagon] in the mid-1980s. The evidence that the Defense Department needed reform had likewise mounted for 40 years, but first we had to do the intellectual and political spade work to make reform possible.In this case, we looked at 126 case studies involving interagency operations. We worked with both presidential campaigns, briefed more than 50 members of Congress and 20 senators, reached out to the various agencies involved, and consulted more than 300 national security professionals. So we've built a broad consensus and coalition for reform, and hopefully we'll get it into the end zone with the passage of reform legislation by the end of next year.
NJ: In your recommendations, why do you emphasize strengthening the role and authority of the national security adviser and National Security Council?
Locher: From my own experience in charge of Special Forces at the Pentagon, I was very dependent on the interagency process, but the National Security Council system was too weak in comparison to the departments to take charge and manage that integration. The NSC can formulate policy, but it is very weak on policy implementation. That's why we recommend that the national security adviser be given a much bigger role, with commensurate authority and seniority. We recommend renaming the position the "Director of National Security," and empowering that person as the principal assistant to the president for all matters concerning national security. We have to elevate that position from someone who just brokers the views of the Cabinet secretaries to someone who is really almost a super-Cabinet official recommending to the president what needs to be done.
NJ: Why do you also look to the NSC to address the mismatches in resource allocation among the national security agencies and departments?
Locher: Because that is a huge weakness in the current system. Right now, OMB [the Office of Management and Budget] allocates resources based on departmental requests and past budget levels, as opposed to letting the president's stated objectives and missions drive the process. We recommend that the national security adviser, working with OMB, play a much bigger role in aligning resources with the president's priorities.
NJ: Why do you also call for greater strategic planning capability, but below the level of the NSC?
Locher: Well, right now the NSC doesn't have the kind of people who can do strategic planning. Their strategy documents are mostly about public relations: they don't drive the activities or resource allocation of anyone in government. That has to change. At the same time, we don't think you should over-centralize all these functions in the NSC, and try and manage everything from the top. The White House and NSC can only adequately manage two or three issues at one time. They are so overwhelmed by immediate crises that they can't really conduct strategic planning or address the dozens of other problems that require attention. So our idea is that the president create and empower interagency teams that are to some extent an extension of the NSC staff, though they should probably reside away from the White House.
NJ: How would such interagency teams work?
Locher: Say President Obama decides that energy security is really important, and he realizes that the issue cuts across many government agencies. Rather than just assign it to the Department of Energy, he thus creates an interagency team, gives it the requisite mandate, resources and authorities, and then tasks it with rapidly developing powerful and creative ideas for solving the problem. The team stays focused on the president's mandate and the broader national interest, but it pulls expertise and capabilities from the various departments. The team also keeps the various departments informed of their progress, because the departments will ultimately play a huge role in the implementation of any plan or strategy. That's similar to how Goldwater-Nichols empowered the Joint Staff to operate relative to, and with the support of, the service staffs.
NJ: Are there other models for such powerful, interagency teams?
Locher: Private industry and commercial businesses have created similar horizontal teams drawn from across the enterprise to deal with the same challenge of complexity and rapid change. It started with horizontal process teams at Toyota in the 1980s. Those teams dramatically cut the time it takes Toyota to design and produce a car by breaking down the functional stovepipes inside the company. They were so successful at developing and implementing ideas quickly that the entire auto industry had to follow suit. Government now has to adopt the same concept because we can't afford to waste the time and energy expended by these large bureaucracies pushing and shoving each other over turf.
NJ: Haven't a number of post-9/11 reorganizations already attempted to address the issue of interagency cooperation, including creation of the Department of Homeland Security and the office of the Director of National Intelligence?
Locher: To a degree. There's no question that as we move forward, more activity will take place in that interagency space above the Cabinet departments and below the president. The National Security Council, the Homeland Security Council, the National Counterterrorism Center, the director of national intelligence, even the embassies all operate in that space.The problem is many of those entities don't have the requisite capability and scope. The National Counterterrorism Center is completely ineffective, for instance, because it can develop plans but lacks the ability to execute or assess implementation. That insufficient mandate is crippling. Similarly, the reforms behind the director of national intelligence created a shell or superstructure over the intelligence community but didn't give the director the legal authority to demand cooperation from 16 separate intelligence fiefdoms. The same is true of the Department of Homeland Security, which pushed together all these entities without addressing the firewalls and jealousies that keep it from operating as an effective organization. That's why our recommendations go beyond just reorganizing the structure to focus on shared values, common vision and a collaborative understanding of the mission. You have to address the cultural and human capital dimensions to make this work.
NJ: How do you change that dynamic in entrenched bureaucracies?
Locher: It starts with leadership. In today's world of collaboration, department secretaries have to understand how they fit into the larger picture as part of a common team. You can't afford to have this competitive culture and instinct that we saw with [former Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld, for instance, which led the secretaries of Defense and State to being almost at war with each other.As we did in creating a joint culture among the services with Goldwater-Nichols, you also need to have a lot more cross-assignments between agencies. In order to get promoted to a senior rank in government, you should be required to serve in another department or agency. We need to achieve at a national level what we accomplished with Goldwater-Nichols. If you visit any combatant command today, you'll find service members thinking solely about achieving the mission, rather than advancing the interest of the Army, Air Force, Navy or Marine Corps.
NJ: So the "joint culture" that Goldwater-Nichols helped create at the Pentagon needs to be grafted on to the multi-agency level of government?
Locher: Yes. We have to create a culture where it is no longer good enough to support the department's interest -- the goal is to serve the larger national interest. That's a huge cultural shift, but I'm convinced we can succeed because I've seen it done. The good news is that young people today are already thinking in these terms. They are used to being connected horizontally through all sorts of social networks. Young people are comfortable with reaching out and sharing information in order to get things done. They're interested in serving a larger cause. We need to see that same sense of collaboration in the federal government.
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