-
FINAL DRAFT REPORT
-
EMBARGOED UNTIL JAN. 31, 2001
-
Road Map for National Security:
Imperative for Change
-
The Phase III Report of the U.S. Commission on
National Security/21st Century
-
The United States Commission on National Security/21st Century
-
-
DRAFT FINAL REPORT
January 31, 2001
-
-
U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century*1
- Gary Hart
- Co-Chair
-
- Warren B.Rudman
- Co-Chair
-
- Anne Armstrong Norman
- Commissioner
-
- R. Augustine
- Commissioner
-
- John Dancy
- Commissioner
-
- John R. Galvin
- Commissioner
-
- Leslie H. Gelb
- Commissioner
-
- Newt Gingrich
- Commissioner
-
- Lee H. Hamilton
- Commissioner
-
- Donald B. Rice
- Commissioner
-
- James Schlesinger
- Commissioner
-
- Harry D. Train
- Commissioner
-
- Andrew Young
- Commissioner
-
-
-
Contents
- Foreword, Gary Hart and Warren Rudman
- Preface, Charles G. Boyd
- EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
- Introduction: Imperative for Change
- I. Securing the National Homeland
- A. The Strategic Framework
- B. Organizational Realignment.
- C. Executive-Legislative Cooperation
- II. Recapitalizing America's Strengths in Science and Education
- A. Investing in Innovation
- B. Education as a National Security Imperative
- III. Institutional Redesign
- A. Strategic Planning and Budgeting
- B. The National Security Council
- C. Department of State
- D. Department of Defense
- E. Space Policy
- F. The Intelligence Community
- IV. The Human Requirements for National Security
- A. A National Campaign for Service to the Nation
- B. The Presidential Appointments Process.
- C. The Foreign Service
- D. The Civil Service
- E. Military Personnel
- V. The Role of Congress
- A Final Word
- Appendix 1: The Recommendations
- Appendix 2: The USCNS/21 Charter
Appendix 3: Commissioner Biographies and Staff Listing
-
Foreword
-
- American power and influence have been decisive factors for democracy and security throughout the last half-century. However, after more than two years of serious effort, this Commission has concluded that without significant reforms, American power and influence cannot be sustained. To be of long-term benefit to us and to others, that power and influence must be disciplined by strategy, defined as the systematic determination of the proper relationship of ends to means in support of American principles, interests, and national purpose.
-
- This Commission was established to redefine national security in this age and to do so in a more comprehensive fashion than any other similar effort since 1947. We have carried out our duties in an independent and totally bipartisan spirit. This report is a blueprint for reorganizing the U.S. national security structure in order to focus that structure's attention on the most important new and serious problems before the nation, and to produce organizational competence capable of addressing those problems creatively.
-
- The key to our vision is the need for a culture of coordinated strategic planning to permeate all U.S. national security institutions. Our challenges are no longer defined for us by a single prominent threat. Without creative strategic planning in this new environment, we will default in time of crisis to a reactive posture. Such a posture is inadequate to the challenges and opportunities before us.
-
- We have concluded that, despite the end of the Cold War threat, America faces distinctly new dangers, particularly to the homeland and to our scientific and educational base. These dangers must be addressed forthwith.
-
- We call upon the new President, the new administration, the new Congress, and the country at large to consider and debate our recommendations in the pragmatic spirit that has characterized America and its people in each new age.
-
- Gary Hart Warren
- Co-Chair
-
- B. Rudman
- Co-Chair
-
-
-
Preface
-
- The U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century was born more than two years ago out of a conviction that the entire range of U.S. national security policies and processes required reexamination in light of new circumstances. Those circumstances encompass not only the changed geopolitical reality after the Cold War, but also the significant technological, social, and intellectual changes that are occurring.
-
- Prominent among such changes is the information revolution and the accelerating discontinuities in a range of scientific and technological areas. Another is the increased integration of global finance and commerce, commonly called "globalization." Yet another is the ascendance of democratic governance and free-market economics to unprecedented levels, and another still the increasing importance of both multinational and non-governmental actors in global affairs. The routines of professional life, too, in business, university, and other domains in advanced countries have been affected by the combination of new technologies and new management techniques. The internal cultures of organizations have been changing, usually in ways that make them more efficient and effective.
-
- The creators of this Commission believed that unless the U.S. government adapts itself to these changes-and to dramatic changes still to come-it will fall out of step with the world of the 21st century. Nowhere will the risks of doing so be more manifest than in the realm of national security.
-
- Mindful of the likely scale of change ahead, this Commission's sponsors urged it to be bold and comprehensive in its undertaking. That meant thinking out a quarter century, not just to the next election or to the next federal budget cycle. That meant searching out how government should work, undeterred by the institutional inertia that today determines how it does work. Not least, it meant conceiving national security not as narrowly defined, but as it ought to be defined-to include economics, technology, and education for a new age in which novel opportunities and challenges coexist uncertainly with familiar ones.
-
- The fourteen Commissioners involved in this undertaking, one that engaged their energies for over two years, have worked hard and they have worked well.*2 Best of all, despite diverse experiences and views, they have transcended partisanship to work together in recognition of the seriousness of the task: nothing less than to assure the well-being of this Republic a quarter century hence.
-
- This Commission has conducted its work in three phases. Phase I was dedicated to understanding how the world will likely evolve over the next 25 years. From that basis in prospective reality, Phase II devised a U.S. national security strategy to deal with that world. Phase III aims to reform government structures and processes to enable the U.S. government to implement that strategy, or, indeed, any strategy that would depart from the embedded routines of the last half-century.
-
- Phase I concluded in September 1999 with the publication of New World Coming: American Security in the 21st Century.*3 Phase II produced the April 2000 publication, Seeking a National Strategy: A Concert for Preserving Security and Promoting Freedom. Phase III, presented in these pages, is entitled Road Map for National Security: Imperative for Change. This report summarizes enough of the Commission's Phase I and Phase II work to establish an intellectual basis for understanding this Phase III report, but it does not repeat the texts of prior phases in detail. For those seeking fuller background to this report, the Commission's earlier works should be consulted directly.*4
-
- In Road Map for National Security, the Commission has endeavored to complete the logic of its three phases of work, moving from analysis to strategy to the redesign of the structures and processes of the U.S. national security system. For example, in Phase I the Commission stressed that mass-casualty terrorism directed against the U.S. homeland was of serious and growing concern. It therefore proposed in Phase II a strategy that prioritizes deterring, defending against, and responding effectively to such dangers. Thus, in Phase III, it recommends a new National Homeland Security Agency to consolidate and refine the missions of the nearly two dozen disparate departments and agencies that have a role in U.S. homeland security today.
-
- That said, not every Phase I finding and not every Phase II proposal has generated a major Phase III recommendation. Not every aspect of U.S. national security organization needs an overhaul. Moreover, some challenges are best met, and some opportunities are best achieved, by crafting better policies, not by devising new organizational structures or processes. Where appropriate, this report notes those occasions and is not reluctant to suggest new policy directions.
-
- Many of the recommendations made herein require legislation to come into being. Many others, however, require only Presidential order or departmental directive. These latter recommendations are not necessarily of lesser importance and can be implemented quickly.
-
- The Commission anticipates that some of its recommendations will win wide support. Other recommendations may generate controversy and even opposition, as is to be expected when dealing with such serious and complex issues. We trust that the ensuing debate will ultimately yield the very best use of this Commission's work for the benefit of the American people.
-
- Organizational reform is not a panacea. There is no perfect organizational design, no flawless managerial fix. The reason is that organizations are made up of people, and people invariably devise informal means of dealing with one another in accord with the accidents of personality and temperament. Even excellent organizational structure cannot make impetuous or mistaken leaders patient or wise, but poor organizational design can make good leaders less effective.
-
- Sound organization is important. It can ensure that problems reach their proper level of decision quickly and efficiently and can balance the conflicting imperatives inherent in any national security decision-system-between senior involvement and expert input, between speed and the need to consider a variety of views, between tactical flexibility and strategic consistency. President Eisenhower summarized it best: "Organization cannot make a genius out of a dunce. But it can provide its head with the facts he needs, and help him avoid misinformed mistakes."
-
- Most important, good organization helps assure accountability. At every level of organization, elected officials-and particularly the President as Commander-in-Chief-must be
-
- able to ascertain quickly and surely who is in charge. But in a government that has expanded through serial incremental adjustment rather than according to an overall plan, finding those responsible to make things go right, or those responsible when things go wrong, can be a very formidable task. This, we may be sure, is not what the Founders had in mind.
-
- This Commission has done its best to step up to the mandate of its Charter. It is now up to others to do their best to bring the benefits of this Commission's effort into the institutions of American government.
-
- Charles G. Boyd, General, USAF (Ret.)
- Executive Director
-
-
-
Executive Summary
-
- After our examination of the new strategic environment of the next quarter century (Phase I) and of a strategy to address it (Phase II), this Commission concludes that significant changes must be made in the structures and processes of the U.S. national security apparatus. Our institutional base is in decline and must be rebuilt. Otherwise, the United States risks losing its global influence and critical leadership role.
-
- We offer recommendations for organizational change in five key areas:
-
- 1 ensuring the security of the American homeland;
-
- 2 recapitalizing America's strengths in science and education;
-
- 3 redesigning key institutions of the Executive Branch;
-
- 4 overhauling the U.S. government personnel system; and
-
- 5 reorganizing Congress's role in national security affairs.
-
- We have taken a broad view of national security. In the new era, sharp distinctions between "foreign" and "domestic" no longer apply. We do not equate national security with "defense." We do believe in the centrality of strategy, and of seizing opportunities as well as confronting dangers. If the structures and processes of the U.S. government stand still amid a world of change, the United States will lose its capacity to shape history, and will instead be shaped by it.
-
-
-
Securing the National Homeland
-
- The combination of unconventional weapons proliferation with the persistence of international terrorism will end the relative invulnerability of the U.S. homeland to catastrophic attack. A direct attack against American citizens on American soil is likely over the next quarter century. The risk is not only death and destruction but also a demoralization that could undermine U.S. global leadership. In the face of this threat, our nation has no coherent or integrated governmental structures.
-
- We therefore recommend the creation of a new independent National Homeland Security Agency (NHSA) with responsibility for planning, coordinating, and integrating various U.S. government activities involved in homeland security. NHSA would be built upon the Federal Emergency Management Agency, with the three organizations currently on the front line of border security-the Coast Guard, the Customs Service, and the Border Patrol- transferred to it. NHSA would not only protect American lives, but also assume responsibility for overseeing the protection of the nation's critical infrastructure, including information technology.
-
- The NHSA Director would have Cabinet status and would be a statutory advisor to the National Security Council. The legal foundation for the National Homeland Security Agency would rest firmly within the array of Constitutional guarantees for civil liberties. The observance of these guarantees in the event of a national security emergency would be safeguarded by NHSA's interagency coordinating activities-which would include the Department of Justice-as well as by its conduct of advance exercises.
-
- The potentially catastrophic nature of homeland attacks necessitates our being prepared to use the tremendous resources of the Department of Defense (DoD). Therefore, the department needs to pay far more attention to this mission in the future. We recommend that a new office of Assistant Secretary for Homeland Security be created to oversee the various DoD activities and ensure that the necessary resources are made available.
-
- New priorities also need to be set for the U.S. armed forces in light of the threat to the homeland. We urge, in particular, that the National Guard be given homeland security as a primary mission, as the U.S. Constitution itself ordains. The National Guard should be reorganized, trained, and equipped to undertake that mission.
-
- Finally, we recommend that Congress reorganize itself to accommodate this Executive Branch realignment, and that it also form a special select committee for homeland security to provide Congressional support and oversight in this critical area.
-
|