Project on National Security Reform
Literature
Reinventing

Recommended Reading List

For a good background on the national security interagency process and the National Security Council’s development and use over the course of the last 5+ decades, we recommend the following books:

  1. Inderfurth, Karl F., and Loch K. Johnson. Fateful Decisions: Inside the National Security Council. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. (Focusing primarily on the roles of the NSC and the National Security Advisor)
  2. Rothkopf, David J. Running the World: The Inside Story of the National Security Council and the Architects of American Power. New York: PublicAffairs, 2005. (Focusing primarily on the NSC, but also addressing a variety of interagency participants)
  3. Zegart, Amy B. Flawed by Design: The Evolution of the CIA, JCS, and NSC. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999. (Focusing on the development and passage of the National Security Act of 1947 and the subsequent evolution of the national security system it established)
  4. Clark, Keith and Legere, Laurence (eds.). The President and the Management of National Security: A Report by the Institute for Defense Analyses. New York: Praeger 1969.

Several studies on interagency reform provide commentary on the national security system. For an overview, we recommend the following:

  1. Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). 2004. Beyond Goldwater-Nichols: U.S. Government and Defense Reform for a New Strategic Era: Phase 1 Report. (Especially the Executive Summary and Section 8) Universal Resource Link located at: http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/bgn_ph1_report.pdf
  2. Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). 2005. Beyond Goldwater-Nichols: U.S. Government and Defense Reform for a New Strategic Era: Phase 2 Report. (Especially the Executive Summary and Sections 1-5) Universal Resource Link located at: http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/bgn_ph2_report.pdf
  3. The United States Commission on National Security/21st Century (The Hart/Rudman Commission) Phase 3 report. (Heavily weighted towards homeland security issues, this report suggests interagency solutions with little focus on problems and their causes)
  4. The Princeton Project on National Security, "Report of the Working Group on Foreign Policy Infrastructure and Global Institutions," (Fall 2006). Located at: http://www.wws.princeton.edu/ppns/conferences/reports/fall/FPIGI.pdf
  5. United States General Accounting Office, "Managing for Results: Barriers to Interagency Coordination," Report to the Hon. Fred Thompson, Chairman, Committee on Governmental Affairs, U.S. Senate (March 2000)
  6. Kaiser, Frederick. Federal Interagency Coordinative Mechanisms: Varied Types and Numerous Devices. Congressional Research Service. (Updated July 2002)

In addition, we recommend the following articles or papers, which address interagency problems and discuss a variety of potential solutions:

  1. Donley, Michael. 2005. Rethinking the interagency system. Hicks & Associates, Inc.: McLean. Available online through the ITEA website, located at: http://www.ndu.edu/ITEA/index.cfm?method=main.itemlist&item=7B&resource=1
  2. Donley, Michael. 2005. Rethinking the interagency system: Part two. Hicks & Associates, Inc.: McLean. Available online at: http://www.hicksandassociates.com/reports/HAI-occasional-paper-2.pdf
  3. Desai, Sunil B. "Solving the Interagency Puzzle," Policy Review Feb/Mar 2005 (129) 57. Located at: http://ezproxy6.ndu.edu/login?url=http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=798913891&Fmt=3&VIn st= PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309 &VName=PQD&","PROQUEST_HTTP_XML","NDF00754" (Argues that the interagency community is dominated by individual agency cultures rather than an common interagency culture and highlights four strategic impediments towards a shift to a more a stronger interagency culture.)
  4. Flournoy, Michele A. and Brimley, Shawn, "In Search of Harmony: Orchestrating the ‘Interagency’ for the long war," in Armed Forces Journal, July 2006. Located at: http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2006/07/1857934/ (Recent years have revealed interagency coordination as a weakness that prevents effective strategic planning and risks strategic failure in conducting complex operations.)
  5. Dreschler, Donald, "Reconstructing the interagency process after Iraq," in Journal of Strategic Studies 28.1 (Feb 2005): 3 28 (Discusses barriers between the Department of State and the Department of Defense with respect to the postwar planning phase of Operation 'Iraqi Freedom' and the use of PDD 56 in postwar planning in Kosovo)
  6. Representative Geoff Davis's Remarks at the Dynamics of Interagency Reform Conference on May 8, 2008.

Full-Text Articles and Additional Reading • Historical Documents • Glossary

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