INTRODUCTION:
In 1956, U.S. policy makers saw American objectives in the Middle East foundering in the face of Arab nationalism and Soviet influence. To resuscitate the government’s agenda, President Eisenhower looked to Saudi Arabia and spearheaded an effort to make King Saud a preeminent leader and ally in the Middle East. Though overshadowed by the Suez Crisis and the promulgation of the Eisenhower Doctrine, this endeavor was a notable part of the U.S. regional security strategy and also marked a critical turning point in Washington’s relationship with the House of Saud. For these reasons, Eisenhower-era policy making towards Saudi Arabia is an interesting case for the Project on National Security Reform (PNSR). Furthermore, an analysis of the King Saud strategy also offers insight into the much-debated Eisenhower national security apparatus while illustrating lessons on interagency strategy development and implementation in a challenging, yet critical, theater for U.S. national security policy.

STRATEGY:
By 1956, U.S. officials had become disillusioned with the political leadership of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser and generally frustrated by the failure of U.S. strategies in the Middle East. In this context, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles proposed reorienting U.S. regional policies, which the President endorsed in March 1956. Dulles’ approach established the basis of the administration’s policy towards the Saudi government, but Eisenhower himself directed the Department of State to consider promoting King Saud to regional leadership. In subsequent months, the nationalization of the Suez Canal, Israel’s invasion of Egypt, and other difficulties confirmed the President’s commitment to promoting the Saudi leader’s status. Ultimately, Eisenhower hoped King Saud would lead the Middle East away from anti-American currents of Arab nationalism and toward the Western camp.

The Saud strategy thus began, and would continue, as a casual presidential strategy. Political necessity and world views equating religiosity and guardianship of the Muslim holy places with natural leadership potential underpinned Eisenhower’s identification of King Saud as the administration’s key ally in the Middle East. From the outset, the policy suffered from a flawed foundation. In particular, the strategy discounted regional political imperatives.

INTEGRATION OF ALL ELEMENTS OF NATIONAL POWER:
To advance Saud’s regional clout and friendly alignment, the President directed the Department of State to delineate ways of building up and currying favor with the King. To this end, the administration integrated the elements of national power relatively well. Over the course of 1956-1957, Eisenhower dispatched two ambassadors to Saudi Arabia, engaged in extensive personal diplomacy with the King, and solicited a National Security Council report on how Islam could be used to further American Cold War aims. Dulles enlisted the support of regional embassies and information agencies in boosting Saud. The Department of State also hosted a Saudi state visit. Furthermore, under Eisenhower’s authority, the Department of Defense renewed its lease of Dharan airfield in Saudi Arabia, the International Cooperation Agency granted the Saudi kingdom economic assistance, and officials in diverse agencies coordinated a substantial sale of armaments to the Saudi monarchy.

EVALUATION:
Despite the engagement of multiple government agencies and the employment of various tools of national power, the Saud strategy failed because it ignored predominant political realities in Saudi Arabia and the greater Middle East. This fundamental flaw resulted from individual errors in judgment and interagency weaknesses, including entrenched world-views and an unbalanced cabinet. In contrast, the clear authorities of the administration and the President’s individual initiative accounted for the relatively unified implementation of the policy.

RESULTS:
Though the Middle East remained free of Soviet domination and the administration made some progress in moving Saud into alignment with the West, King Saud never emerged as an effective leader or counterweight to Nasser. Instead, Saud led Arab opposition to Israel in the Gulf of Aqaba, rejected the Eisenhower Doctrine, and supported an anti-American, nationalist government in Syria. In the longer-run, the failure of King Saud to emerge as a pro-West leader dealt a blow to American aims and influence in the Middle East and led to further policy misadventures in the region. The failure of its regional policies also cost the administration an invaluable opportunity to capitalize on political capital accrued in the immediate aftermath of the Suez Crisis.

CONCLUSION:
The House of Saud endeavor illustrates that, even within the highly organized interagency processes instituted under President Eisenhower, impromptu policy could flourish. The inception of this strategy additionally demonstrates the potential problematic effects of an unbalanced cabinet and widely-held, inaccurate world-views within an interagency. Yet, the Saud policy highlights positive elements of the U.S. national-security decision-making processes as well. For example, the steadfast promotion of the Saudi leader in 1957 shows that, with clear authorities and presidential leadership, U.S. Government agencies can achieve relative unity of effort in executing national security policy.

INTRODUCTION:
Human trafficking has become increasingly recognized as a vital U.S. national security concern. Trafficking in persons has been linked to organized crime, drug trafficking, migrant smuggling, and terrorist financing—making it a problem for the conduct and implementation of U.S. policies in all those areas. The United Nations estimates that 12.3 million people are forced into labor or sexual servitude at any given time. The United States is both a source and destination for trafficked persons, with as many as 20,000 people annually trafficked into the country.

The U.S. Government’s response to human trafficking over the past decade serves as an interesting case study for the Project on National Security Reform (PNSR) because it presents a complex, multifaceted, and transnational challenge that does not fall neatly into the jurisdiction of any single executive branch organization. It involves nearly 30 offices in at least seven major U.S. Government (USG) departments and agencies, some of which have traditionally had more limited national security responsibilities. Addressing the trafficking problem requires an integrated government response, which thus far has been lacking.

STRATEGY:
To the extent that a U.S. strategy to combat trafficking in persons exists, it is rooted in the Clinton Administration’s 1998 International Crime Control Strategy (ICCS). The broad approach outlined in the ICCS is still commonly referenced today. More than a decade later, however, the document offers little in terms of practical guidance to the departments charged with developing multi-layered anti-trafficking strategies, plans, and processes. As a result, anti-trafficking strategies remain poorly integrated across the U.S. national security system. Individual agency strategies and plans still operate in general isolation. Coordinated, or at the minimum, compatible strategies exist only on an individual, and often ad-hoc, basis.

INTEGRATED ELEMENTS OF NATIONAL POWER:
In recognition of the complexity presented by this national security challenge, various interagency mechanisms—including task forces, policy groups, and fusion centers—have been formed since human trafficking gained increased attention in the United States in the late 1990s. While these instruments have facilitated coordination to a degree, by providing forums for agencies to collaborate, their success has been severely inhibited by a lack of authority in areas such as funding, strategy development, and the designation of department and agency roles and responsibilities; all of which ultimately reside within home agencies.

EVALUATION:
In the absence of a national-level framework, department-level goals, strategies, plans, and processes are developed within the context of each individual agency’s broader mission. This process leads to poorly integrated anti-trafficking strategies since they are not based on any external or higher level guidance. Successful coordination across agencies, through either ad-hoc or formal mechanisms, occurs only on a case-by-case basis. Most commonly, U.S. policies in this area suffer from information-sharing challenges, interagency rivalries, and other obstacles that derive from the disparate perspectives on human trafficking that exist at the level of the individual departments.

RESULTS:
During the past decade, there has been significant improvement in the U.S. Government’s ability to address the challenge of human trafficking, but the magnitude of the problem continues to grow due to surging demand. An inability to devise and implement an integrated approach to anti-trafficking costs the nation valuable time and resources. Generally, the U.S. response to trafficking is reactive, with success dependent on individual cases and personal relationships. Disparate agency strategies and visions inhibit comprehensive assessments of and improvements in U.S. anti-trafficking initiatives. Insufficient clarity regarding USG roles and responsibilities for anti-trafficking efforts has led to confusion on the part of U.S. officials, host-nation counterparts, and trafficking victims alike.

CONCLUSION:
An integrated USG approach is needed to counter a threat as complex as human trafficking. An analysis of the USG response to this national security challenge over the past decade reveals a lack of an integrated strategy to guide implementation of a government-wide approach to combating trafficking. As a result, cross-agency coordination in executing department level strategies and plans is often ad-hoc. Several interagency mechanisms have been created to assist with coordination, but these processes are constrained by a lack of authorities in key areas. The result has been a primarily reactive USG response, with coordination depending heavily on the circumstances of individual cases, confusion over anti-trafficking roles and responsibilities, and an inability to effectively evaluate and improve on existing anti-trafficking programs.

INTRODUCTION:
In the summer of 1994, President Clinton delivered a speech to the UN General Assembly calling for the eventual elimination of anti-personnel landmines (APLs). At the time, he had bi-partisan support in Congress and the backing of the leadership in the Departments of State and Defense. Yet, mismanagement of the interagency process in developing and implementing a diplomatic strategy resulted in the United States being demonized, sidelined and isolated as 122 other nations negotiated and subsequently signed the “Ottawa Treaty” to ban landmines. This case is important for the Project on National Security Reform (PNSR) as it reveals how adherence to Cold War processes and structures is often ill-suited to provide the speed and flexibility needed to meet today’s diplomatic challenges.

STRATEGY:
The U.S. Government lacked an agreed position on APLs throughout the Ottawa Process, making a strategy all but impossible to formulate. This problem largely resulted from the lack of unified policy development within the interagency or even within departments. Perhaps most damaging to the process was the extended debate within the Department of Defense on the military necessity of APLs. The department was divided between pro-ban members of the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) on one side and service representatives in the Joint Staff (JS) on the other. This dispute, compounded by a lack of clear signals from the White House, made it difficult for the Department of State to formulate an effective diplomatic strategy.

As the process became muddled, high ranking members of the Clinton administration strove to create a new policy. Eschewing in-place mechanisms, partly because of constant press leaks and partly out of a sense of urgency, they devised a policy in support of a limited ban. The revised decision was promulgated by Presidential Decision Directive 48, designed to establish interagency roles and missions relating to APLs. Despite the tone of the directive, finality of decision and unity of purpose had not been achieved within the U.S. Government. Most telling, the document asked the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA), NSC, and Assistant Secretary of State for Politico-Military Affairs each to provide separate implementation options for review by the Principals. The administration eventually decided to pursue the APL limits through the regular arms control venue of the UN Conference on Disarmament (CD). This approach was known to be arcane, slow, and very deliberate, but it was a process with which many officials felt comfortable and which others thought appropriate. Unfortunately, this implementation strategy proved unable to keep abreast of the accelerated pace of modern diplomacy.

INTEGRATED ELEMENTS OF NATIONAL POWER:
The Joint Staff was virtually impervious to contrary views put forth by OSD. This was because the JS did not require OSD approval for an issue to rise to the chairman’s level and then cross over to the Secretary of Defense, whereas OSD officials could not move an issue up to the Secretary if they did not have agreement from the Joint Staff. This resulted in an antagonistic relationship. Some members of the OSD employed political guerrilla tactics in support of viewpoints. Compounding the situation, there were two teams undertaking APL policy work within the Pentagon, with little sharing of conclusions and findings. This bifurcation of policy work between mid- and high-level officials existed in many interagency processes. Middle managers at State, OSD, and even the JS attempted to steer their own course since the results of the Principals and Deputies meetings were seldom provided nor were there opportunities for mid-level staff to move ideas up to the higher levels. Defense and State’s inability to integrate policy kept negotiators in a constant state of frustration and often forced them into stony silence.

EVALUATION:
The U.S. Government was not prepared for the direction the Ottawa Process would take. The lack of speed and flexibility demonstrated by the interagency was the natural culmination of a confused process. In the end, the negotiating team lacked a clear goal, a strategy to achieve that goal, or the authority to pursue that strategy. A lack of leadership contributed to the failure to develop a coherent APL policy. The early abstinence on this issue by senior officials made consensus hard to achieve, new positions difficult to craft, and negotiations all but impossible to pursue. The decision to stick with the hide-bound arms control protocols of the CD also slowed down the U.S. responses to the nimble efforts of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL).

In addition, the dueling positions within the Defense Department made the military’s stance on APLs difficult to read, resulting in White House uncertainly and an inability by the State Department to develop a workable strategy. ACDA’s efforts to dominate decision making within the State Department created tensions and apprehensions among members of the U.S. team. Finally, the U.S. Government agencies never engaged the public on this issue, which severely hampered American diplomatic efforts.

RESULTS:
Most of those involved in the APL policy effort believe that the U.S. lost significant prestige, credibility, and leadership capital due to these problems. But, perhaps the greatest damage was wrought within the interagency process itself. The tactics of leaking stories to the press, working the Congress behind the scenes, and covert collaborators with the ICBL took their toll. Agencies’ positions hardened, suspicions mounted, and feelings of betrayal increased.

CONCLUSION:
Interagency conflicts impeded the development of a strategy regarding how to address the substantive and public relations issues fueling the international shift against the U.S. position. The mixed messages of the Department of Defense and the White House made policy formation difficult and implementing an effective diplomatic strategy impossible. As a result, the United States was left outside of an important global process, suffered a loss of soft power, and experienced its own interagency crisis.

INTRODUCTION:
U.S. planning for the occupation of Japan after WWII is an example of successful integration of the government’s military and civilian assets to create a practical strategy for reform and reconstruction of an occupied territory. The approach to planning between 1941 and 1945 evolved from ad hoc responses to crisis into a formal and forward looking interagency organization. Though constant tension existed between military and civilian officials, the immensity of the nation-building task convinced all involved of the need for cooperation. The case is important to the Project on National Security Reform because the way in which the U.S. Government planned for the political and economic transformation of Japan illustrates how military and civilian agencies can create cohesive, effective and flexible strategy.

STRATEGY:
The interagency strategic and tactical approach was conceived by an organization known as the State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee (SWNCC), the authoritative policymaking organ for postwar reconstruction projects. The interagency deliberative process was vested with the authority of the president and relevant secretaries, and relied on information transparency and close working relationships at all levels. In the rare instances when SWNCC could not reach a consensus, cases advanced to the President for a final decision, leading to a unified policy emerging from the agencies and fully sanctioned by the White House.

INTEGRATED ELEMENTS OF NATIONAL POWER:
Prior to the advent of SWNCC, Secretary of War Henry Stimson had organized an informal group composed of himself, the Secretary of State and the Secretary of the Navy. These men—known as the “Committee of Three”—met weekly to resolve interagency problems. The Committee lacked executive authority, instead serving an essentially advisory function, and identifying issues for President Roosevelt’s consideration.

During this period, Secretary of State Hull had been given primary responsibility for all postwar planning, and under Roosevelt’s orders, State began considering the problem of occupation just weeks after Pearl Harbor. The process reached its full scope and depth over the next several years. On 28 December 1941, the president established an Advisory Committee on Post-War Foreign Policy. However, a lack of senior level agreement as to the Committee’s mission meant pieces of the plan were being developed in a variety of government offices. There was no strategic architecture that might have permitted the creation of practical and actionable policies endorsed by the entire government. Without integration, it was inevitable that parochial interests (turf, budget, careers) would present problems.

In 1944, newly-appointed Secretary of State Edward Stettinius sent a letter to Secretary Stimson and Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal, formally proposing that the Committee of Three create a jointly managed secretariat to plan the occupations and fully integrate U.S. foreign policy. The SWNCC was officially constituted on December 9th and was structured and run in such a way as to ensure that group members worked as equals to create policy.

EVALUATION:
Nearly all SWNCC decisions became the official U.S. policy of the occupation, guiding the Supreme Commander of Allied Powers (SCAP) General Douglas MacArthur and his staff. These handbooks, orders and objectives were prepared to address the expected situation on the ground. When U.S. forces arrived in late August 1945, SCAP was armed with the information necessary to act effectively in and adapt quickly to the chaotic postwar environment.

SWNCC’s most valuable output was a coherent set of objectives that provided a flexible action script for the occupation. The most important points – the preservation of the institution of Emperor, retaining the existing government apparatus, defining the rights of all citizens, and the reformation of land tenure – were implemented within a few months of MacArthur’s arrival, and formed the economic and social foundation of a stable post-conflict environment that persists today.

RESULTS:
In reviewing the interagency process during World War II, one analyst points out three key features: “senior leader involvement, sustained interaction, and thorough integration” of policy at or below the level of Assistant Secretary. Planning for the occupation of Japan using the SWNCC was successful because it provided a forum for the formation of interagency relationships, incorporated experts from across the government, and integrated their outputs into sanctioned national policy. The quality of the interagency process during this period is demonstrated by the fact that of the 750 issues considered by the SWNCC before the National Security Act of 1947, only 6 cases were forwarded to the President for final resolution.

CONCLUSION:
The U.S. approach to Japan’s postwar reconstruction evolved as a response to perceived ineffectiveness in policy implementation. Ultimately though, the United States, through SWNCC’s interagency process, helped transform Japan from a pre-modern, semi-feudal nation into a modern, democratic capitalist state. The work of a relatively small group of military and civilian bureaucrats, led by political and military elites who cooperated closely in pursuit of common objectives, proved essential for achieving this change.

INTRODUCTION:
In late 1992, the United States intervened in Somalia to prevent fractious warlords from hindering the distribution of international food aid in the midst of widespread drought and economic collapse. U.S. forces performed admirably (as part of UNITAF) and ensured food distribution. After United Nations forces took over (UNOSOM II) and pursued a more ambitious reconstruction agenda, they ran into stiff armed resistance. Following several months of low-level conflict, the United States sent U.S. special operations forces to Somalia to neutralize the most troublesome warlord. The mission ended disastrously on October 3, 1993, when U.S. special operations forces were pinned down in a protracted engagement. After inflicting close to a thousand casualties on the enemy and losing eighteen soldiers, a UN relief force extracted the special operations forces . Shortly thereafter, the U.S. military withdrew from Somalia. The failed intervention had momentous consequences at home and abroad. The Somalia intervention also allows an examination of the U.S. government’s ability to integrate its instruments of national power, as represented by the multiple national security organizations involved.

STRATEGY:
Prior to and during UNITAF’s humanitarian operations, the National Security Council (NSC) operated without a strategy and on an ad hoc basis. The intervention was driven more by the president’s personal feelings than by sober calculations of national interest. The NSC was able to generate alternative courses of action, and to align its objectives with the means necessary to achieve them, but absent a controlling strategy the basic mission and resource issues were addressed in an ad hoc manner. Even so, the senior U.S. civilian and military representatives in Somalia developed a strategy for achieving the Bush Administration’s objectives without exceeding the available resources. By contrast, the Clinton Administration’s formal, coordinated and explicit policy for UNOSOM II was codified in a presidential decision directive that obscured the contradiction between Clinton Administration objectives and resources.

INTEGRATED ELEMENTS OF NATIONAL POWER:
Ambassador Robert Oakley and Lieutenant General Robert B. Johnston judiciously combined diplomacy and military power, never failing to keep open lines of communication and limiting the application of force to that which was necessary to ensure the delivery of aid. They integrated force with civic action and information campaigns to reassure the public that the UNITAF presence was ultimately benign. Unfortunately, the United States was not able to closely integrate the elements of national power well in crafting policy for the follow-on UNOSOM II mission. The interagency decision making system repeatedly failed, both in Washington and in the field. Interagency decision bodies were not able to develop common and iterative assessments of the resources required to execute U.S. policy. Neither could they develop common assessments of risks nor effective risk mitigation plans to hedge against undesirable outcomes.

EVALUATION:
The NSC, as well as other U.S. government assessment and decision making bodies, repeatedly papered over a fundamental mismatch between objectives and resources. Hope was a persistent but poor substitute for clear analysis as the U.S. government stumbled into a high risk, military-centric strategy, ignoring one warning after another that UNOSOM forces and special operations forces could not accomplish their assigned objectives. The decision making system did not respond nimbly to evolving circumstances or effectively coordinate its own policy decisions well, particularly with regards to managing the inherently complex and difficult two-track policy of pursuing military and political initiatives simultaneously. The national security apparatus could only digest and act on this reality slowly and incompletely–and as it turned out, too late to avoid being overtaken by events that should have been assessed as increasingly likely and prepared for accordingly much earlier.

RESULTS:
Washington’s failure to integrate elements of national power effectively produced a debacle that cost the United States a great deal besides lost lives. It created deep policy divisions in Washington and increased tensions between senior civilian and military leaders. Somalia effectively ended the Clinton Administration’s policy of assertive multilateralism and Les Aspin’s short career as Secretary of Defense. The failure disinclined the United States from intervening elsewhere, including in Rwanda where horrific internecine tribal conflict led to mass murder. In addition, the defeat undermined the credibility that the United States had acquired from the successful Gulf War the previous year. Arguably, Somalia also encouraged America’s enemies to challenge U.S. interests. Just as the most powerful Somali warlord bluntly told Ambassador Oakley that American failures in Vietnam and Beirut proved the United States did not have staying power, Osama Bin Laden and others similarly concluded from Somalia and other events that the United States lacked the will to protect its interests.

CONCLUSION:
The United States initially approached the intervention in Somalia with ad hoc decision making, but leaders in the field were able to impose their own strategy and integrate the elements of national power well. As the Clinton Administration took responsibility for the mission, it formally coordinated a strategy that was unclear and which failed to reconcile expansive objectives with limited means. Typical interagency structures and processes were inadequate. They tended to restrict the flow of information and generate compromise rather than clear alternative courses of action. The result was a severe failure with long-term repercussions for U.S. security interests.

INTRODUCTION:
The Iran-Contra affair resulted from two separate operations: the sale of arms to Iran in hopes that American hostages in Lebanon would be released and the supply of covert military aid to the Nicaraguan Contras waging an insurgency against the anti-American Nicaraguan government. While the diversion of profits from the arms deals to the Contras garnered the most attention at the time, the operations themselves represented a larger failure of the national security system. This study is important to the goals of the Project on National Security Reform (PNSR) in that it does not seek to assign blame or focus on the diversion of money, but instead aims to examine how lapses in the national security policy process resulted in two operations of dubious legality and efficacy.

STRATEGY:
The Reagan administration did not use the existing formal national security structures to conduct its covert policies towards Nicaragua and Iran. Instead, the operations involving Iran and the Contras were executed in an ad hoc manner. The consultative process and transparency of the National Security Council (NSC) and the executive departments were abandoned in favor of ad hoc decision-making by a small group of individuals.
In part, the strategy was a direct result of the struggle between the executive and congressional branches of government over authority to determine foreign policy. In 1982, Congress passed the Boland Amendments, which prohibited the Department of Defense (DOD), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), or any other government agency from providing military aid to the Contras. The White House viewed this as an attempt to limit its constitutional right to determine foreign policy and sought to bypass the legislation. To this end, Reagan shifted operational control of Contra policies from the CIA and DOD to the NSC staff, since the latter were not subject to formal congressional oversight and technically did not fall under the amendments’ restrictions.

INTEGRATED ELEMENTS OF NATIONAL POWER:
The President’s decision to bypass the NSC and the executive departments was due to a confluence of two factors—the executive-legislative struggle already mentioned and the internal conflicts within Reagan’s informal cabinet government. This led Reagan to grant his National Security Advisor (NSA) considerable powers to determine, implement, and execute foreign policy rather than simply facilitate decision-making.

Those agencies with the proper knowledge and skills to manage the operations in both Iran and Nicaragua—the CIA, the Department of State (DOS), and the DOD—were purposely bypassed because they were subject to congressional oversight. In addition, infighting prevented NSC principals from cooperating to form policy. DOS opposition to the arms deals and DOD’s refusal to run the Contra operation thus failed to influence actual events. The Secretaries of State and Defense remained outside the decision-making process and informational loop until the Iran-Contra affair was revealed in the press.

EVALUATION:
The conflict between the White House and Congress over control of foreign policy was the root cause of the Iran-Contra affair. This struggle resulted in the executive branch circumventing congressional controls to implement what it deemed were essential operations. Unfortunately, the means chosen—the operationalization of the NSC staff—proved ineffective. The NSA strictly controlled information about the administration’s policies regarding Iran and Nicaragua. While this approach allowed for greater secrecy and quicker decision-making, it did not facilitate improved decision-making or an appropriate level of debate about the policies to be implemented. As a result, policy implementation proved as problematic as policy formation. The NSC staff and NSA lacked the resources, capacity, or expertise to conduct Reagan’s foreign policies in Iran and Nicaragua independent of the other elements of the national security structure.

RESULTS:
The bypassing of the interagency decision-making structure led directly to the ill-advised operations in Iran and Nicaragua. By empowering only a few individuals with operational authority, a vital layer of discussion and open debate within the NSC was eliminated. This process allowed select actors to monopolize decision-making. They made errors in judgment and showed weakness in management.

The resulting policies worked at cross purposes. For example, trading arms for hostages undercut the State Department’s support for arms embargos against state sponsors of terrorism. The excessive role of the NSA and NSC staff also confused other U.S. government agencies as to who exercised authority over U.S. foreign policy. Such confusion allowed individuals to exploit the prestige of the White House to expand their authority far beyond their positions.

CONCLUSION:
The failure to properly debate the Iranian and Nicaraguan operations within the existing national security structure—which normally includes considerable congressional involvement—led to ad hoc and uncoordinated policies. This lack of integration directly contributed to the arms-for-hostages deal with Iran and allowed for continued covert assistance to the Contras despite congressional prohibitions and substantial opposition within the executive branch. Nevertheless, the Tower Commission, established to probe the Iran-Contra affair, ignored the larger implications of the scandal and did not recommend sufficiently comprehensive changes to the national security system.

INTRODUCTION:
Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States has sought to engage the newly independent Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan in three main areas: security, energy, and democracy promotion. Ultimately, an investigation of this effort is important to the Project on National Security Reform (PNSR) because it demonstrates the difficulties involved in interagency policy planning towards developing and unstable regions. The study specifically highlights the importance of balancing policy priorities and properly assessing the needs, fears, and expectations of our foreign partners.

STRATEGY:
Towards the end of the George H. W. Bush Administration and during the early Clinton years, the United States did not have a clear plan for implementing its objectives in Central Asia. The region was not a top priority of U.S. policy planning and U.S. government agencies largely considered Central Asia a strategic backwater. By the mid- to late-1990s though, Washington had identified three enduring objectives—energy, security, and democracy promotion—and would pursue them in that order, with varying degrees of success, until 2001. After 9/11, Central Asia’s strategic importance rose considerably as both a staging ground for operations in Afghanistan and a front line in the greater Global War on Terror. Security had become a chief U.S. priority in 2001. By 2003, however, another shift in Bush Administration policy saw democracy and human rights assume preeminent positions in policy planning, to the detriment of Washington’s other goals.

INTEGRATED ELEMENTS OF NATIONAL POWER:
During the Clinton Administration, U.S. policy was not well integrated. Responsibilities for the Central Asian region were divided between a number of agencies and departments. Various competing views of Central Asia existed and policy largely concentrated on neighboring countries, especially Russia, China, and Iran. This approach continued during the beginning months of the first George W. Bush administration, which focused its foreign policy on great power politics. After September 11, however, the United States became more deeply involved in the region. During the post-9/11 period, planning was largely split between the Departments of State and Defense. The U.S. Congress also complicated the decision making process by pressuring the executive branch to advocate for human rights and democratic reforms in Central Asia.

EVALUATION:
After successfully removing most Soviet-era weapons of mass destruction and related infrastructure from Central Asia, U.S. policy planners in the mid- to late-1990s saw few pressing security threats or great opportunities in the region. American planning thus focused on keeping Central Asia outside of great-power competition. This policy was successful, but created a regional security vacuum that Washington would have to manage when the U.S. presence increased considerably during the Bush Administration. Energy objectives were also partially successful as they achieved gains for US companies investing in Central Asia and agreement on the Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan pipeline. Yet, plans stalled for a Trans-Caspian pipeline and the Caspian Pipeline Consortium’s pipeline has succeeded in further linking Central Asia to Russia. Democracy promotion initiatives remained a low priority during this period.

After 9/11, the United States signed base agreements with both Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan and established a strong military and political presence in the region. Soon after signing partnership agreements with Uzbekistan, Washington’s relationship with Tashkent began to unravel. Unfulfilled expectations, State Department and congressional insistence on upholding U.S. human rights objectives in the wake of the Karimov government’s May 2005 crackdown at Andijan, combined with mixed messages from the Departments of State and Defense all contributed to a rupture in U.S.-Uzbek relations and the subsequent eviction of U.S. troops from the Karshi-Kanahbad military base.

RESULTS:
U.S.-Central Asian engagement has produced mixed results. Successes in some areas have coexisted with failure or neglect in others. The Clinton Administration achieved most of its nonproliferation goals and many of its energy objectives. Yet, the administration failed to make much progress on political reform issues, and its policies helped promote a regional security vacuum. During the Bush administration, U.S. officials were initially highly successful in securing Central Asian government support for U.S.-backed security initiatives, including backing for the intervention in Afghanistan. Washington’s democracy promotion strategy proved less successful, engendering suspicion and resistance from regional governments.

CONCLUSION:
Under both the Clinton and Bush administrations, various U.S. Government departments and agencies did not fully articulate their goals or resolve inconsistencies among U.S. goals. As a result, U.S. strategies achieved only mixed results in a region that has become of elevated importance to the United States.

INTRODUCTION:
U.S. government security practices and structures proved ineffective in managing the bitter intra-state conflicts, complex emergencies, and ethnic cleansing associated with the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo. An examination of the Washington’s response to these is highly relevant to the Project on National Security Reform (PNSR) because they heralded many characteristics of the post-Cold War security environment that continue to challenge U.S. interagency processes. Among others, these features include applying alliances beyond Cold War missions and conducting humanitarian interventions and other complex contingency operations.

STRATEGY:
The U.S. government failed to develop a coherent strategy in the first three years of the Bosnian war. Instead, an ad hoc, reactive stance allowed the belligerents to control the tempo of events. Although the Kosovo approach was developed increasingly within the interagency process, the strategy nonetheless failed to adequately integrate force and diplomacy.

INTEGRATED ELEMENTS OF NATIONAL POWER:
Prior to Operation Deliberate Force and the Kosovo War, U.S. policies did not integrate diplomatic and military might. Force and diplomacy were eventually coordinated in Bosnia, but with difficulty and in a halting manner. In Kosovo, elements of national power were also inefficiently coordinated, turning what should have been a quick war into a drawn out and unproductive endeavor.

EVALUATION:
The U.S. response in Bosnia and Kosovo was weak primarily due to the lack of integrated analysis and planning between the diplomatic corps and the military. The State and Defense Departments proceeded from a shallow analysis, based on the assumption that the war resulted from atavistic ethnic hatred, and developed policy options centered on protecting departmental equities. Consequently, officials presented the president, Bill Clinton, with policies that could not be integrated.

Even when the National Security Council (NSC) dictated a strategy, the State and Defense Departments could not cooperate well due to their disparate perspectives on desired goals. Another shortcoming in the U.S. strategy was that no individual beneath the president could navigate the full political-military spectrum with authority and competency. In Bosnia and Kosovo, moreover, the military improperly interfered in political decisions and diplomats meddled in military matters. This led to tremendous tensions between State and Defense. In the Balkans, the absence of an official who could effectively manage, or at least understand, force and diplomacy proved detrimental to operations. In both Bosnia and Kosovo, effective management and implementation often resulted from ad hoc organizations and fait accompli decisions.

RESULTS:
The interagency struggle eroded Washington’s ability to take decisive action, reduced the credibility of American power, and made it difficult for Washington to lead the global response to the crisis. This impotence prolonged the Balkan crises very likely increasing its human and financial costs. In addition, collective security as a concept and NATO as an organization suffered serious blows. Even after U.S. officials decided to take action in Bosnia and Kosovo, the gap between diplomats and war fighters produced a policy that could not link political and military means and ends. Thus, Washington was able to end the wars but not establish a stable end-state, leaving problems (especially unresolved ethnic and international tensions) for U.S. national security policy that persist to this day.

CONCLUSION:
The U.S. government failed to develop a coherent strategy in the first three years of the Bosnian war, primarily due to a lack of integrated analysis and planning between diplomats and the military. As a result, the interagency process did not formulate policies for presidential consideration in an effective manner. The President received options that were both too few and too contradictory. This led to an ad hoc, ever-changing policy, most often characterized as “muddling through.”

Eventually, the NSC bypassed the interagency process to create a strategy. However, once the policy had been determined, the Departments of Defense and State struggled with implementation, which required the coordination of force and diplomacy. Many of these features also typified Washington’s handling of the Kosovo situation, demonstrating a poor learning curve despite the imperative of responding effectively to one of the most serious national security challenges confronting the United States during the 1990s.

INTRODUCTION:
For several decades, the U.S. government has sought to improve the counterterrorist capabilities of foreign governments. Two of the most prominent initiatives in this area include the Antiterrorism Training Assistance (ATA) program, first launched in 1983, and the counter-terrorism financing (CTF) assistance program, which began after the 1998 African embassy bombings and was expanded after 9/11. Because interagency cooperation has been especially critical to the successful and timely provision of foreign counterterrorist training, an examination of the management and organization of these initiatives is highly relevant to the Project on National Security Reform (PNSR).

STRATEGY:
Systematic procedures guide the management and implementation of the ATA and CTF programs. The Department of State (DOS) is the lead agency for coordinating, supporting, developing, and implementing all U.S. government policies and programs aimed at countering international terrorism. Within the DOS, the Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism (S/CT) provides policy guidance and coordinates the activities of the relevant foreign capacity building initiatives. Through participation in the Counterterrorism Security Group (CSG) Training and Assistance Sub-Group (TASG), S/CT oversees the operation of the ATA program, which is implemented in the field by the Bureau of Diplomatic Security (DS). To select participant countries, S/CT develops a three-tiered list of priority nations based on the potential terrorist threats to that state, the extent of U.S. interests at stake, the extent of the country’s current anti-terror capabilities, and the political will of its government to advance counterterrorism initiatives. Once a participant country has been identified, DS and ATA officials conduct an assessment of its anti-terrorism training needs. They then draft a comprehensive country plan, which outlines a specific program of training courses for the given country. The actual training is provided by ATA experts as well as personnel from other federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies, police associations, and private security firms.

CTF assistance is developed, coordinated, and implemented by the Terrorist Financing Working Group (TFWG) which reports to the CSG TASG. Established after the 9/11 attacks and co-led by the State Department’s Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) and S/CT, the TFWG is an interagency body whose participants include the Departments of Justice, Treasury, and Homeland Security, among others. To build comprehensive anti-money laundering and counterterrorist regimes, the TFWG: prioritizes countries’ needs based on intelligence and law enforcement judgments; dispatches interagency Financial Systems Assessment Teams to assess countries’ current CTF capabilities; drafts formal assessments and training plans; implements training; and promotes burden sharing with allies as well as international financial institutions.

INTEGRATED ELEMENTS OF NATIONAL POWER:
Interagency tensions have, at times, frustrated coordination of U.S. counterterrorism programs. In ATA’s formative period, for example, agencies sometimes provided training without coordinating with the State Department. Similarly, interagency conflict initially complicated the development and delivery of CTF capacity programs due to rivalries between the Departments of State and Treasury. In addition, though both State and Treasury fund CTF capacity building, to date the departments have not typically coordinated budget requests.

Overall, participating agencies work well together in implementing counter-terror training. ATA cooperation improved after the creation of TASG in 1986. With regard to CTF assistance, officials note that cross-agency tensions eased as informal interagency relationships became better established.

EVALUATION:
Interagency mechanisms, manifested in the CSG, its TASG, and the TFWG, have effectively designed, deliberated, and deployed anti-terror capacity-building programs. Increasingly regular contact among officials has helped facilitate coordination to an extent that may have been difficult when agencies’ representatives met only on an ad hoc basis. Consistent attention at high levels, especially among S/CT leadership, is also critical for ensuring that program guidance does not drift and that other agencies do not offer training without coordination. ATA performance also depends on Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and congressionally approved budget appropriations. State Department leadership has not always been entirely successful in securing additional funding. The complexity of accurately measuring the effectiveness of ATA programs has exacerbated the difficulty of procuring budget requests. ATA and CTF resource limitations make adequate staffing a challenge, especially for CTF, as financial expertise is handsomely rewarded in the private sector. A lack of centralized funding for CTF capacity building has also engendered agency rivalries.

RESULTS:
The available evidence indicates that ATA and CTF endeavors have supported and defended U.S. security interests by improving the operational effectiveness of foreign counterterrorism officials. The ATA has achieved notable successes, training and assisting more than 60,000 foreign security and law enforcement officials from 161 countries. CTF capacity building has also directly contributed to counterterrorist operations and helped reduce terrorist financing. In addition, the programs have established beneficial working relationships between U.S. officials and their foreign counterparts.

CONCLUSION:
The achievements of capacity building initiatives demonstrate that a clear, institutionalized interagency coordinating structure can administer small interagency programs effectively. Within this structure, informal working relationships and individual leadership remain key components of programmatic success.

INTRODUCTION:
In this future scenario, Chinese aggression towards Taiwan provides the impetus for Sino-U.S. military confrontation. During the beginning stages of conflict, the technologically superior and network-centric United States military is quickly devastated. The damage was not inflicted by conventional weapons, but was instead caused by electronic connectors – small, seemingly harmless connective devices used to join electrical circuits together, which are absolutely critical to everything using power. By activating imbedded programming in these electronic connectors, the Chinese are able to neutralize the defense, attack, and navigation capabilities within every system on U.S. ships, submarines, and aircraft. Because Beijing controls two-thirds of the world’s supply of these connective devices, the Chinese are able to infiltrate, deliberately and strategically, the U.S. military and industrial base and target four of the military’s primary weapons systems.

The purpose of this scenario is not to convince the reader that information and technological warfare with China are inevitable, but to expose flaws and weaknesses within the national security apparatus. This hypothetical case calls attention to potential dangers of not addressing current weaknesses in our defense industrial base and global supply chain. It also highlights the importance of evaluating assumptions and questioning the meaning of events in order to better prepare for the future.

STRATEGY:
For the last 30 years, through mergers, joint ventures, outright acquisition and industrial espionage, the Chinese have gained access to and control of sensitive technologies. This is especially true in the electronics industry. In this scenario, China’s control of electronic connector production, combined with the ability of Chinese manufacturers to provide a multitude of components for at least four critical weapons systems (both of which are realities) allows for extensive infiltration of the U.S. industrial and military supply base. The infiltration was made even easier because virtually all ocean-borne shipping servicing the industrial base supply chain was Chinese-owned, providing multiple opportunities to control or deny movement of components and permitting the Chinese to disrupt the supply chain at will.

INTEGRATED ELEMENTS OF NATIONAL POWER:
The military and economic elements of national power are ineffectively managed and integrated in this scenario. The major players in this type of situation include the Departments of State, Defense, Commerce, Treasury, Transportation, and the interagency Committee for Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) process. All these actors, as well as Congress, influence how and where our weapon systems should be manufactured and how their supply chains should be managed. Unfortunately, the monitoring of the supply chain proves insufficient and issues like “electronic connectors” go unnoticed because they are considered commodities. Because no one is responsible for the “big picture,” no one is in the position to identify dangerous patterns as they emerge. In fact, there are no U.S. government personnel dedicated exclusively to overarching strategy with a long term view. In addition, high-impact, low probability contingencies are of little interest to busy politicians who have no immediate incentive to express concern or initiate change.

EVALUATION:
The contracting supply chain consists of tiers. The higher the tier, the closer the supplier is to the finished product. Depending on the number of times a given component goes from one supplier to another, the number of tiers increases. The production process can consist of as many as ten tiers, but currently the United States only documents prime and subcontractors to the fourth tier. Beyond that, it is next to impossible to develop additional supplier identification data. The Department of Defense does not require component origins identification beyond the third tier, making maintaining cohesion and program security within the manufacturing and supply base extremely problematic. In addition, in 1991 the Defense Department’s Strategic Acquisition Initiative made it a requirement for U.S. defense contractors to look first to COTS (Commercial Off-The-Shelf) products when developing new technology and upgrades. The motivation for using COTS components is that they will reduce overall system development costs and save development time since they can be bought instead of being manufactured from scratch.

RESULTS:
Gradual reductions in standards and shortsightedness have created extensive security systems compromises. National security vulnerabilities are literally built into our offensive, defensive and detection systems as economy and competitiveness, not security and performance, are the overarching parameters of Department of Defense supplier participation. In addition, the atmosphere created by the COTS mandate within the U.S. supplier base has led many to ignore the Berry Amendment, which calls for specialty metals critical to national security to be sourced only in the United States.

CONCLUSION:
This scenario is not about fantasy or prediction but practical reasoning and logical deduction. The root causes for failure are real, not imaginary. Weaknesses in our defense industrial base supply chain, dependency on third-party vendors, continual disregard for the Berry Amendment and lack of foresight regarding the interplay between global economy and national security are making the United States unnecessarily vulnerable to a wide range of potential dangers. Even though the threats that will emerge in the future are likely beyond our current commitments and contemplations, it would be a mistake to limit our ideas about the future by the narrow experiences of our past. While it can be dangerous to hold rigid beliefs about tomorrow, preparedness requires seeing possibilities before they become obvious and making wise decisions today.