WASHINGTON, DC – PNSR President and CEO James R. Locher III testified today before the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee in a hearing on “Interagency National Security Reform: Pragmatic Steps Towards a More Integrated Future.” In his testimony, Locher presented ten pragmatic near-term steps that can be taken to move forward on creating a more effective and functional interagency national security system (below).

Also appearing before the committee were: Dr. Gordon Adams, Distinguished Fellow, Henry L. Stimson Center; Dr. James R. Thompson, Associate Professor of Public Administration, University of Illinois – Chicago; and Mr. John Pendleton, Director of Force Structure and Planning Issues for the Defense Capabilities and Management Team, U.S. Government Accountability Office.

On the potential for action, Locher told Chairman Vic Snyder (D-AR) and other subcommittee members that “there is much that can—and must—be done today. Each recommended reform step would contribute significantly to integrating and improving the overall national security system. Collectively these steps are only part of the needed national security reform, but they are synergistic, practical, doable, and necessary.”

See the oral testimony here and video here.

For further comment please contact:

Project on National Security Reform
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Pragmatic, Near-Term Steps for Consideration by the
Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the
House Armed Services Committee

1. Require the president to submit an implementation plan for the organizational changes prescribed by the new National Security Strategy.

2. Require the assistant to the president for national security affairs to submit a plan for achieving the needed organizational capacity of the National Security Staff pursuant to the National Security Strategy.

3. Commission a ten-year road map for the entire national security reform agenda.

4. Require the president to conduct a Quadrennial National Security Review to establish the security goals and priorities of the United States.

5. Require the director of the Office of Management and Budget to submit illustrative, integrated budgets for two mission areas – combating terrorism and development – with the President’s Budget Request for FY2012.

6. Establish an interagency personnel system to create the proper incentives, education, and training for personnel assigned to interagency positions.

7. Establish a Center for Organizational Performance at the National Defense University or another institution that would undertake comprehensive assessments of organizational performance in the national security community.

8. Require the secretary of defense and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to submit a plan on how they intend to improve the curricula of the military war colleges to provide an appropriate level of education on interagency affairs and national security reform.

9. Require the director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) to submit a plan for overcoming obstacles to improved performance by NCTC, especially by its Directorate of Strategic Operational Planning.

10. Hold joint hearings with a subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee (maybe the Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights and Oversight, as it aligns with this subcommittee in its oversight and investigations jurisdiction) to examine interagency issues.
a. National Security Strategy
b. Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Iraq and Afghanistan
c. Commander’s Emergency Response Program (CERP)
d. Strategic communications programs of departments and agencies

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