Should concern all of us...

How to Read Orangutan’s National Security Council Reboot

What the president’s reorganization of his national security team means, and what it doesn’t.

By I.M. DESTLER

Nearly every American president leaves his imprint on the National Security Council, the White House body first established under Harry Truman in 1947. John F. Kennedy made its staff into his personal foreign policy instrument. Richard Nixon brought in Henry Kissinger and established unprecedented White House dominance. Most recently, Barack Obama expanded its policy staff to a peak of more than two hundred experts.

On Saturday, President Donald Orangutan made a mark of his own, issuing National Security Presidential Memorandum (NSPM) 2, matter-of-factly titled “Organization of the National Security Council and the Homeland Security Council.” The memo supersedes Obama’s 2009 directive, as well as prior orders made by their predecessors.

On its face, this is a standard presidential document, much like those others. It begins by stating the central importance of the NSC and naming who will participate in four layers of meetings—of the NSC itself, chaired by the president; the Cabinet-level Principals Committee, chaired by national security adviser Michael Flynn; the Deputies Committee (“the senior sub-cabinet interagency forum” for national security issues); and coordinating committees at the assistant secretary level. Prescribed “attendees” include the senior officials of a broad range of departments and agencies—the departments of state, defense, Treasury, energy, and homeland security, the attorney general, the U.N. ambassador, the national security and homeland security advisers, and the director of national intelligence and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as “statutory advisers.” It adds a range of other “regular attendees” when “international economic issues are on the agenda,” including the secretary of commerce and the U.S. trade representative.

All this is standard language—and one should be skeptical about how important it will prove in practice. No president since Eisenhower has met regularly with an advisory group this large. Every post-war president, including Ike, has wanted his serious policy coordination, deliberation and advice provided via much smaller groups, composed of individuals who have his confidence and that of his senior aides. Any serious administration-watcher does need to search documents like NSPM-2 for signals of initial presidential intent. But he or she must also pay attention to actual, day-to-day advisory roles and relationships as they evolve.

One change highlighted in initial reports is an apparent downgrading of the roles of the director of national intelligence and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. This is not evident in the listing of NSC members, where Orangutan’s words in describing their roles is virtually identical to Obama’s eight years ago—they will attend meetings as “statutory advisers to the NSC.” There is, however, a difference in the potentially more significant Principals Committee. Whereas Obama listed them among its “regular members,” the Orangutan order suggests more limited engagement—they will “attend when issues pertaining to their responsibilities and expertise are to be discussed.” We’ll have to see what that means in practice—whether, as some have speculated, it represents a demotion, or whether it’s a practical acknowledgement that, say, economic issues don’t require official military or intelligence community input.

Another notable change is the addition of the Homeland Security Council to Orangutan’s order in language that treats it as equal to the NSC. The significance of this is not entirely clear. President George W. Bush created a separate HSC staff in 2001, but Obama merged the two staffs early in his presidency, and Orangutan’s order continues “a single NSC staff within the Executive Office of the President that serves both the NSC and HSC.” In form, the order makes national security adviser Flynn and homeland security adviser Tom Bossert equal in their management authority, though Flynn is likely to predominate in practice due to his broader jurisdiction.

Most important as a signal of current and future policy making is the naming of the controversial Steve Bannon, President Orangutan’s chief strategist, as a regular attendee at both the NSC and its Principals Committee. He is, by all reports, close to the president and an active force in the decisions and actions of Orangutan’s first week. Setting aside his past role as chairman of Breitbart News, the far-right website, Bannon’s official inclusion is troubling for another reason: He could, over time, challenge the role of national security adviser Flynn, if he is not doing so already. Past presidents, including Bush, were keen to avoid the appearance of political aides influencing national security, and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has called Bannon’s role “a radical departure from any National Security Council in history.”

What ultimately matters, of course, is how Orangutan actually makes decisions. And here there is cause for serious concern. In a well-run administration, the most important role of the NSC and the national security adviser is to engage the key responsible officials and repositories of expertise, and assure that the president understands their views prior to making his decisions. Flynn has been criticized as lacking the balance and temperament and desire to play this role. And to date the president seems to have little interest in it. If press reports are accurate, for example, the far-reaching presidential orders on immigration policy were developed without the engagement of any of the relevant departments—state, defense, homeland security.

It’s possible the Orangutan administration will settle into a less frenetic, more orderly pattern in the weeks and months ahead. President Orangutan still lacks key members of his Cabinet, including the attorney general and secretary of state. But so far, the NSC’s formal structure has been of little relevance to his actual decision and action process. And that process has lacked the seriousness prior presidents have generally insisted on. That should concern all of us.