Intelligence_ From Secrets to Policy - Mark M. Lowenthal [136]
The principal interest of the State Department is maintaining diplomatic relations as a means of furthering U.S. policy interests. Critics of the State Department argue that Foreign Service officers sometimes forget which nation they represent, becoming advocates for the nations on which they have expertise instead of for the United States.
DOD is primarily concerned with having a military capability sufficient to deter hostile nations from using force or to defeat any threats as quickly as possible. Critics of DOD hold that the department overestimates its needs and threats and requires too large a margin against any potential foe. In response to the Vietnam War, the unofficial but influential rules for the use of force promulgated by Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger (1981-1987) and JCS chairman Gen. Colin L. Powell (1989-1993) set high requirements for domestic political support and force preponderance before any troops are committed. The protracted struggle in Iraq (2003- ) will probably result in a renewed debate over the Weinberger and Powell requirements. It may also reflect the debate between Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (2001-2006) and Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki (1999-2003), who argued that more troops would be needed to occupy Iraq than had been allocated.
DHS is responsible for coordinating the activities of many long-standing agencies, including the Coast Guard, Immigration and Naturalization, the Border Patrol, and the Secret Service. It has also established new components. DHS seeks to prevent new terrorist attacks in the United States and serves as a bridge between the federal government and state and local law enforcement agencies on domestic security issues. DHS has had to deal with a difficult structure, as it tries to meld together the activities of several former independent agencies or offices taken from other departments, as well as the issue of determining what it is that DHS is responsible for. (See chap. 12 for a broader discussion of the intelligence implications of this doctrinal issue.)
The NSC, as constituted by law, consists of the president, the vice president, and the secretaries of state and defense. The chairman of the JCS serves as the military adviser; the director of national intelligence (DNI) is subordinate to the NSC and serves as the intelligence adviser. As a corporate group, the NSC meets irregularly. The Principals Committee (called the PC) is made up of the NSC members (less the president) and is presided over by the national security adviser. The Deputies Committee (DC) meets more often. The NSC staff, which reports to the national security adviser, consists of career civil servants, military officers, and political appointees who have day-to-day responsibility for conveying the wishes of the president to the policy and intelligence communities and for coordinating among the departments and agencies. The NSC staff is primarily interested in the execution of policy as defined by the president and senior presidential appointees.
The intelligence community has no policy interests per se, although it wants to be kept informed about the course of policy to make a contribution to it.
POLICY DYNAMICS. Policy makers often refer to the “interagency process” or “the interagency.” The term reflects the involvement of any and all necessary agencies and players in the process. The ultimate goal of the U.S. policy process is to arrive at a consensus that all parties can support. But consensus in the U.S. bureaucratic system means agreement down to the last detail of any paper being considered.
The process has no override mechanism,