[Infowarrior] - Report: National Security Reform and Classification Policy

[Richard Forno]

ational Security Reform and Classification Policy


http://pnsr.org/web/module/press/pressid/136/interior.asp

The Project on National Security Reform Releases Recommendations  
Urging Sweeping Changes to Improve U.S. National Security System


WASHINGTON-- The national security system must be massively  
reorganized if federal agencies are to cooperate and collaborate more  
effectively to combat the multitude of threats facing the U.S. in the  
21st century, according to recommendations released today by the  
Project on National Security Reform (PNSR).

The PNSR recommendations outlined in Forging A New Shield would  
replace a national security system created 60 years ago, that despite  
many marginal attempts to reform, often discourages agencies from  
working together on joint assignments and policy implementation to  
respond to crises and effectively manage national security affairs.

The recommendations comprise a broad set of mandates to improve the  
national security system by streamlining integrated strategy and  
policy among agencies and programs, improving coordination with a  
newly established network for sharing information, providing better  
job training for employees and consolidating Congressional oversight,  
the report says.

Among the PNSR’s key recommendations are:
           • Establishing a President’s Security Council to replace  
the National Security Council and
              Homeland Security.
           • Creating an empowered Director for National Security in  
the Executive Office of the
              President.
           • Initiating the process of shifting highly collaborative,  
mission-focused interagency
              teams for priority issues.
           • Mandating annual National Security Planning Guidance and  
an integrated national
              security budget.
           • Building an interagency personnel system, including a  
National Security
              Professional Corps.
           • Establishing a Chief Knowledge Officer in the PSC  
Executive Secretariat to ensure that
              the national security system as a whole can develop,  
store,retrieve and share
              knowledge.
           • Forming Select Committees on National Security in the  
Senate and House of
              Representatives.


“To respond effectively and efficiently to the complex, rapidly  
changing threats and challenges of the 21st century security  
environment requires tight integration of the expertise and  
capabilities of many diverse departments and agencies,” says PNSR  
Executive Director James R. Locher III. “Current organizational  
arrangements provide only weak mechanism for such integration.”

PNSR’s Locher presented the recommendations today during a press  
conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. The 800-page  
report culminates two years of study in which more than 300 national  
security experts identified the problems within the system, and  
produced more than 100 case studies to document the research and  
analysis.

Since the passage of the National Security Act in 1947, the world has  
changed dramatically from the single Cold War threat to a multitude of  
diverse challenges – ranging from rogue regimes to terrorists to  
transnational criminals. The terrorist attacks of 9/11, troubled  
stability operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and inadequate response  
to Hurricane Katrina provide compelling evidence of the inadequacy of  
the current system.

Twenty-two members of the PNSR Guiding Coalition, which includes  
former senior federal officials with extensive national security  
experience, unanimously agreed that the U.S. national security system  
needs reform. Joining Locher at the conference were Guiding Coalition  
members former U.S. Pacific Commander-in-Chief Dennis G. Blair, former  
Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Admiral James M. Loy, former  
Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency John McLaughlin and  
former Permanent Representative to the United Nations Ambassador  
Thomas Pickering.

“The focus must shift to national missions and outcomes,” says Admiral  
James M. Loy, former deputy secretary of Homeland Security. “This will  
require strategic direction to produce unity of purpose and more  
collaboration to achieve unity of effort.”

Through its research and analysis, PNSR has determined the following  
problems with the current system:
           • The system is grossly imbalanced, favoring strong  
departmental capabilities at the
              expense of integrating mechanism.
           • Executive Branch department and agencies are shaped by  
their narrowly defined core
              mandates rather than by the requisites of broader  
national missions.
           • The need for presidential integration to compensate for  
the systematic inability to
              integrate or resource missions overly centralizes issues  
management and overburdens
              the White House.
           • A burdened White House cannot manage the national  
security system as a whole to be
              agile and collaborative at any time, but it is  
particularly vulnerable to breakdown during
              protracted transition periods  between administrations.
           • Congress provides resources and conducts oversight in  
ways that reinforce all these
              problems and make improving performance extremely  
difficult.


CONTACT
media at pnsr.org
Judith Evans
(703) 387-7610 (o)
(202) 679-6668 (c)

http://pnsr.org/web/module/press/pressid/136/interior.asp