Download Locations:
Summary:
There is a growing consensus among many national security practitioners and scholars, across the political spectrum, broadly in favor of reforming the interagency system to encourage a more effective application of all elements of national power. The reform debates have included proposals to establish and foster an interagency cadre of national security specialists from all relevant departments and agencies. According to proponents, cadre members, through a long-term career development program that might include education, training, and exchange tours in other agencies, would gain a better understanding of the mandates, capabilities, and cultures of other agencies. They would become better prepared to plan national security missions together in Washington, D.C., and to execute them in the field, and eventually, better able to oversee their own agencies' efforts from leadership positions. As a rule, such proposals have not been aimed solely at creating individual specialists. Rather, just as the Goldwater-Nichols reforms in the Department of Defense (DOD) sought to foster greater "jointness" among the Services, "interagency cadre" proposals have also aimed to adjust the organizational cultures of all agencies with national security responsibilities, in order to make interagency collaboration and integration second nature. Such recommendations are not new, but they were given a new sense of urgency by recent operational experiences at home and abroad -- from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to the responses to Hurricane Katrina -- which suggested insufficiencies in the abilities of the U.S. government to integrate the various components of its efforts. Reflecting the growing interest, in 2008 on Capitol Hill, several committees, including the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Armed Services Committee, have held hearings and sponsored other projects addressing interagency reform, including proposals for fostering closer integration among agencies. Meanwhile, in 2007, the Bush Administration quietly launched an initiative, the National Security Professional Development (NSPD) program, aimed at fostering an interagency cadre of national security practitioners. The still-inchoate NSPD program includes a national strategy, an organizational structure, and a pilot educational program, but to date, it has apparently enjoyed very little visibility on the Hill. Lessons learned from the early NSPD efforts could prove valuable for those Members considering the establishment of a permanent legislative requirement for an interagency cadre program. This report highlights key past proposals for the establishment of an interagency cadre, including their rationales; describes and assesses the emergence and operations to date of the Administration's NSPD program; and raises a series of issues that might help inform congressional debates about a possible permanent interagency cadre requirement. The report will be updated as events warrant.
