NEW BLOG: Does General Jones Have a Future in National Security Reform?
Does General Jones Have a Future in National Security Reform?
By Dr. Christopher J. Lamb, Director of Center for Strategic Studies, and Dr. James Douglas Orton, Center for Strategic Research
The announcement on Friday, October 8, 2010, that General James L. Jones was stepping down from the position of national security advisor has triggered numerous discussions by journalists, bloggers, and experts about the characteristics of an effective national security advisor.
Now is a good time for the INSS to offer the blog entry below for a rereading. “Does General Jones Have a Future in National Security?” was written collaboratively by INSS and Project on National Security Reform researchers in late June 2009. Drs. Christopher Lamb and James Douglas Orton identified an early schism within the Obama National Security Staff between the reformers (represented by Jones) trying to create strategic management capabilities for the national security system as a whole, and the traditionalists (represented by Donilon) trying to maintain the White House’s crisis management culture. With Donilon replacing Jones, the question of the national security advisor’s role is once again much in the news, a subject this blog entry from last year reviews in detail.
In their well-researched analysis, Drs. Christopher Lamb and James Douglas Orton identified an early schism within the Obama National Security Staff between the reformers (represented by Jones) trying to create strategic management capabilities for the national security system as a whole, and the traditionalists (represented by Donilon) trying to maintain the White House's crisis management culture.
Now that Donilon is in charge, the question of the day is the following: Will the Obama National Security Staff maintain the fledgling national security strategic management capabilities that Jones was starting to build, or will it revert to the more limited roles of crisis management that Donilon supervised?
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