Interview of GENERAL JAMES L. JONES, USMC - The Stimson Center

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you can usually hear their heels clicking together even as civilian agencies. Was that your experience? JONES: I found that the biggest imperative to get right with a new administration is to make sure that you’re as well‐organized as you can be as to how it’s going to work. And I think the biggest challenge was to … and for me it was difficult because I did not know the president elect very well, I had met him maybe half a dozen times. I knew no one in the West Wing. So on January 20 th everybody came together, really, for the first time. There may have been a couple of meetings in Chicago, but there wasn’t a lot of overlap. So the real challenge, I think, was to figure out very quickly what works for this president: How is it that you can best serve? How is it you can best organize what your area of responsibility is to provide that service? We—in the research and discussions—figured out that he was very much a bottom‐up type person. In other words, that the decisions were going to be made, at least on national security, were going to be driven by a centrifugal force known as the National Security Council, around which the interagency would pivot, with a couple of absolute requirements: one is, that it be an inclusive process, and that anyone who has equities, or stakeholders in the interagency should be at the table through the four levels of decision‐making, starting with the Working Groups, and the Deputy’s Committee, and the Principals Committee, and then the full NSC. That was very exciting, actually, to be able to recreate a National Security Council that was somewhat different in terms of its operation, that certainly wasn’t top‐down driven, but—as I said—was bottom‐up, was very inclusive in terms of the participation around the table. And to be able to interview, and even hire, really quality people, but also make them believe in this system. And there were many ways in which we did that. But at the end of the day I think some of the things we did early on, we guessed right on. One was combining Homeland Security and the National Security Council, which was a very good move as it turns out. And the personalities mesh very well at the leadership position and also at the staff level. There were some things, though, that we could have done better. The budget for the National Security Council on January 20, 2009 was about $6 million, and we were $2 million in the hole on January 21 st . The real budget for the National Security Council after two years there was about—should be about—$24 million. We’ve never been able to get it to that level, which is disappointing to me, and I put it in my final report I think, that as important as that organization is to basically making the trains run on time and keeping the plates balanced on the bamboo poles so that they don’t come crashing down all at once, is difficult, and it’s got to be—Jim Locher and I have talked about this before—it’s got to have (the NSC, in order to be successful), in my view has to have agency‐like qualities, but at a very small level. It has to have a budget, it has to be funded, and too often it runs on a lick and a promise.
BLOOMFIELD: It has changed in size, though, over the decades; it’s been small, and it’s been large. What’s the right size today—and looking forward—for the NSC staff? JONES: If you agree that the National Security portfolio is more diverse now than ever before—in other words, it’s not just about the Defense Department, and a little bit of the State Department, and the NSC—but it includes things like cybersecurity, it includes the family of asymmetric threats, it includes economic issues. And you have to build in the communications system to make sure that you have competent people branching out to other agencies and departments, I think the total NSC commitment—I’m talking about from the National Security Advisor to a watchstander in the situation room—is about 350 people. BLOOMFIELD: You mentioned economics. You combined Homeland and NSC, but there was an Economic Security Council. There are certainly economic advisors, finance has always been a special province in our government and in others—walled off from other agencies—and yet the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mullen said not long ago that debt is our number one threat, above all of the other major national security threats. JONES: And he offered to return some of the money that we … [Laughter.] BLOOMFIELD: Well, he may have a chance before the handover. The economy of effort at large does seem to be a theme that’s suddenly being imposed on the United States of America, and I guess my question is: Should there be so many walls between competencies? Is economics really so far afield from national security at this point? JONES: No, and to the contrary Linc, I think national security… I mean from my standpoint I think one of our biggest challenges … I mean the Chairman said that, and I would say an equal concern of mine, which is a national security concern, would be our competitiveness globally. As a matter of fact one of the things I will never forget about my tour as National Security Advisor is the day the President asked me to lead a small delegation composed of the Secretary of Commerce, the US Trade Representative, the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense up to Capitol Hill to talk to the leadership about the need for export control reform as a national security issue. This is a 21 st century issue, and how we handle this issue is going to affect the United States. I came back from my tour in Europe and Africa as NATO [Supreme Allied Commander] really despondent about the number of times I heard leaders in Europe and Africa say “you know, we really appreciate the United States coming
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Interview of GENERAL JAMES L. JONES, USMC - The Stimson Center

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