ENCYCLOPEDIA OF Espionage, Intelligence, and Security Volume ...

Clinton Administration, United States National Security PolicyPresident Bill Clinton, at the head of the table, meets with national security advisors at the White House in November 1995, to discuss the peace agreement inBosnia. AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS.age during the Vietnam War and he saw national securitythrough the prism of that conflict. Vietnam shaped theClinton administration in two ways: it made the presidentreluctant to commit troops to combat and it damaged hisstanding with the military because he had not served inthe military during the conflict. The relative worldwidecalm after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and theAmerican triumph in the Persian Gulf War made themarginalization of overseas issues politically possible.As his first national security measure, Clinton issueda presidential directive to revise and rename the frameworkgoverning the work of the National Security Council.The previous Bush administration’s National Security Review(NSR) and National Security Directive (NSD) serieswere abolished in favor of a Presidential Review Directive(PRD). The administration would use PRD to re-evaluatesecurity classifications and the safeguarding of systems toensure that they were in line with the reality of the currentdangers instead of the threat potential that had existedduring the Cold War.The second presidential directive (PRD-2) establisheda new NSC structure, with a broader emphasis on economicissues than in previous administrations. PRD- 2 alsoEncyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence, and Securityestablished three levels of deliberative committees underthe NSC: a principals committee of main NSC meetings, adeputies committee including deputy chiefs of key agencies,and working groups on a variety of issues. WarrenChristopher served as Secretary of State, with AnthonyLake heading the NSC until his replacement by his deputySamuel R. “Sandy” Berger in 1997.The Clinton administration argued that the end of theCold War permitted the U.S. to shift to a foreign policy thatrested on support for such values as democracy, marketeconomics, humanitarian relief, and genocide suppression.PRD-20 had recommended this overhaul of U.S.policies after concluding that foreign aid programs wereoften wasteful, incoherent, and inconsistent with U.S.objectives. The most urgent issues that the NSC dealt within the first years of the Clinton administration were Bosnia(genocide suppression), Haiti (democracy and humanitarianrelief), Iraq (strategic arms control), and Somalia (humanitarianrelief). Most of the PRDs remain classified, butit is known that the NSC system also dealt with illegaldrugs, United Nations peacekeeping, and global environmentalaffairs.217