- The Oxford Handbook of U.S. National Security
- About the Editors
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Foreword: U.S. National Security for the Twenty-First Century
- Introduction: Shape and Scope of U.S. National Security
- America’s Foreign Policy Traditions
- National Interests and Grand Strategy
- U.S. Foreign Policymaking and National Security
- Civil-Military Relations
- The Presidency and Decision Making
- The National Security Council: Is It Effective, or Is It Broken?
- The National Security Process
- Intelligence and National Security Decision Making
- Congress and National Security
- Diplomacy, the State Department, and National Security
- Development Assistance: Rationale and Applications
- Understanding and Improving U.S. Financial Sanctions
- The Political Economy of Security
- Budgeting for National Security
- Military Force Planning and National Security
- Military Operations and the Defense Department
- Alliances, Military Basing, and Logistics
- Homeland Security
- The United States and Iran: Challenges of Deterrence and Compellence
- U.S. Nuclear Strategy: The Search for Meaning
- International Cyber Conflict and National Security
- Encryption Wars: Who Should Yield?
- Space and National Security
- Human (In)Security
- Climate Change and Environmental Security
- Political Violence
- Women’s Participation in Political Violence
- International Terrorism
- Threats and Dangers in the Twenty-First Century
- International Rivalry and National Security
- Interstate Rivalry in East Asia
- The Transatlantic Security Landscape in Europe
- U.S. National Security in the Western Hemisphere
- Epilogue: Five Lessons for National Security Policymakers
- Index
Abstract and Keywords
Removing the friction of competing perspectives and bureaucratic interests by the various agencies of government (along with their supporters in the Congress and beneficiaries among businesses, interest groups, and the public) that would foster “unity of effort” and the ability to prioritize activity, budget accordingly, carry out policies crisply, and convey a consistent message by our government is chimerical. The interagency system cannot be structured to maximum efficiency in the United States. Efficiency is radically beside the point, because the purpose of the structure is to maximize consensus on the activity to be undertaken. The politics cannot be leached out of policymaking—nor should they be—because politics give policymaking its legitimacy.
Keywords: interagency, national security, foreign policy, president, national security council, decision making
Kori Schake is Deputy Director General of the International Institute for Strategic Studies and the author of Safe Passage: the Transition from British to American Hegemony (Harvard, 2017). She is a contributing editor at both The Atlantic and War on the Rocks. She is the editor, with Jim Mattis, of the book Warriors and Citizens: American Views of Our Military. She has served in various policy roles including at the White House for the National Security Council; at the Department of Defense for the Office of the Secretary and Joint Chiefs of Staff; at the State Department for the Policy Planning Staff; and as Senior Policy Advisor on the 2008 McCain presidential campaign. She received a PhD from the University of Maryland and teaches in War Studies at King’s College, London.
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- The Oxford Handbook of U.S. National Security
- About the Editors
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Foreword: U.S. National Security for the Twenty-First Century
- Introduction: Shape and Scope of U.S. National Security
- America’s Foreign Policy Traditions
- National Interests and Grand Strategy
- U.S. Foreign Policymaking and National Security
- Civil-Military Relations
- The Presidency and Decision Making
- The National Security Council: Is It Effective, or Is It Broken?
- The National Security Process
- Intelligence and National Security Decision Making
- Congress and National Security
- Diplomacy, the State Department, and National Security
- Development Assistance: Rationale and Applications
- Understanding and Improving U.S. Financial Sanctions
- The Political Economy of Security
- Budgeting for National Security
- Military Force Planning and National Security
- Military Operations and the Defense Department
- Alliances, Military Basing, and Logistics
- Homeland Security
- The United States and Iran: Challenges of Deterrence and Compellence
- U.S. Nuclear Strategy: The Search for Meaning
- International Cyber Conflict and National Security
- Encryption Wars: Who Should Yield?
- Space and National Security
- Human (In)Security
- Climate Change and Environmental Security
- Political Violence
- Women’s Participation in Political Violence
- International Terrorism
- Threats and Dangers in the Twenty-First Century
- International Rivalry and National Security
- Interstate Rivalry in East Asia
- The Transatlantic Security Landscape in Europe
- U.S. National Security in the Western Hemisphere
- Epilogue: Five Lessons for National Security Policymakers
- Index