Stevenson’s army, August 3

– Politico has a revealing article on the Biden NSC staff in its afternoon newsletter.  I’m not sure that link will work, so here’s the text.

SUPER-SIZING THE NSC: The National Security Council has significantly increased its staff in the first six months of the Biden administration, adding between 50 to 70 more staffers than under the Trump administration, two people familiar with the matter tell Daniel.

The NSC’s staff roster is now between 350 to 370 people, according to the sources, an increase of roughly 20 percent from what the NSC looked like in the summer and fall of the last year of the DONALD TRUMP administration, when it stood at around 300. The increase in staff is due to the addition or reconstitution of six new policy directorates focused on Biden administration priorities and the staffing growth of other directorates like the China and cyber directorates, whose head ANNE NEUBERGER also carries the title of deputy national security adviser. (There are now four deputy national security advisers.)

“We have needed to rebuild the scaffolding of how the national security policy process should work,” a senior administration official said. The numbers haven’t previously been reported.

— The NSC has reconstituted a pandemic response team after it was dissolved under the Trump administration before Covid. That directorate — one of the NSC’s larger teams — is built not just for Covid, but for a whole-of-government approach to prevent and handle future pandemics.
— ERIC GREEN, a career Foreign Service officer, has been made head of a new directorate primarily focused on Russia (affairs regarding Moscow were formerly part of the Europe team).
— National Security Adviser JAKE SULLIVAN created a new directorate focused on emerging technologies, led by TARUN CHHABRA, to coordinate policy around tech competitiveness such as addressing the semiconductor shortage and improving U.S. policy on issues like AI and quantum computing.
— The Biden White House has also reconstituted teams devoted to climate, democracy and development

Around half of the NSC staff under Biden is focused on enabling roles: such as security, IT and facilitating core NSC processes like policy paper coordination and secure video conference capabilities. The vast majority of the 350 to 370 staffers are detailees from other agencies, whose salaries continue to be paid by their home agency.

The current staffing size of the NSC, which includes people supporting the White House Situation Room, whose numbers grew in the Obama and Trump administrations, is roughly comparable to what it was during the Obama administration, although at times the overall NSC staff under Obama was higher than it is now. Trump and former National Security Adviser ROBERT O’BRIEN shrunk down the size of the NSC because of GOP concerns about a bloated bureaucracy but also after some of its current and former employees, like FIONA HILL, testified against Trump in his first impeachment.

“There were great staffers on the prior NSC, but you had a White House leadership who often didn’t want it to carry out its proper function,” the senior administration official said. “There were real gaps when we walked in. When you’re actually using the NSC and not making foreign policy by tweet, it’s gonna require a different footprint.”

In other news, here’s former dean Cohen’s reflection on Afghanistan.

He references a book by Carter Malkasian, which is explained and reviewed in Foreign Affairs.

Task & Purpose blames military eating disorders on the fitness tests.

Lawfare has  good suggestions for a US offensive cyber policy.

But Defense One has a typical but misguided column urging a single department of cyber security.  The centralize argument is attractive but can’t account for the many different needs and responsibilities. After all, are we really stronger with a single DHS?

My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).