Gets the Worm

One of the most interesting news collection operations in the national security system is the Department of Defense’s “The Early Bird,” which is available electronically at the National Defense University website for each Monday-Friday starting in about March 2001. I want to create a disciplined organizational intervention each work day based on this news source – I hope it’s not too cutesy to call my organizational nudges “Gets the Worm.” Today’s Action Item: Shift the Early Bird staff outside the Pentagon to the Eisenhower Building in order to help build a whole-of-government national security strategy culture, instead of reinforcing a stove-piped Department of Defense culture.

(Apologies to readers who do not have easy access to The Early Bird . . . . )

First, notice that Robert Gates’ trip to Iraq is the lead story (category 1), while President Obama’s speech from the Oval Office marking a “turn the page” moment (category 2) and his trip to Fort Bliss earlier in the day on August 31 to thank the troops for their sacrifices (category 3) come second. This makes sense if the Early Bird is a product of the Pentagon, but it probably has President Eisenhower rotating at a high velocity in Gettysburg as we approach the 50th Anniversary of his speech warning that the rise in power of the nation’s military-industrial-congressional complex was a grave danger.

Second, notice that only two of our nation’s three wars are listed in today’s Early Bird: Iraq (category 4) and Afghanistan (category 5). The leader of the War against Al Qaeda and Its Affiliates (WAQIA), as it is labeled in the May 2010 National Security Strategy, is probably John Brennan, the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and the Deputy National Security Adviser (to General Jones). A civilian-led war being given the same status as a war led by a four-star such as Austin and Petraeus? Unthinkable in the Pentagon, perhaps a bit more thinkable in the Eisenhower Building. The sequencing of the three wars could be by priority – Al Qaeda, Afghanistan, Iraq – or by the sequence in which the U.S. focused attention on them – Al Qaeda (post 9/11/01), Afghanistan (Fall 2001-Spring 2002), Iraq (2002-2009), Afghanistan (2009-2010), Al Qaeda (someday?). A Chicago professor-performer I heard on the radio three weeks ago is labeling the current surge in Afghanistan of 30,000 troops as a “re-invasion” of Afghanistan; similarly General Petraeus has said that the Afghanistan War is not a seven-year war, but seven one-year wars – presumably he can bring coherence to the now nine-year war.

Third, if The Early Bird were run out of the Eisenhower Building instead of the Pentagon, geography would trump stovepipes; e.g. Defense Department (category 6), Army (category 7), and Navy (category 8) would come after Pakistan (category 9), Asia-Pacific (category 11), and Middle East (category 12). There is much discussion of “The Common Map” that General Jones demanded in a March 2008 national security strategy speech in Munich, Germany. The Early Bird for September 1 only has five geographic components: Iraq (4), Afghanistan (5), Pakistan (9), Asia-Pacific (11), and Middle East (12). It should have at least one story from each of the Combatant Commands – so stories from EUCOM, SOUTHCOM, and AFRICOM would help increase our geographic sophistication; but then again, I believe that the common map should be composed of nine combatant commands, each of which would have four shifting theater commands, so 5 geographic categories is only about a 14% satisfactory Early Bird. We cannot increase the quality of the U.S. national security culture if we continue to use a knowledge structure that presumes that stories about the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines are more important than stories about Somalia, North Korea, Iran, and Ukraine/Georgia (none of which are mentioned in today’s Early Bird).

Fourth, there is more evidence in The Early Bird of the subjugation of national interests to Department of Defense interests – one story about national security law related to a Canadian detainee at Guantanamo (category 10) and a second story about legal issues related to a Yemeni detainee at Guantanamo (category 13). President Obama’s Office of Legal Counsel housed approximately 22 attorneys working on national security issues a year ago; moving those attorneys onto the National Security Staff would be a wise, but unexpected, move by Congress. Reporting stories on national security legal issues above the level of Cabinet secretaries would show that we are a nation that respects the rule of law; continuing to treat legal issues as if they were a small unit within the Department of Defense shows that we value stovepipes (in which Treasury, State, Defense, Homeland Security, and Justice each have their own legal opinions) over intelligence consistency at the top of the strategy.

Fifth, there is one story about “Business” (category 14) which is a polite way of referring to the defense contractors that have infiltrated Department of Defense strategy-making, strategy management, and strategy-implementation processes. Let the Wall Street Journal cover business’s interests; The Early Bird should cover U.S. national security interests. Too many officers in the U.S. armed forces are placed in the dangerous position of being forced to view the first part of their careers in the military in order to “cash in” in the second part of their careers as defense contractors. Cincinnatus went back to his farm – modern-day Cincinnatuses stay in Washington and work for Raytheon, General Dynamics, Lockheed-Martin, BAE Systems, and Northrup-Grumman. In my own recent experience, a retired Major General working as a contractor sent shivers down the spine of an active-duty Colonel working within the current system on a very minor point. Is there really such a thing as a retired general? If The Early Bird were to eliminate news articles on business, contractors, and the industrial base, it might help sanitize the culture of U.S. national security strategy from potential corrupting influences.

Finally, and inexplicably, there are five articles reprinted in the Early Bird under the category of “Opinion” (category 15). Is the nation’s national security strategy being designed by Thomas Friedman and the editors of the editorial pages of The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and USA Today? If these columnists and editors are the nation’s top national security strategists, perhaps General Jones should be given the budget to hire them and put them to work in the Eisenhower Building. The Early Bird does not, yet, have a sports section, or movie reviews, so I see no compelling reasons for it to have an editorial page. Focus the nation’s strategy-makers, strategy-managers, and strategy-implementers on facts, not opinions – delete the section.

In sum, today’s Early Bird, like the Early Birds before it, injects a Department of Defense bias into the nation’s national security strategy system – it subjugates national interests to DoD interests, it does not provide sufficient granularity to American understanding of geography, it too-routinely introduces defense contracting stories, and it overemphasizes the opinions of columnists and editors. Why? Because it is a Department of Defense project, rather than a National Security Staff project. Elevating the Early Bird to a National Security Staff project could help knit the nation’s national security system together around a coherent, consistent, and efficient culture, instead of the balkanized, feuding, and wasteful bureaucratic stovepipes we currently face. But, as we have seen repeatedly, this is not likely to happen. Congress is not likely to create a brain for the U.S. national security system, but is more likely to replicate the current arrangement in which powerful stovepiped Congressional committees compete to allocate resources to their powerful stovepiped Cabinet departments --creating not only national security gridlock, but national security mental retardation.