Among hundreds of provisions in the House Armed Services Committee’s version of the annual Defense authorization bill, a restraint on the size of the National Security Council is one of a relative handful singled out by Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), the committee’s chairman, who believes an overgrown NSC is micromanaging the Pentagon’s affairs.
-snip-
Bloomfield, now the chairman of the Stimson Center, argued that decision making within the State Department has become far too diffuse – especially when compared against the Kennedy era, when the department had only one undersecretary who the president could contact by phone at any hour for input or advice on virtually any foreign policy matter.
Read the full article here.