The U.S. faces yet another clear and apparent danger. Since Jan. 20, the Trump administration has eviscerated what should be the president’s most important decision-making body: the National Security Council. Indeed, today’s National Security Council should be renamed the “non-security council.”
Established by the National Security Act of 1947, along with an independent U.S. Air Force and the CIA, President Harry Truman opposed it believing the limits on presidential foreign policy authorities were excessive. The National Security Council consisted of the administration’s relevant national security appointees.
On balance, the National Security Council has served the nation well, from dealing with the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, breakthroughs to China and an arms agreement with the Soviet Union under Richard Nixon, the historic peace agreement between Egypt and Israel under President Jimmy Carter and President George H. W. Bush’s establishment of the international coalition that smashed Saddam Hussein’s army, driving it out of Kuwait.
Of course the National Security Council was not always successful.
Under President George W. Bush, the U.S. lunged into Afghanistan and then invaded Iraq. Both were profound strategic blunders. Yet the National Security Council remains vital to successful decision-making if properly utilized.
In President Trump’s first term, the National Security Council barely functioned. Two national security advisers were fired. And John Bolton, the third and final survivor, could not have been more critical of Trump’s lack of any formal decision-making process.
What has Trump done in his second term with the National Security Council? He fired his first national security adviser, former Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.), after less than four months in that job — an improvement over Trump’s first term when his then national security adviser, Mike Flynn, lasted 24 days.
A number of Waltz’ key personnel on the National Security Council staff were removed or fired. And Secretary of State Marco Rubio was named the new national security adviser.
This is only the second time a secretary of State has also held the national security adviser slot. The first was Henry Kissinger.
Whatever his merits, no one would consider Rubio a Kissinger or a Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter’s national security adviser. And Kissinger’s deputy, the formidable General Brent Scowcroft, was at the National Security Council until President Gerald Ford named him the national security adviser.
Can anyone name Rubio’s deputy national security advisers?
The Trump National Security Council has been “restructured.” Given the span of control, no one, not even a Kissinger can conduct both assignments simultaneously.
The reason is obvious: Who can be in two places at once? The national security adviser must be in proximity to the president almost constantly. Secretaries of State, by definition, cannot only remain in Washington.
As a result, Trump’s National Security Council process has become dysfunctional to the point of uselessness. The war in Ukraine is a case in point.
Last week, there were reports that U.S. military aid to Ukraine was being withheld. Despite the headlines, there was no evidence that the National Security Council had reviewed or staffed this decision.
Several stories concluded that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth unilaterally ordered the cutback in aid for defensive missiles and artillery rounds Kyiv desperately needed and did not inform the White House.
This makes no sense unless Hegseth was directed by or misunderstood what the president wanted after a Jan. 30 White House meeting, had a death wish or ventured into a realm for which he was uniquely unqualified. Although anything is possible in this administration.
Another explanation is a variant to the first.
Someone close to Trump in the White House knew that the president was tilting heavily towards Russian President Vladimir Putin as he believed a deal with Russia over Ukraine could be achieved. On this basis, that person advised the Department of Defense to cut back arms to Kyiv, signaling Putin of U.S. intent.
Whether Hegseth or his deputy Steve Feinberg were part of this decision, responsibility for execution shifted to Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby.
Then, the president had his last, disastrous phone conversation with Putin. Trump was furious, expressing his anger in the Cabinet room. Magically, holds on certain weapons for Ukraine were lifted.
Colby was immediately accused of going rogue by carrying out his designs for moving military capability to Asia and a Chinese contingency. But could the Pentagon’s number three have accomplished this on his own?
Asked about the arms holdup, Trump pleaded ignorance. Regardless of whomever was responsible for this incompetence, the non-security-council process was abandoned for the president’s ad hoc, idiosyncratic and often whimsical approach to decision-making.
Next time, this could be catastrophic.
And Rubio’s deputies, by the way, are Andy Baker and Stephen Gabriel.
Harlan Ullman, Ph.D., is UPI’s Arnaud deBorchgrave Distinguished Columnist, a senior advisor at Washington, D.C.’s Atlantic Council, the chairman of two private companies and the principal author of the doctrine of shock and awe. He and David Richards are authors of a forthcoming book on preventing strategic catastrophe.
