28 JULY-AUGUST 2026 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL There is no better way for a Foreign Service officer to get an insider’s view of the interagency policy process than through a detail to the National Security Council. Over the last several decades, hundreds of Foreign Service professionals on loan from State and other foreign affairs agencies have spent a year or two a stone’s throw from the West Wing in the wood-paneled offices of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. They have served as policy directors and senior directors, as watch officers in the White House Situation Room, and as NSC spokespeople, among other positions. From 2011 to 2013, I had the privilege of serving in the NSC Executive Secretariat as a deputy executive secretary. It was both the most difficult and most rewarding tour of my 28 years in the Foreign Service. In addition to ensuring President Obama had the information he needed to make foreign policy decisions by managing the interagency paper flow and the regular PPC-DC-PC meeting schedule, I had the chance to staff presidential calls from the Oval Office and serve as the NSC representative on Air Force One during domestic and foreign travel. The hours were grueling, the pace unrelenting. But the caliber of people the NSC traditionally attracts and the chance to see decision-making at the highest level made the long hours worthwhile. The reduced size of the NSC in the second Trump administration means opportunities for State details are now extremely limited. This is a loss both for the NSC and State, which benefited immensely from the experience and knowledge its detailees brought back to Foggy Bottom. When NSC detail opportunities return in the future, State should be first in line to fill them. —Kelly Adams-Smith NSC from the Inside presenting a single NSC or executive branch view on a course of action. Having heard the best recommendations of his experts, the president is then free to decide on a course of action. Such a balanced, well-oiled system produced the broad international coalition that reversed Iraq’s 1991 invasion of Kuwait under a United Nations mandate. It also managed the U.S. response to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. What Went Wrong with the NSC? When Congress created the NSC, it assumed that the president would value a deliberative process and would welcome the best advice of his experts, even when that advice conflicted with his assumptions or desired courses of action. Each NSC member institution, including the State Department, has an important role in this process. They provide input on agendas and readahead materials, participate in meetings, negotiate recommendations, deconflict actions, and implement decided policy. Cabinet members who trust the national security adviser and the system, and know that their views are reaching the president, will not feel the need to subvert the system. Even in the most coordinated system, process fouls can and do happen, but outcomes on the whole are better coordinated. Such a system, when functioning well, is the envy of democracies around the world, and many of our allies have tried to emulate it. Currently, there is an imbalance among the NSC’s four pillars. National Security Council meetings rarely take place. If televised Cabinet meetings are any indication, if and when NSC meetings do happen, they are likely less a forum for debate than an exercise in groupthink, denying the president the expert advice that Congress established the NSC to give. The interagency process itself is also broken. One outward expression of its dysfunction is the gutting of NSC staff. Another is the dual-hatting of the national security adviser and Secretary of State. Each role is more than a full-time job. Among other responsibilities, a Secretary of State must conduct our foreign policy with world leaders, requiring extensive time away from Washington; lead the workforce in Foggy Bottom and abroad; and represent State views and recommendations within the NSC. The national security adviser must lead NSC staff, coordinate the policy process, advise and staff the president, and interact with other countries’ national security advisers. No one person can do all this successfully. In addition, having the Secretary of State serve as NSA subverts the idea of the NSA being an honest broker among agencies, denies both State and the NSC the attention and leadership those institutions require, denies the president
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