| Everyone knows that national security agencies are important. No president, however skilled, can by himself amass the information and expertise necessary for advancing U.S. national interests abroad. Forging American foreign policy is a team game.;Yet, political scientists know astonishingly little about national security agencies like the CIA or the National Security Council staff. We need to learn more--much more--about the origins and evolution of these organizations. What factors shape their initial design? What forces drive agency change? These are the questions I address.;International relations theory provides little help. Instead, I start with new institutionalist approaches to American politics. Using concepts such as collective action and principal-agent analysis, I develop a framework for understanding the origins and evolution of American national security agencies. In doing so, I make two central claims. First, national security agencies arise and develop in fundamentally different ways than their domestic policy counterparts. In domestic affairs, interest groups and legislators primarily determine agency design. This is because interest groups are strong, information is easy to acquire, policy issues lie in Congress's domain, and bureaucrats care little about organizations beside their own. Not so in foreign affairs. There, interest groups are weak, secrecy abounds, policy issues lie in the executive domain, and agencies are tightly connected. As a result, presidents and bureaucrats become the primary players, battling over agency structure far from the capitol steps.;The foreign/domestic policy distinction also holds for agency evolution. While domestic policy agencies develop in step with the changing constellation of interest groups, or with the shifting preferences of relevant Congressional committees, national security agencies do not. Rather, the trajectory of a national security agency is a function of three related factors. In descending importance, they are: (1) initial agency design; (2) the ongoing interests of bureaucrats, presidents, and to a lesser degree, legislators; and (3) exogenous events.;The second finding is that national security agencies are not rationally suited to serving the national interest. These organizations arise from conflicts and compromises between nationally minded presidents on the one hand, and self-interested bureaucrats and legislators on the other. Although presidents have incentive to think of national concerns, rarely can they get the national security agencies they desire. Presidents are not all-powerful; they are single individuals with limited political resources, saturated political agendas, and many potential opponents. To understand why these agencies are poorly equipped to promote national aims, we must realize that they arise out of politics. Ironically, the very hallmarks of American democracy--separation of powers, regular elections, majority rule--inhibit the design of national security organizations which serve the national interest.;The argument is illustrated with case studies, based on personal interviews and historical research, of the National Security Council staff, the CIA, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. |
