National Security Council Part 2

If you wish to serve on the U.S. National Security Council, perhaps serving as National Security Advisor, how might you prepare?  You can read.  There are so many books you might wish to read that I will not touch that topic now.  At this time I will recommend a few online sources related to our military.  I recommend the Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute.  Here is a recent article as an example:  Visualize Chinese Sea Power.  The U.S. Naval Institute encompasses the Marines and the Coast Guard in addition to the Navy.

For the Air Force you might look at The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.   Their publications are online in their Mitchell Forum.  Examples , which are available for free download in PDF format, include the following

No.18: Rethinking the Information Paradigm: The Future of Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance in Contested Environments by Col Herbert C. Kemp, PhD, USAF (Ret.)

No.11: Targeting the Islamic State: Activity-Based Intelligence and Modern Airpower by Maj Michael P. Kreuzer, USAF and Maj Denis A. Dallaire, USAF

No.10: Order In Chaos: The Future of Informed Battle Management and Command and Control by Col Tom Nicholson and Lt Col Nelson Rouleau, USAF

No.5: Chasing Relevance: Building Actionable Intelligence Analysis by US Air Force Maj. John M. Minear

No. 1: An ISR Perspective on Fusion Warfare by Maj Gen VeraLinn "Dash" Jamison, USAF and Lt Col Maurizio "Mo" Calabrese, USAF

What good does reading do?  Looking at the paper, "Chasing Relevance: Building Actionable Intelligence Analysis," you can see this in the abstract (my summary):  This paper proposes that intelligence analysts should adopt the “capabilities theory” as the core guiding principle of Air Force intelligence analysis.  If you had read the book, Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway by Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully, then you would have read this:  "In the War College's opinion ... a truly cardinal sin was Yamamoto's designing his plan around America's perceived intentions rather than their capabilities." (Page 399)  The U.S. Naval War College report was published in 1948.  Now you can see that capabilities analysis has been around for at least 70 years.

If you want to know what people in the U.S. Army are thinking then you can look at publications from the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College.  Here is an example article:  Strategic Insights: Making Good on the NSS and NDS: Competing with Russia in Europe and Beyond by Dr. John R. Deni.

There are in town book clubs studying military history.  I do not know of any strategic studies clubs.  It is important to discuss and collaborate, so a Strategic Studies club is one more step we might take as informed civilians.

In a representative republic our representatives are no smarter than we are.  If we want better representation, better leadership, then we need to be better citizens.  We need to be more informed and we need better understanding of complex topics, including strategic military topics.

And we can do it.  It might take years of study, but this what college education is for: it prepares us to teach ourselves, to expand our knowledge and understanding.  I remember members of Congress saying they had to vote for the TARP bill because they did not understand banking and finance and so had to accept the advice they were given.  That is no excuse.  Members of Congress and all citizens can pick an area of expertise -- like banking, finance, economics, history, the U.S. Constitution, military or economic intelligence,  or military strategy -- then teach themselves and be prepared to question and challenge the experts.  We can do it; we should do it; we must do it.  Our survival as free people in a republic with representative government depends on us being better citizens in order to have better representatives.

Robert