The Contemporary Presidency The Administrator as Outsider: James Jones as National Security Advisor
I'm the national security adviser. When you come down there, come see me. --James Jones (Woodward 2010, 138) The relationship between U.S. President Barack Obama and his departing national security adviser, James Jones, was doomed from the start. --Destler (2010, 1) On October 8, 2010, James Jones resigned as national security advisor (NSA) to President Barack Obama. Jones's resignation came as no surprise to many in the media as speculation over the NSA's standing and future within the administration had reached a fever pitch with the release of Bob Woodward's Obama's Wars (2010) earlier that fall. Jones had intended to serve no more than two years, but his resignation came early amidst a growing sense that he had lost favor within the administration. Jones's brief tenure as NSA began with great promise and ended with barely a whimper. The former Marine commandant assumed the position of NSA in January 2009 and received significant acclaim. Indeed, the retired general was seen by many as providing essential foreign policy experience, knowledge, and gravitas to the Obama administration. Commentators were also quick to predict that Jones would effectively coordinate the interagency process and be able to manage any personality conflicts between incoming Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. Jones possessed a reputation as a strong-willed, effective, intelligent, and organized manager. The general also was lauded for his willingness to provide his opinions when solicited (Barry 2008). Yet, for all of the initial promise, James Jones would become one of the weakest and most isolated NSAs since the creation of the National Security Council (NSC) in 1947. "The harshest and most telling critique of Gen. James Jones' tenure as national security adviser is that his absence will barely be noticed" (Kaplan 2010, 1). Jones, while praised by President Obama upon his resignation in October 2010, had all but disappeared from public view. Jones was replaced by his deputy, Tom Donilon, who by all accounts was much more of an administration insider and confidant of the president. Jones's short and unhappy stint as NSA provides scholars of U.S. foreign policy with a valuable opportunity to continue the study of one of the more prominent and influential positions within the U.S. foreign policy-making community. Scholars have examined the role of the NSA and NSC in order to develop a greater understanding of the U.S. foreign policy decision-making process (see Best 2001; Bock 1987; Brzezinski 1987; Crabb and Mulcahy 1991; Destler 1977, 1980; Inderfurth and Johnson 2004; Menges 1988; Mulcahy 1986; Prados 1991; Rodman 2009; Rothkopf 2005; Shoemaker 1992; Zegart 1999). Ivo Daadler and I. M. Destler's 2009 book In the Shadow of the Oval Office: Profiles of the National Security Advisers and the Presidents They Served--From ffFK to George W. Bush and John Burke's research (2005a, 2005b, 2009a, 2009b) on honest brokerage at the NSC each attempted to categorize national security advisors and determine what role they played in their respective administrations. Various case studies have also applied typologies and models of NSC advisor roles to individual NSAs as well (e.g., Burke 2005a, 2005b; Mulcahy 1995). However, James Jones's role as NSA remains largely unexamined from a formal political science framework. Scholars of U.S. foreign policy making are thus confronted with a basic research question. What role did James Jones play as NSA? My central argument is that James Jones performed in the administrator role as NSA. Jones managed the day-to-day operations of the NSC, delegated the coordination of the interagency process to his deputy, Tom Donilon, and did not generate policy options. Furthermore, Jones never developed a close advisory relationship with the president and also failed to enter Obama's circle of trusted political aides. …
The Neutral/Honest Broker Role in Foreign-Policy Decision Making: A Reassessment
Analysis of presidential decision making, particularly in the area of foreign and national security policy, has been a well-mined area of research. Much attention has focused on a range of variables thought to have some causal impact on and explanatory value for understanding presidential decision making: the organization and structure of decision-making processes, the impact of presidential personality, management, and leadership style, the development and effects of a White House-centered institutional presidency, the presence of bureaucratic politics and group dynamics, and the consequences of rational actors operating within institutionally defined parameters, to list just a few. However, with some important exceptions, (1) relatively little attention has focused on how the particular roles of participants in presidential decision-making processes are defined and operate. The Case for the Broker Role Most notable has been the lack of attention to the place of the broker role in presidential decision making and the contributions that it might make to its effectiveness. It is an issue that received much scrutiny and debate over thirty years ago in Alexander George's discussion of the "managerial custodian" (a particular variant of the role) in a lengthy article in the American Political Science Review (George 1972a), one that merited a comment by I. M. Destler (1972) and a rejoinder by George (1972b) and then was further explicated in his work Presidential Decisionmaking in Foreign Policy (George 1980). According to George, six tasks are required of the role of the managerial custodian: 1. Balancing actor resources within the policymaking system; 2. Strengthening weaker advocates; 3. Bringing in new advisers to argue for unpopular options; 4. Setting up new channels of information so that the president and other advisers are not dependent upon a single channel; 5. Arranging for independent evaluation of decisional premises and options, when necessary; and 6. Monitoring the workings of the policymaking process to identify possibly dangerous malfunctions and instituting appropriate corrective action. (1980, 195-96) Although George places the managerial custodian role within a larger theory of effective structure and organization ("multiple advocacy"), the role is interesting in its own right and some parts of it may be applicable in a wider array of organizational and decision-making settings. Perhaps more significant is George's argument that it can contribute to--but not necessarily guarantee--effective presidential decision making (George 1980, 201-06; Porter 1980, 214-15). The broker role has also become a common self-definition (or part thereof) of many who have occupied the position of national security adviser, as well as a point of reference for journalistic observers and political pundits. For example, the introduction to the oral history project of the Brookings Institution on the role of the National Security Council adviser (which included a roundtable and interviews with nine former national security advisers) observes that "since the Kennedy administration, the assistant to the president for national security affairs (a.k.a. 'the national security adviser') has played two roles: manager ('honest broker') of the day-to-day policy process and substantive policy adviser" (Daalder and Destler 1999, 1). (2) As a part of political vocabulary and practice, moreover, the neutral/honest broker role has been applied to other White House positions, most notably that of the chief of staff. At the time his appointment as chief of staff was announced during the 1988 transition to office of George H. W. Bush, for example, John Sununu saw as one of his responsibilities "to be an honest broker and present the views on the various sides of the issue." (3) Once in office, however, Sununu quickly acquired the reputation of a policy advocate and a heavy-handed operative with a tough, even intimidating style (Burke 2000, 16669). …
Becoming President: The Bush Transition, 2000-2003
Why Transitions Matter. Starting Early. After December 13: A Transition Unfolds. The Bush Team in Office. George W. Bush: Leadership and Decisionmaking. Advancing the Bush Folicy Agenda. After September 11: Continuity and Change. Lessons from the Bush Experience.