Resourcing the National Security Enterprise

Few military officers can ascend to the ranks of senior leadership without eventually being assigned to Washington, DC, where newcomers navigating the system inevitably become emmeshed, flabbergasted, and stymied by entrenched bureaucratic processes they had no idea existed. A career in diplomacy or working on the Hill often involves the process-oriented work necessary to keep departments funded and the government functional. In order to succeed, one must understand these rules, especially as they apply to resourcing. Without funding, strategies and policies are merely interesting ideas. Getting an idea or a program resourced requires a thorough understanding of the process.

Considering the national security enterprise from the standpoint of strategic resourcing is neither simple nor straightforward. To succeed requires a multidisciplinary approach; a team with substantial background knowledge on such diverse and byzantine topics as the Department of Defense acquisition system, the president's budget submission, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency's National Preparedness Frameworks, in addition to a basic understanding of macroeconomics. Further, the development of a cohesive and logical narrative is difficult because the Framers' intended checks and balances among the executive and legislative branches effectively preclude the possibility of seamless integration among national security priorities. Anyone aspiring to have a career in national security must understand the process in order to be effective.

Graduate school programs in security studies, public policy, and political science offer multiple courses that consider bureaucracy from academic and theoretical perspectives, but these classes generally do not attempt to offer a practitioner's view of surviving and thriving within the Washington bureaucracy. And although individual government departments and agencies such as the Department of Defense's Joint Staff and the Department of State's Foreign Service Institute (FSI) offer courses for personnel newly assigned to Washington, the majority of the learning occurs through on-the-job training.

This book fills the gap and provides a much-needed, theoretically grounded, and practical guide. Each chapter in this volume is by a practitioner with decades of experience working on resourcing issues in Washington. Their perspectives are informed by the cultures of the agencies in which they have worked and the positions they have held. Many currently teach in DC-based graduate degree programs in a variety of disciplines, including strategy, economics, and organizational leadership. Resourcing the National Security Enterprise will be a valuable resource for aspiring practitioners who are beginning or seeking careers in the American federal government and to those who wish to learn more about the inner workings of resourcing the national security enterprise.

*This book is in the Rapid Communications in Conflict and Security (RCCS) Series (General Editor: Dr. Geoffrey R.H. Burn).