Most people only have a very vague idea how US national security and foreign policy decisions are made.
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Most people only have a very vague idea how US national security and foreign policy decisions are made.
Most of the time, these decisions are made through the National Security Council (NSC) and its interagency process.
You might have heard of the NSC, which statutorily consists of the president; vice president; secretaries of state, defense, energy, and the treasury; and the national security advisor.
But the national security advisor also has a whole staff—usually people on rotation from places like the state department, pentagon, and intelligence community—that manages a vast interagency process.
That process works something like this:
The president sets a goal for a country or region and wants policy options for achieving that goal. This is communicated to the NSC, which gets the interagency process rolling. Meetings—so many meetings—will be convened, involving representatives from every government component that might plausibly play a role in achieving that goal.
This includes the usual suspects, like the state department, the military, and the intelligence community, but might also include everyone from agriculture to the department of justice.
The goal is to both leverage the full capacity of the US federal government while also avoiding duplication of effort, figuring out costs and risks, assigning roles, mediating disagreements between different agencies, identifying potential allies who can help, etc etc.
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That process works something like this:
The president sets a goal for a country or region and wants policy options for achieving that goal. This is communicated to the NSC, which gets the interagency process rolling. Meetings—so many meetings—will be convened, involving representatives from every government component that might plausibly play a role in achieving that goal.
This includes the usual suspects, like the state department, the military, and the intelligence community, but might also include everyone from agriculture to the department of justice.
The goal is to both leverage the full capacity of the US federal government while also avoiding duplication of effort, figuring out costs and risks, assigning roles, mediating disagreements between different agencies, identifying potential allies who can help, etc etc.
This process goes up and down a hierarchical chain. At the lowest level, you have relatively junior personnel working out the nitty-gritty aspects of policy: who will do what, exactly, with what money, according to which laws. These recommendations are kicked up to higher levels, who might either approve them or send them back down to be revised, or to answer questions, or to consider more contingencies.
Eventually, though, something like a coherent set of options might make its way up to the principles committee—the actual NSC—who will then present those options to the president to either select one to approve or restart the whole process if he doesn’t like them.
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This process goes up and down a hierarchical chain. At the lowest level, you have relatively junior personnel working out the nitty-gritty aspects of policy: who will do what, exactly, with what money, according to which laws. These recommendations are kicked up to higher levels, who might either approve them or send them back down to be revised, or to answer questions, or to consider more contingencies.
Eventually, though, something like a coherent set of options might make its way up to the principles committee—the actual NSC—who will then present those options to the president to either select one to approve or restart the whole process if he doesn’t like them.
It is a cumbersome, slow process that often produces policy that reflects a bland average of the decisions of many different bureaucrats. And it certainly doesn’t guarantee good outcomes, because these are ultimately policies to implement the goals of the US president.
But it’s at least a process, operating according to predictable rules, that is designed to produce achievable outcomes that match material means to explicit goals. We want to achieve X, so here’s how agency Y can legally leverage the resources it has to contribute according to a coherent plan.
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It is a cumbersome, slow process that often produces policy that reflects a bland average of the decisions of many different bureaucrats. And it certainly doesn’t guarantee good outcomes, because these are ultimately policies to implement the goals of the US president.
But it’s at least a process, operating according to predictable rules, that is designed to produce achievable outcomes that match material means to explicit goals. We want to achieve X, so here’s how agency Y can legally leverage the resources it has to contribute according to a coherent plan.
That process no longer exists, as a meaningful contributor to policy, under the Trump regime.
Trump is deeply incurious, profoundly ignorant, compulsively impatient, and, worst, a fascist. As Umberto Eco observed, fascists are anti-intellectual, anti-rational, and fetishize action for action’s sake. A process like the NSC is profoundly antithetical to the fascist’s worldview.
Under fascism, the Leader issues a declaration about the state of reality and then all of his fawning, obsequious underlings begin a competitive process of trying to bring reality into a plausible accordance with the Leader’s declaration. That’s it. That’s the process.
No slow, patient, bureaucratic procedure for clearly articulating ends, identifying means of rationally achieving them, coordinating between different components to achieve a whole-of-government approach, ensuring all stakeholders have endorsed the policy and had their concerns addressed.
Just declaration and then action.
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That process no longer exists, as a meaningful contributor to policy, under the Trump regime.
Trump is deeply incurious, profoundly ignorant, compulsively impatient, and, worst, a fascist. As Umberto Eco observed, fascists are anti-intellectual, anti-rational, and fetishize action for action’s sake. A process like the NSC is profoundly antithetical to the fascist’s worldview.
Under fascism, the Leader issues a declaration about the state of reality and then all of his fawning, obsequious underlings begin a competitive process of trying to bring reality into a plausible accordance with the Leader’s declaration. That’s it. That’s the process.
No slow, patient, bureaucratic procedure for clearly articulating ends, identifying means of rationally achieving them, coordinating between different components to achieve a whole-of-government approach, ensuring all stakeholders have endorsed the policy and had their concerns addressed.
Just declaration and then action.
This is how we end up in a situation in which the US has gone to war with Iran, yet again, without even a clearly articulated strategic goal or desired outcome.
Trump has variously indicated that he wanted to intimidate Iran into negotiating with (ie, bribing) him, or to protect Iranian protesters, or to destroy a nuclear program he previously claimed he had destroyed, or regime change.
And the means of achieving whatever goal he wants to achieve is no more sophisticated than “drop many bombs on Iranian military and government targets.” This is simple punitive violence, the absolutely least sophisticated or precise approach to warfare. “Hurt them until they give you what you want” except that he hasn’t even articulated (and probably has not really conceived of) what he wants from the Iranians.
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That process no longer exists, as a meaningful contributor to policy, under the Trump regime.
Trump is deeply incurious, profoundly ignorant, compulsively impatient, and, worst, a fascist. As Umberto Eco observed, fascists are anti-intellectual, anti-rational, and fetishize action for action’s sake. A process like the NSC is profoundly antithetical to the fascist’s worldview.
Under fascism, the Leader issues a declaration about the state of reality and then all of his fawning, obsequious underlings begin a competitive process of trying to bring reality into a plausible accordance with the Leader’s declaration. That’s it. That’s the process.
No slow, patient, bureaucratic procedure for clearly articulating ends, identifying means of rationally achieving them, coordinating between different components to achieve a whole-of-government approach, ensuring all stakeholders have endorsed the policy and had their concerns addressed.
Just declaration and then action.
The liberal deliberative process and the fascist declaration of reality end up with the same actions anyways.
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This is how we end up in a situation in which the US has gone to war with Iran, yet again, without even a clearly articulated strategic goal or desired outcome.
Trump has variously indicated that he wanted to intimidate Iran into negotiating with (ie, bribing) him, or to protect Iranian protesters, or to destroy a nuclear program he previously claimed he had destroyed, or regime change.
And the means of achieving whatever goal he wants to achieve is no more sophisticated than “drop many bombs on Iranian military and government targets.” This is simple punitive violence, the absolutely least sophisticated or precise approach to warfare. “Hurt them until they give you what you want” except that he hasn’t even articulated (and probably has not really conceived of) what he wants from the Iranians.
So many people will die, in Iran and elsewhere in the region, to achieve something unclear, with no ability to identify operational objectives that would allow the US to evaluate whether it has made progress towards its strategic goals (because it doesn’t have any).
The Saudis tried this in Yemen starting in 2015; they’re still fighting there, while the Huthis still rule much of the country. Let’s see how this latest war works out for the US.
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The liberal deliberative process and the fascist declaration of reality end up with the same actions anyways.
@richpuchalsky @HeavenlyPossum I disagree. Under a liberal process, if the president had said "I want to drop bombs on Iran", the executive would have said, "We're not going to do that, sir".
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The liberal deliberative process and the fascist declaration of reality end up with the same actions anyways.
They absolutely can, as with Bush II’s invasion of Iraq, during which the interagency process existed to support the president’s goal of fascist imperialism. And the president can always override the interagency process, as when Biden decided to materially support genocide in Gaza against the law and over the objections of the interagency.
The difference is, I think, the extent to which decisions like this are being made on the immediate and semi-random whims of a fascist who is also suffering from both (i strongly suspect) psychopathy and advanced dementia. It’s a level of Caligula-esque decadence that I don’t think the US has experienced in a while, at a time when it is materially stronger, in coercive terms, than it ever has been.
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@richpuchalsky @HeavenlyPossum I disagree. Under a liberal process, if the president had said "I want to drop bombs on Iran", the executive would have said, "We're not going to do that, sir".
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@richpuchalsky @HeavenlyPossum I disagree. Under a liberal process, if the president had said "I want to drop bombs on Iran", the executive would have said, "We're not going to do that, sir".
This is factually untrue. The president has command authority; the interagency process is about rationalizing options presented to the president, not restraining his power to order action.
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They absolutely can, as with Bush II’s invasion of Iraq, during which the interagency process existed to support the president’s goal of fascist imperialism. And the president can always override the interagency process, as when Biden decided to materially support genocide in Gaza against the law and over the objections of the interagency.
The difference is, I think, the extent to which decisions like this are being made on the immediate and semi-random whims of a fascist who is also suffering from both (i strongly suspect) psychopathy and advanced dementia. It’s a level of Caligula-esque decadence that I don’t think the US has experienced in a while, at a time when it is materially stronger, in coercive terms, than it ever has been.
I don't really like the mental illness explanations. During the Cold War Presidents routinely made decisions to kill lots of people because some country or other didn't follow US interests, but they were either deniable, or justified by anti-Communism so they didn't seem like whims. But they were not essentially different.
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This is how we end up in a situation in which the US has gone to war with Iran, yet again, without even a clearly articulated strategic goal or desired outcome.
Trump has variously indicated that he wanted to intimidate Iran into negotiating with (ie, bribing) him, or to protect Iranian protesters, or to destroy a nuclear program he previously claimed he had destroyed, or regime change.
And the means of achieving whatever goal he wants to achieve is no more sophisticated than “drop many bombs on Iranian military and government targets.” This is simple punitive violence, the absolutely least sophisticated or precise approach to warfare. “Hurt them until they give you what you want” except that he hasn’t even articulated (and probably has not really conceived of) what he wants from the Iranians.
@HeavenlyPossum It's not a war. Only Congress can declare war. This is just a special policing operation. With bombs. Lots of bombs.
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So many people will die, in Iran and elsewhere in the region, to achieve something unclear, with no ability to identify operational objectives that would allow the US to evaluate whether it has made progress towards its strategic goals (because it doesn’t have any).
The Saudis tried this in Yemen starting in 2015; they’re still fighting there, while the Huthis still rule much of the country. Let’s see how this latest war works out for the US.
Remember when Pete Hegseth demanded all the general and flag officers of the US armed forces gather to hear him deliver a TED talk, and they all sat stony-faced, oozing with contempt?
There was a lot of liberal glee at the thought of how much they hated him, how aware they were that he was a charlatan and a fraud. *The non-political, professional military will surely save us!* How’s that working out for you now? All of these officers took an oath to uphold the constitution, and every single one of them participating in this attack on Iran is blatantly participating in a violation of the US constitution. The president has no constitutional authority to launch this war, a power reserved by the constitution for congress. There is no AUMF this time, no plausible excuse or deniability. And they all followed orders and launched the war anyway.
I hope this at least gives the “Trump can’t just seize power, the military won’t follow orders like that” crowd *some* doubt.
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So many people will die, in Iran and elsewhere in the region, to achieve something unclear, with no ability to identify operational objectives that would allow the US to evaluate whether it has made progress towards its strategic goals (because it doesn’t have any).
The Saudis tried this in Yemen starting in 2015; they’re still fighting there, while the Huthis still rule much of the country. Let’s see how this latest war works out for the US.
@HeavenlyPossum The process has always been a farce, KlanFuhrer just cut the red tape (red tape for confidentiality).
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I don't really like the mental illness explanations. During the Cold War Presidents routinely made decisions to kill lots of people because some country or other didn't follow US interests, but they were either deniable, or justified by anti-Communism so they didn't seem like whims. But they were not essentially different.
I’m not sure how to explain this distinction without sounding like an apologist for Cold War presidents—which I absolutely am not—but there seems to me to be an important distinction between a rational process and an irrational one, even if only from the perspective of “how effective is this evil empire at achieving its evil goals.”
Trump has, for example, started a war that has, for the first time ever, resulted in direct and *damaging* retaliation against US military facilities in Bahrain. This is something that previous acts of aggression did not provoke, because those were all carefully calibrated in terms of means, goals, and risks. In this case, Trump has *wrecklessly* ignored risks to his own assets because he is not just pursuing irrational or evil goals, but also because he is doing so in a haphazard and irrational fashion.
If anything, this is good news for accelerationists.
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Most people only have a very vague idea how US national security and foreign policy decisions are made.
Most of the time, these decisions are made through the National Security Council (NSC) and its interagency process.
You might have heard of the NSC, which statutorily consists of the president; vice president; secretaries of state, defense, energy, and the treasury; and the national security advisor.
But the national security advisor also has a whole staff—usually people on rotation from places like the state department, pentagon, and intelligence community—that manages a vast interagency process.
@HeavenlyPossum This is how I found out the US started another war.
Ugh, weren't Congress critters supposed to meet earlier in the week to limit the post 9/11 powers to do endless war without authorization? I'm very not surprised nothing came of that.
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Remember when Pete Hegseth demanded all the general and flag officers of the US armed forces gather to hear him deliver a TED talk, and they all sat stony-faced, oozing with contempt?
There was a lot of liberal glee at the thought of how much they hated him, how aware they were that he was a charlatan and a fraud. *The non-political, professional military will surely save us!* How’s that working out for you now? All of these officers took an oath to uphold the constitution, and every single one of them participating in this attack on Iran is blatantly participating in a violation of the US constitution. The president has no constitutional authority to launch this war, a power reserved by the constitution for congress. There is no AUMF this time, no plausible excuse or deniability. And they all followed orders and launched the war anyway.
I hope this at least gives the “Trump can’t just seize power, the military won’t follow orders like that” crowd *some* doubt.
@HeavenlyPossum
Spend money on weapons and warriors who train to use them, get war. -
Remember when Pete Hegseth demanded all the general and flag officers of the US armed forces gather to hear him deliver a TED talk, and they all sat stony-faced, oozing with contempt?
There was a lot of liberal glee at the thought of how much they hated him, how aware they were that he was a charlatan and a fraud. *The non-political, professional military will surely save us!* How’s that working out for you now? All of these officers took an oath to uphold the constitution, and every single one of them participating in this attack on Iran is blatantly participating in a violation of the US constitution. The president has no constitutional authority to launch this war, a power reserved by the constitution for congress. There is no AUMF this time, no plausible excuse or deniability. And they all followed orders and launched the war anyway.
I hope this at least gives the “Trump can’t just seize power, the military won’t follow orders like that” crowd *some* doubt.
Something important to understand about fascism is that it is first and foremost an *aesthetic*, one that plays out through power, violence, and cruelty but that never rises above the level of play-acting.
Fascists don’t care about things like knowledge and process and actively refuse to engage with them as part of their aesthetic of LARPing as the bravest, strongest, cruelest, coolest kids on the block. A US President has, at his disposal, an apparatus of turning his objectives into material reality of almost unthinkable capacity.
A vast intelligence apparatus for know in about the world. A vast bureaucratic apparatus for figuring out useful policies for achieving outcomes in the world. A vast apparatus of violence for hurting people with either precision or indiscriminately on a global scale. If Trump and his coterie were *not* fascists, they might be even more terrifying.
But they are fascists, which means they don’t advance beyond the level of “we want to hurt someone, so we’re going to give the order for someone to be hurt immediately and without deliberation or consideration.”
They are undoubtedly less dangerous than they could be because they don’t care about and can’t think past the most superficial level of an aesthetic of power and violence. They just want the bombs to fall, right now, doesn’t matter where or on whom, no questions asked.
This is why fascists can’t really build institutions or institutional capacity, but can only really cannibalize the capacity of institutions they seize until they have exhausted or destroyed them.
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This is factually untrue. The president has command authority; the interagency process is about rationalizing options presented to the president, not restraining his power to order action.
@HeavenlyPossum @richpuchalsky as a statement of rule that is correct. But the formal structure includes a process whereby people who know what they're doing will put arguments to the President that what he wants is a bad idea. And also it includes people who will in the end say to the President, no, that order is illegal, I will not do it. Very few such people are left under Trump's administration. 1/2
