National Security Council
39 Articles
US Human Rights Policy: How to Really Build Back Better
The Biden administration must create a system in which human rights and democracy policymaking is embedded and integrated in its decision-making machinery.
Addressing Our Whole-of-Government Deficit in National Security
From Russ Travers who retired in July 2020 after a 42-year career in the Intelligence Community, having served in senior positions across multiple intelligence organizations --…
How to Elevate the Status of Human Rights – at Home and Abroad – in a Biden-Harris White House
In these last days of the outgoing administration’s four-year assault on basic international norms, advocates have been issuing detailed recommendations for how the Biden-Harris…
Loyalty Above All: The “Shallow State” of the Trump Administration
A compilation of executive branch positions deprived of competence and expertise, and filled instead with political loyalists.
Good Governance Paper No. 20: Repairing and Strengthening Norms of Nuclear Restraint
Latest in a series of top experts exploring proposals to restore and promote nonpartisan principles of good government, public integrity, and the rule of law.
A Radically (Modest) Bureaucratic Proposal to Strengthen Democracy and Human Rights at Home and Abroad
Now is the time to fundamentally reform how the executive branch addresses the transnational matter of upholding human rights and advancing democracy at home and abroad. The project…
Shaky Hands in the Oval Office
Like another president's illness, Trump's bout with COVID-19 exposes the risks of a personalized foreign policy that dismisses national security structures.
The Baseline: How a Functional Executive Would Have Handled the Russian Bounty Operation
We outline the acts of accommodation and appeasement President Trump exhibited toward Russia during this period. Then we walk through what an appropriate set of actions would have…
The Legally Troubling Treatment of COVID-19 Meetings as Classified
I represented the government until late 2018, and I've got serious concerns, writes former Deputy Director of Appellate Staff of Department of Justice's Civil Division.
Lessons Ignored: John Bolton’s Bogus Defense of “Streamlining” Away Our Bio-Readiness
Former director of USAID’s Office of US Foreign Disaster Assistance won't let John Bolton rewrite history. "What undermines public confidence ... is the administration’s own…
The Gravity of Michael Ellis’ Promotion to Senior Director for Intelligence at the White House
The person just put in charge of intelligence at the NSC was credibly accused of abusing the classification system in the Ukraine matter, and was even personally named in the articles…
If Trump’s Syria and Afghanistan Decisions Seem Bad, Imagine What He’d Do in a Crisis
National security advisors for presidents of both parties have developed a process over 70 years to optimize decision-making. That's particularly critical in those moments of extraordinary…