The National Security Enterprise: Navigating the Labyrinth

by Roger Z. George (Contributor), Harvey Rishikof (Editor)

This second edition of The National Security Enterprise provides practitioners' insights into the operation, missions, and organizational cultures of the principal national security agencies and other institutions that shape the US national security decision-making process. Unlike some textbooks on American foreign policy, it offers analysis from insiders who have worked at the National Security Council, the State and Defense Departments, the intelligence community, and the other critical government entities. The book explains how organizational missions and cultures create the labyrinth in which a coherent national security policy must be fashioned. Understanding and appreciating these organizations and their cultures is essential for formulating and implementing it. Taking into account the changes introduced by the Obama administration, the second edition includes four new or entirely revised chapters (Congress, Department of Homeland Security, Treasury, and USAID) and updates to the text throughout. It covers changes instituted since the first edition was published in 2011, implications of the government campaign to prosecute leaks, and lessons learned from more than a decade of war in Afghanistan and Iraq. This up-to-date book will appeal to students of US national security and foreign policy as well as career policymakers.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, Grad School, Crime, International Relations, Military Fiction, Philosophy

440 pages, Hardcover

First published December 14, 2010

Reviews

[Max G.]

I didn’t read the whole thing but most of it. It’s the type of book where the most helpful thing is to skim through and find the chapters that are interesting to you. Each chapter is an essay on a specific agency or stakeholder in the national security system of the US.

I learned that there are entities that I had never heard of but that apparently play hugely important roles, for example the OMB!

Obviously quite a niche book but recommended if this area interests you.

[Leo]

A great primer on our National Security Enterprise. A good history of our NSE bureaucracies and political entities. The authors offer some solutions offered for improvement with a healthy dose of skepticism. "Creating new institutions and navigating a new labyrinth of power is fraught with risk and is not for the fainthearted or for those with wobbly integrity."

[Simon Grimm]

The book is a series of essays by different authors on different parts of the US natsec establishment. Worth reading if one works in US policy, though some of the essays are too general to be useful.

[David Farrell]

Probably one of the most comprehensive overviews I've read about the large and complex U.S. national security enterprise. The book provides background on the formal and informal actors/components that play a role in national security policy - includes information on their history, organizational structures, cultures, and challenges. For those that already study U.S. defense, military, intelligence, or diplomacy policy - the sections on the role of the Homeland Security, the Supreme Court, Think Tanks, Lobbyists, and the Media provide a broader perspective on the diverse actors involved in national security policy.

[Rob]

Great book for anyone working in or interested in working in the National Security Enterprise.

[Brian W]

Book does a great job explaining the role, history of the NSE from a holistic sense and articulates the functions and cultures of the major agencies and institutions that contributes to the NSE. Well worth the read for anyone dealing with the NSE.

[Eric Johnson]

Wow, this book describes the relationship of the various national security organizations for the US Government. It's almost exhaustive and gets kind of slow (one reason why I gave it four stars) and monotonous to read. It's fact-filled and surprised me with some of the organizations that encompass the National Security machine that the US is. For example, the Supreme Court has a role in it and I thought that was interesting to read.