Choosing a New National Security Advisor
How should President Trump think about selecting a new National Security Advisor?
Trust is the coin of the realm. When trust was in the room . . .good things happened. When trust was not in the room, good things did not happen.
—Secretary of State George P. Shultz
As the news breaks today that National Security Advisor Mike Waltz is leaving the job as Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (APNSA) to become U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and that Secretary of State Marco Rubio will serve as interim APNSA, President Trump has an opportunity to reflect on his expectations for his next National Security Advisor.
The candidate’s base motivation will be of paramount importance. My experience in the White House convinced me that those who serve in any administration fall into one of three categories. First, those who want to give the President best analysis and multiple options so the President can advance his agenda. Second, those who serve because they want to manipulate decisions consistent with their, not the President’s, agenda. And third, those who assume the role of protecting the country (and maybe the world) from what they regard as a dangerous agenda. The President should choose someone in the first category—but once he does, those in the second and third categories will try to undermine efforts to provide best advice and multiple options.
I believe that Mike Waltz understood his role as the honest broker, and that may be the fundamental reason for his relatively short tenure.
To serve the President, whomever follows Secretary Rubio should be prepared to accomplish five fundamental tasks.
Staff the President. Ensure that he is prepared for any foreign policy engagements including phone calls, visits of foreign leaders, presidential travel, and speeches.
Run the process. Coordinate and integrate efforts across the departments and agencies to give the President multiple options and foster implementation of his policies and decisions.
Advance the President’s policies with foreign counterparts and other foreign leaders. Engagements should foster unity of effort with allies and partners and help influence the behavior of competitors, adversaries, and rivals.
Communicate the President’s decisions, policies, and guidance to key audiences. Those audiences include first and foremost the departments and agencies that participate in the process as well as, on occasion, U.S. citizens or the public from other countries.
Lead the NSC team. Provide the dedicated and talented members of the NSC staff with “purpose, motivation, and direction” and create a positive climate in which teammates are bound together by trust and mutual respect.
The most important determinant of the new National Security Advisor’s effectiveness will be his or her relationship with the President. A lack of trust is fatal, and, sadly, there will be people in the West Wing of the White House and across the administration who will be eager to erode that trust.
Trust is indeed the coin of the realm, in all human relationships, personal and professional, inside and outside of government, in connection with the domestic policy-making process and in our foreign relations, which is the context in which Secretary of State George Schultz made that seminal observation. (Repeatedly). And yet, if one were seeking the one missing ingredient across all these contexts under the current regime and president, it would have to be that very stuff. Yes, trust, which is not only sadly lacking but achingly absent. It’s no mystery why either.
In a rational world this might happen. Regrettably, since Trump isn't rational by any stretch of the imagination; doesn't agree and will never agree with any of this; and will never allow any of this to occur, our country is in deep trouble and will continue to be irreparably damaged as long as he is allowed to rampage through the government, destroying as much as he can.
Our relationship with our allies will be damaged beyond repair for generations. Our economy will never be as strong as it was and our standing in the world will continue to fall. Unless and until Congress grows a spine and sprouts some patriotic b___ls very soon, there will be no bright future for America or the American people.