give it the responsibility for following up on these policies as actually carried out in operations. Furthermore, the resolution of interdepartmental conflicts arising out of operations would seem to be more easily reached in the Council because its members would already be familiar with the policies under which the operations were undertaken. Objectors to this alternative usually accept the Council as being a useful device for the formulation of recommendations to the President on national security policy, including basic policy governing the foreign programs, but point out the disadvantages by arguing that if the Council were to undertake the detailed supervision that would be required for the coordination of foreign programs with other activities in the fields of foreign affairs, military affairs, and domestic economic affairs, the Council would be too overloaded to continue its primary functions with the degree of success it has so far attained. Further objection relates to the statutory powers of the Council and suggests that policy execution and executive leadership fall outside the Council's jurisdiction. In addition, such a proposal would inject an organization between the President and the responsible heads of the various executive departments and agencies.

Alternative 4 is to fix responsibilities for coordination in a special staff in the Executive Office of the President.

The proposal to maintain a special staff in the White House as a major solution of the problem of coordination arises from the assumption that the situation at the Cabinet level will remain one of divided responsibility for foreign programs as long as at least two departments, the Department of Defense and the Department of State, are involved. It is further argued that in such a situation, interdepartmental committees, or even the National Security Council, could at best be only a weak remedy, and that the President can obtain effective assistance only from a staff unit in his own office, headed by a special assistant of adequate competence, rank, and prestige. The advantage, it is argued in this alternative, would be in associating the power of decision with the right of discussion. Disputes would come quickly to the President for his decision, and this would make for efficient operations.

Against this proposal it is argued by some administrative experts that the multiplication of personal staff will not solve the coordination problem of the President or of any other executive, as long as the staff is required to function as such, without any delegation of command authority. The presence, for example, of the Harriman office in the White House, it is said, simply adds one more high-ranking subordinate whose views the President must consider when attempting to decide among the recommendations he will already have from a multiplicity of officials, including the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense.

This objection would not hold, although other problems would arise, if the assistant to the President were empowered by him to exercise delegated authority in the line of command. The assistant could then settle matters within his competence without referring them to the President. But if the assistant to the President were given authority and responsibility to integrate policy and program decisions for the foreign programs in relation to foreign policy, military policy, and domestic economy policy, perhaps by being informally designated as a deputy chairman of the National Security Council, he might be popularly regarded as another Secretary of State in the White House.

FURTHER ANALYSIS AND CONCLUSIONS

The basic problem of relationships with which this chapter is concerned is one of the oldest problems of government. The military and diplomatic agencies are ancient expressions of sovereign power; and they have always had their special phases of association in the work of the state.

If the problem is new in its present setting in the United States, it is because of the new position that the United States has come to occupy in the world. For a European state that has lived hundreds of years with the ever-present possibility of an armed crossing of its frontiers, close cooperation between the military and the diplomatic agencies, and mutual awareness of the problems of the other, should be almost automatic. In the United States, where the tradition of forward planning in a situation of real danger is not old in either department of the Government, the problem of cooperation between the Departments of State and Defense continues to be a real one.

In the terms in which the first issue of this chapter was posed, the proper role of the Department of Defense in the formulation of foreign policy appears to be that of furnishing military advice to the President and the Department of State with a conscious attempt to take into account the economic and foreign policy implications so far as they can be observed. It is important to maintain departmental specialization in the approach to foreign affairs, and the predominant role in that area must obviously be that of the Department of State. On the other hand, the idea that the Department of Defense should be limited to furnishing strictly military advice should be rejected, because economic and foreign policy implications require consideration at all levels and should be taken into account before problems have worked their way to the top of the military hierarchy in the form of an agreed position in the tripartite Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The relationships between the Department of Defense and the Department of State at the policy level, however, cannot be considered

solely in terms of the problems of foreign policy. The two-way nature of the relationship between the two Departments should be emphasized. Foreign policy and military policy are for some purposes merely parts of something larger than either, namely, national security policy.

The Hoover Commission Task Force on National Security Organization pointed out in 1948 that—

National security is still thought of too much in terms of military strength alone. There is still inadequate recognition of the equal and possibly even greater contributions to our national security that can and should be made by our political, economic, human, and spiritual resources.

The task force also commented on the relationship between national security policy and grand strategy; it referred to the witnesses who had suggested that the "formulation of grand strategy should be prefaced by consideration of the kind of social and material conditions we wished to leave in an enemy country when a military defeat had been inflicted upon it." The task force found that—

strategic plans, made without clear guidance of long-term peace aims, were based on assumptions which may or may not be correct; that the military, in other words, were planning to fight the next war-if this tragedy should occur without knowing exactly what we would be fighting for.

In this connection it should be noted that the term "grand strategy" has a specific connotation in military thinking; "grand strategy" is distinguished from "strategy" in the ordinary military sense, in that it looks beyond war to the subsequent peace, includes all factors that will affect the peace, and extends to the relations of a nation. to its allies and to neutrals as well as to its opponents.

Grand strategy and the national security policies to which it is related are matters for decision by government in the largest sense and not by any single department or interest. Moreover, where the United States is involved with other nations in matters that affect its national objectives and its national security policies, the interrelations of political, military, and economic considerations leading to governmental decisions are of particular significance. Situations of this nature require international coordination to reconcile conflicting objectives and policies and to secure the adjustment of the national viewpoints to conform with the common interest of the several nations involved.

Diplomacy is the primary instrument for reaching political agreement among associated nations, yet military planning must run parallel to it in the United Nations' collective security system, in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and in the Organization of American States under the terms of the Rio Treaty. The blending of political agreement with international military planning under a coalition requires a higher degree of coordination and mutual understanding

between the Departments of State and Defense than in situations where the United States may be acting unilaterally. Neither department may be expected to possess the wisdom to meet its separate responsibilities alone, and each needs the advice of the other.

Joint work on national security policy

The National Security Council provides the place for organized joint work by the Departments of State and Defense on matters of national security policy and grand strategy. The council provides means by which comprehensive policy can be systematically formulated, reduced to writing, approved by the President, and communicated to action agencies. Most of the time, the work seems to have moved along reasonably well, except for a period in which relationships between the two Departments were subject to more than ordinary strain arising out of personal incompatibilities at the top.

In 1948, the Council was studied by two task forces of the Hoover Commission, one of which was concerned with foreign affairs, the other with national security organization. The first concluded that the council was "an unusually well-conceived and well-run organization." The second, led by people who had helped to create the council, was much more critical of performance, pointing out that guidance on the military budget had not been forthcoming on time and stating that the council was not yet in position to give "that degree of basic guidance which the military must have if a sound balance between the size of the military establishment and the needs and capabilities of the nation is to be achieved."

The inquiries of the present study indicate that there is still a tendency on the part of the military, as there has been almost from the beginning, to press for the formulation of detailed policy statements affecting the civil side of affairs to an extent that is resisted by the Department of State. Conversely, during the months since the outbreak of hostilities in Korea, there has been a marked tendency on the part of the representatives of the Department of State to press for the formulation of more detailed statements that would reflect military policy and planning. Whether these efforts should be viewed as an attempt on the part of each party to encroach in the field of the other, or alternatively should be taken as an expression of a real need on the part of each for more specific policy guidance from the other for use in its own planning, cannot be determined from the information presently available. The situation seems natural and not unhealthy as a part of the growing pains involved in the development of an important new institution of government.

It is the impression of those who have participated in the present study that the working efficiency of the council and of its subordinate bodies has improved significantly in recent months. There is still

question as to whether there is not too much "paper pushing" and "paper polishing" in the lower levels of the activity, with minor aspects of problems tending to absorb disproportionate amounts of time at the expense of matters of real urgency. This chronic malady of interdepartmental committees can only be offset by the persistent application of vigorous executive leadership in secretariat activities and working level deliberations.

A difficulty of the Council arises from the two distinct types of participants in its work, particularly in the senior staff committee and working levels subordinate to it. On the one hand are the representatives of the Departments of State and Defense, with their respective deep substantive and institutional interests in the complex problems coming before the Council. On the other hand are the representatives of the other agencies who participate in the discussions, such as the National Security Resources Board, the Treasury Department, the Office of Defense Mobilization, and the Office of the Special Assistant to the President (Mr. Harriman). While the views of all of this second group are doubtless pertinent, the participation of their representatives at the working levels of the Council tends to inject foreign policy views, and to a lesser extent military views, that may be little more than the personal views of the individuals concerned or of their superiors. This is naturally irritating to the representatives of the responsible agencies, particularly the Department of State, the Department most affected, and tends to impede and prolong the consideration of matters in the lower levels.

The Departments of State and Defense should give further consideration to the systematic organization of their own processes for joint work with each other on policy matters of special mutual concern. Joint work would facilitate the evolution of a joint position in advance of discussions to be carried on later under Council auspices, thus leaving the representatives of other agencies in the position of commentators rather than formulators, which appears to be appropriate for such matters as are essentially politico-military in character. In other cases, the proper organization of joint work on the initiative of one department or the other might make it unnecessary for the Council to take up matters it might otherwise be required to handle, thereby hastening the presentation of an agreed recommendation to the President.

Joint work on NATO affairs and military aid

Problems of policy and administration arising out of the North Atlantic Treaty and the mutual defense assistance program have tested the ability of the Departments of State and Defense to organize internally and to cooperate with each other in a complex series of