NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY REFORM: REBALANCING THE PRESIDENT’S AGENDA

The common wisdom about presidential success in achieving major goals is simple: Focus on only one or at most two major initiatives. Presidents who try to accomplish too much risk accomplishing nothing, and multiple agenda items distract the team from “staying on message” providing ample opportunity for opponents to undermine the efforts. While this may be true as a general rule, there is a risk that this strategy places an unnecessary and even dangerous limitation on presidential power, particularly in the area where that power may be greatest and most important—national security affairs. The current administration, while responding to an agenda that it largely inherited, appears to be charting a “low profile” course in its handling of national security affairs. Although understandable, this approach may have a very high price—failure to effect much-needed change.

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http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB944.pdf