James R. Locher III is the executive director of the Project on National Security Reform. PNSR is a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization working to develop a U.S. national security system to address a new international security environment characterized by complexity, uncertainty and speed – a world that is vastly different than the system created through the outdated National Security Act of 1947. Locher has more than 25 years of professional experience in both the executive and legislative branches of the federal government. Most notably, in 1985, Locher was assigned responsibility for strategy and organization for the Senate Committee on Armed Services. He directed the bipartisan staff effort that resulted in the Goldwater-Nichols Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 and served as the senior staffer for the special operations and low-intensity conflict reform legislation, known as the Cohen-Nunn Amendment. President George H. W. Bush appointed Locher to the post of assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict in October 1989. He supervised the special operations and low-intensity conflict activities of the Department of Defense, performed as the principal civilian adviser to the secretary of defense on these matters, and represented the secretary in senior subordinate groups of the National Security Council. He served as assistant secretary throughout the Bush administration and first five months of the Clinton administration. During the latter period, Locher also served as acting under secretary of defense for policy. Upon leaving government service in June 1993, he was awarded the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service, the department’s highest civilian award. Since 1993, Locher has been consulting, lecturing, and writing.
A surprise nomination, Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton has embraced her role as Secretary of State and skillfully navigated both the array of pressing foreign policy issues that confronted the new Administration as well as the Washington bureaucracy. Her tenure has been marked by keen interest in strengthening the role of the State Department in the foreign policy process and creating new civilian tools for the President’s use in carrying out 21st century national security missions. Having an abiding interest in development, she has been adept at recognizing the need to reassess how we provide foreign assistance. And, coming from her experience… Read more
One often-overlooked fact about the Goldwater-Nichols Act was that its congressional authors adapted management practices from the private sector to fix our armed forces. At PNSR, we look for unconventional ideas to solve seemingly intractable problems in government. All these books below provided us with perspectives that challenged our thinking and informed our work. Through our work, we know that government has vast, but untapped, potential to solve today’s hardest national security problems. In Images of Organization, Gareth Morgan gives a tour d’ horizon of perspectives on organizations. From Marxist denunciation of industrial bureaucracy to companies resembling organic cell-structures,… Read more
I am not going to say what America’s strategy should be, nor interpret history. But how our strategy is formulated concerns me. First, it would help to define what we are talking about. By “national strategy” I think we mean a national security strategy. What have passed as national security strategies since Congress mandated them in 1986 are largely lists of objectives with little indication of priorities, resources, or comparative advantages between the United States and its adversaries. Discussions of opportunities rarely figure in the mix. Arguably, containment was not so much a strategy as a policy—that is, a principle… Read more
The pressing need for national security reform must not be lost as America grapples with the global economic crisis. It may be easy for some to uncouple the challenges of a sweeping economic downturn that is still revealing itself and the requirement that we confront the need to recast our national security system. But that would be a profoundly shortsighted and dangerous strategy. The reality is that as we focus on the financial markets, the failure of iconic companies, high unemployment and the collapse of the domestic housing market, we need to understand that issues of national security are… Read more
The deepening drug-related violence in Mexico poses a serious risk to U.S. national security. At the same time, the Mexico problem demonstrates the imperative of national security reform. Specifically, the response to problems south of the border has been hampered by the unnecessary division between the National Security Council and the Homeland Security Council. The current U.S. program to counter Mexican drug violence dates to March 2007, when President George W. Bush met his Mexican counterpart, Felipe Calderón. In an unprecedented move, Calderon asked for U.S. assistance to curb arms and drug trafficking, as well as help to… Read more
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