Managing Foreign Policy

Opinion

By Jack Segal | Aug. 5, 2017

With even FOX’s Chris Wallace citing “tremendous disarray” in the Trump White House, maybe I should explain why I’m still hoping that order might yet emerge from the chaos.

Chief of Staff General John Kelly has joined Lt. General H.R. McMaster in an effort to impose order on the President’s front office. Both have spent enough time in combat and in Washington — two similar environments — to realize that they need to take charge … if Donald Trump will let them. Whether the President can curb his accessibility to his many friends, his love of Twitter, and his inclination to attack his own senior staff, might well determine the Trump legacy.

I’ve told folks who know my background, which includes two tours on the Clinton National Security Council staff, that what is happening is not unprecedented. Infighting, rapid staff turnover, and conflicting policy pronouncements accompanied the early presidencies of former Govs. Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. Their trusted former staffers, advisers, political supporters, and friends were pretty much clueless about national decision-making. Initially, both isolated themselves from the professionals who occupied staff positions in the NSC and government departments. Sound familiar? 

To imagine what is happening now, picture this scenario: Jared Kushner walks into the Oval Office and Dad-in-law says, “Jared, haven’t you gotten anything going yet on Israel/Palestine (or reimagining criminal justice, or reforming the Veterans Administration, or solving the opioid crisis)?”

Jared walks out of the Oval Office and looks at his few assistants — none of whom do more than handle his appointments. White House staffing is at a virtual standstill with the warring camps — White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon and McMaster — holding key National Security Council staff positions hostage.  

How does the POTUS-to-Kushner talk differ from what happened in the White House where I served? First, the positions in President Clinton’s outer office were staffed by experienced people — Clinton loyalists, to be sure — but people who understood that running a state Governor’s office is child’s play compared to overseeing the 2 million people of the U.S. government. They knew how to ensure that issues reaching the President’s desk were “ripe”: fully vetted within the government, discussed with key members of Congress, massaged by budget experts, and consistent with the president’s goals. 

What should happen when poor Jared receives his marching orders from the President is something like this: First, Kushner would alert both Kelly and McMaster of a new requirement from the president. Next, McMaster would task the appropriate assistant to the president who would assign an NSC staffer (like me, in former days) to begin a process aimed at addressing the president’s instructions. What the president wants done needs to be clear. Usually 140 characters just won’t suffice.

I recall one instance where President Clinton was appalled by pictures on TV of desperate Kosovar Albanian women and children struggling through the snow to escape attacks from their Serbian neighbors. “Get those pictures off my TV. What are we doing about this?” he asked. That was clear enough guidance from the president to trigger the decision-making process.

For me, the task was to do what government does: call a meeting. 

With my boss — an assistant to the president — we would put together a “deputies committee” meeting – inviting the deputies from state, defense, CIA, and others whom we thought should attend. That usually would trigger the typical Washington response: “Why does my boss have to come to that meeting?” or “Why isn’t my boss invited?”

After refereeing the attendance battle, we would send out the agenda for the deputies’ meeting. This would trigger another flurry of calls: “Why is that on the agenda?” or “Why isn’t the agenda going to include … ?” You get the picture: bureaucracy in action (“the swamp”). The idea was to engage all the required elements of government and get them behind the president’s program.

A deputies meeting usually resolved some issues, leaving just a few knotty problems for a subsequent meeting of “the principals.” Issues that remained after the horse-trading by the principals would go to the president for adjudication. What I’ve described took time, but it allowed “the process” to work. Bad ideas got tossed. And the ultimate product would reflect policies that were hopefully coherent and durable.

What will not work is if the White House staff tries to run the entire government from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., or worse, is unable to install any orderly process. Our government is definitely bloated, but if the president and his inner circle keep trying to short circuit the decision-making process, key constituencies won’t be consulted, and prior experience will be ignored. The results will look incoherent — policy toward the Middle East, Russia, and China, to cite a few examples — and strategy will get neither formulated nor articulated. Maybe, just maybe, two experienced generals can finally rescue this presidency before we stumble into a disaster.

Retired diplomats Jack Segal and Karen Puschel co-chair the International Affairs Forum. Jack served in senior positions at the State Department, the National Security Council and NATO.