Project on National Security Reform

INTRODUCTION:
The 1995-1996 Taiwan Straits Missile Crisis occurred at the height of escalating tensions between the United States and China. The confrontation began when Washington granted Taiwan’s President Lee Teng-hui a visa to visit his alma mater, Cornell University. The People’s Republic of China, which views Taiwan as a breakaway province, opposed the visit, arguing that trips to the U.S. by Taiwanese leaders were a display of independence-minded sentiments and a threat to stability in East Asia. Angered by Washington’s actions, Beijing conducted missile tests in the Taiwan Straits in the fall of 1995 and again in early 1996—the second round being prompted by the first direct presidential election in Taiwan. Despite high tensions, the situation eventually dissipated peacefully, although the relationship between Beijing and Washington suffered a long-lasting setback.

STRATEGY:
The Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) of 1979, which governed the majority of U.S.–Taiwan policy at the time of the crisis, provided ambiguous strategic guidance at best. The TRA lacked a coherent and integrated plan for responding to crises involving Taiwan, and represented an attempt by the U.S. government to balance interests in Taiwan and mainland China. In addition, prior to 1995, the Clinton administration failed to define clear foreign policy objectives regarding China and Taiwan. These deficiencies resulted in a reactive and inconsistent response to the first missile crisis. In the wake of the 1995 conflict, the U.S. government developed an effective China-Taiwan strategy based on demonstrating American commitment to regional stability. While this enabled a unified and stronger response to the 1996 crisis, faults persisted.

INTEGRATED ELEMENTS OF NATIONAL POWER:
The U.S. government departments and agencies responsible for devising the China and Taiwan strategy did not collaborate to create or implement a cohesive policy. In 1995, the administration was poised to reject any possibility of Lee’s visit to the United States. Differing organizational agendas, lack of leadership, and opposing departmental cultures, however, prevented the U.S. government from maintaining this policy. Once the 1995 crisis began, these dynamics complicated a unified federal response. With the National Security Advisor in the lead, the 1996 missile crisis saw improved consensus between agencies and departments in the U.S. response to China’s missile testing. Thus, strategy implementation displayed notable unity of effort.

EVALUATION:
The weak response to the 1995 crisis was the result of ad hoc policy, congressional and executive disagreement, a lack of interagency consensus on objectives, and the absence of leadership across the interagency. America’s unique relationship with Taiwan resulted in an intentionally ambiguous policy that sought flexibility but instead provided no real policy guidance and appeared weak. Disinterest by agency and departmental leaders, lack of regional expertise, and concerns about interfering with other departments’ “turf” contributed to the absence of a cohesive policy. The setting of integrated goals and centralization of China policy under the NSC significantly strengthened the American response to renewed Chinese missile tests in 1996. Consensus among the Departments of Defense and State, as well as the White House, and Congress during this period allowed for a timely and highly publicized operation.

RESULTS:
Authors generally perceive the 1995 crisis as an American policy failure which resulted in the U.S. government appearing weak in the eyes of Chinese leaders and the American public. There is agreement among most authors that the Clinton Administration’s response to the 1996 missile crisis during Taiwan’s presidential election was more effective, particularly in its demonstration of military power. Nevertheless, the national security process failed to create a coherent China policy that demonstrated a commitment to Taiwan while simultaneously sustaining good relations with the Beijing.

CONCLUSION:
Poor strategy development and fragmentation of objectives among U.S. national security/foreign policy agencies contributed to the inconsistent Sino-American relationship during the 1990s. Despite this, a newfound unity of objectives and consensus among different branches of the Clinton administration allowed for a successful integration and implementation of strategy in 1996. As Taiwan continues to be a key issue between Beijing and Washington, the 1995-1996 Taiwan Straits crisis illustrates the importance of ensuring coordination in both policy strategy and implementation between the different branches of the government.

INTRODUCTION:
On August 2, 1964, the USS Maddox was patrolling waters in the Gulf of Tonkin when three North Vietnamese vessels approached. Two days later, the Maddox reported that it again had been engaged by the North Vietnamese. These events set into motion direct U.S. military involvement in the Vietnamese civil war. On the morning of August 5, President Lyndon B. Johnson sent the Southeast Asia or Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, authorizing force as a response to the possible state of emergency, to Congress. Although reports from the Maddox appeared to catalyze the resolution, cabinet officials had been planning an incursion into Vietnam since the Kennedy administration. The language of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution itself had been written months before the events in the gulf. After less than two days of debate, the resolution passed the Senate 88 to 2. It then passed 416 to 0 in the House. Vague language in Section 2 of the resolution enabled President Johnson to subsequently use the military authorization as a “blank check” to launch escalating attacks and ultimately full scale war against North Vietnam.

STRATEGY:
Within the Johnson administration, ample planning for military operations against North Vietnam had occurred before August 1964. Commitment to a military option had become entrenched at high levels in the executive branch and confrontation with Hanoi became a near foregone conclusion. When the Gulf of Tonkin crisis presented an opportunity for congressional military authorization, the administration acted with little impetus for examining the situation in the gulf or the long-term consequences of the resolution. Years of strategizing for seemingly inevitable military operations by key Johnson advisors, coupled with an ad hoc response to a questionable trigger in the gulf, ensured that there was little real-time evaluation of the course of action begun with the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.

INTEGRATED ELEMENTS OF NATIONAL POWER:
The policy planning which preceded the resolution, and the enactment of the war authorization, both suffered from an absence of rigorous checks and balances. The loosely structured, informal decision making system President Johnson inherited from Kennedy, gave inordinate power to several advisors, fostering faulty planning and leading to the ill-considered decision to go to war via the resolution. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, and National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy worked together in the years and months prior to August 1964, planning offensive action and mobilizing support for the military option. With its swift approval of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, Congress insufficiently scrutinized the war authorization and largely abdicated its role in the decision to go to war.

EVALUATION:
The informal nature of the decision making process in the Johnson administration empowered several officials to wield unbalanced influence at high levels. The president’s trust and confidence in a handful of advisors, and his distrust of institutional intelligence and reporting, hampered thorough debate regarding the resolution specifically, and the American intervention in Vietnam in general. Meanwhile, congressional inaction allowed the executive to steamroll the military authorization through the legislative branch.

RESULTS:
The costs of the Vietnam War, in blood, treasure, and prestige, are staggering and well-documented. It is impossible to know if the war could have been avoided had the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution not been enacted. Indeed, it seems unlikely. However, it is possible that military operations would have been conducted more efficiently if there had been healthier debate and greater balance in the planning and decision making processes. Certainly, the Gulf of Tonkin incident and the resolution engendered lasting distrust between the White House and the Congress.

CONCLUSION:
Established processes and institutions exist to foster balanced and thorough decision making. When the Johnson administration stepped outside such mechanisms and instead relied on a small group of advisors to guide its response to the events in the Gulf of Tonkin (and ultimately greater Vietnam policy), the benefits of procedural deliberation, and an opportunity to scrutinize the path to war, were too easily lost.

INTRODUCTION:
North Korea’s nuclear ambitions have been a thorn in the side of four successive American presidents. From the 1980s onward, the United States government has devised an array of tactics to constrain North Korea, notably: bilateral dialogue, multilateral negotiation, and various sanctions, embargos and military threats under the umbrella of coercive diplomacy. However, these policy variations are less a product of political or security evolutions on the Korean Peninsula and more a reflection of a disorganized and erratic American national security strategy toward North Korea. The decision-making process was handicapped by a foreign policy establishment that was heavily skeptical of a diplomatic solution, and hampered by rifts between key agencies and senior administration officials. The net result was a strategy which, at best, lacked cohesiveness and continuity, and all too often, simply stagnated. Throughout, North Korea continued to develop its nuclear capabilities. Today, the world must cope with a nuclear-armed Pyongyang while the United States is left to salvage the lessons of a comprehensive foreign policy failure.

STRATEGY:
Disagreement and disarray in the bureaucracies of three Presidents (President Obama’s administration is not included in this study) provided few options for resolving the crisis. Lacking coherent guiding principles, decision-makers were forced into reactive roles, and tactical efforts were not deployed as part of an overarching national security strategy. As a result, at all crucial moments in the crises over Pyongyang’s nuclear program—in 1994, 2002 and 2006—North Korean actions have shaped American behavior. This ad hoc approach to foreign policy has done little to advance American objectives on the Korean Peninsula.

INTEGRATED ELEMENTS OF NATIONAL POWER:
Agencies and departments did not collaborate to formulate a strategy after the threat of North Korean non-proliferation became evident. Though some interagency cooperation was achieved during the first Bush administration, the executive branch could not coalesce during tense moments of the 1993-1994 crisis, and remained divided in its aftermath. Thus, interagency conflict emerged as a core problem from 2002 onward.

EVALUATION:
Competing organizational interests, poor lead agency coordination, entrenched ideological assumptions, partisan pressure from Congress, and hawkish press coverage factored into the policy stalemate. Regarding the first variable, the State Department was focused on diplomacy and preserving the non-proliferation regime, while the Defense Department was intent on pressuring Pyongyang to prevent the country from acquiring a nuclear bomb. These conflicting strategies set the foundations for a serious interagency rivalry that persisted throughout the crises.

RESULTS:
The United States has lost significant bargaining leverage with the North Korean regime. Although the geo-political status quo in East Asian security has not changed, Pyongyang’s acquisition of nuclear weapons has undermined global non-proliferation efforts and damaged perceptions of American hegemony.

CONCLUSION:
The North Korean nuclear crisis provides a reflection on missed opportunities for interagency cooperation, and highlights the importance of abandoning long-standing prejudices and assumptions in search of “unconventional” solutions to the threat of nuclear proliferation. Continued political and military jousting between the United States and North Korea make this case study a valuable midstream review. Moreover, there are other proliferation threats on the horizon which must be met with a coherent and cohesive foreign policy.

INTRODUCTION:
On October 16, 1962, the United States received intelligence which confirmed that, despite the assurances of Moscow, the Soviet Union had placed medium range ballistic missiles in Cuba. In response, after close consultation with a small group of advisors, President Kennedy ordered a naval blockade of Cuba and issued an ultimatum demanding that the Soviets remove the missiles. The ensuing days brought the world the closest it has ever come to a nuclear war but on October 28, after days of brinksmanship and diplomacy, the Soviet Union announced that it would remove the missiles.

STRATEGY:
The Kennedy administration considered many possible responses to the Soviet placement of missiles in Cuba. The principle decision making process occurred within what came to be called the Executive Committee of the National Security Council (ExComm). ExComm was a small group of key advisers from a multitude of departments and agencies, as well as subject matter experts, whom Kennedy trusted and whose opinions he valued. This group’s structure and Kennedy’s confidence in the committee allowed crisis deliberations to be unhindered by rank or agency loyalty, prevented miscommunications, and streamlined decision making thereby enabling prompt responses. ExComm eventually decided on a military naval blockade, with contingency plans to fall back on.

INTEGRATED ELEMENTS OF NATIONAL POWER:
Kennedy’s concurrent ultimatum required quick implementation of the naval blockade as well as precisely planned and coordinated diplomatic and military action. By keeping the decision making process secret and limited to a small group of trustworthy advisors, the Kennedy administration was able to control when and how details of the crisis and the U.S. response were revealed to the international community, the American people, and the Soviets.

EVALUATION:
The blockade allowed the United States to take a strong stance without engaging in offensive military action, which would have had a greater risk of escalating into a nuclear war. President Kennedy’s direct executive oversight of diplomatic and military actions ensured the achievement of his political goals, although there was some friction between the White House and the subordinate departments involved in the blockade. The use of a novel interagency tool in the form of a group of key crisis advisers and experts—ExComm—was the most significant factor that contributed to the success of the Kennedy approach.

RESULTS:
The Cuban Missile Crisis is widely considered one of the most significant confrontations of the Cold War, next to the Berlin Blockade. In handling the crisis, the United States maintained its security buffer in the Western Hemisphere without making unpalatable sacrifices or escalating military aggression with the Soviet Union. The Kennedy administration’s success also demonstrated that it could deal effectively with an international threat, reversing damage to U.S. prestige that had resulted from the failed Bay of Pigs operation. This enhanced the international standing of the United States and increased the credibility of U.S. deterrence.

CONCLUSION:
The Kennedy administration successfully managed the Cuban Missile Crisis. The establishment of ExComm, with its open atmosphere of decision making, created an effective forum in which experts could decide on a course of action. Direct involvement by the president and the high level of ExComm secrecy controlled information and limited the number of miscommunications and mistakes. The naval blockade allowed the United States to take a strong position on the international stage in opposition to the Soviet Union’s increased nuclear threat, while minimizing the possibility of nuclear war.

INTRODUCTION:
In October 1983, a leadership crisis within Grenada’s People’s Revolutionary Government spiraled out of control. After the execution of the Prime Minister and the deaths of dozens of civilians, the head of the People’s Revolutionary Army announced the suspension of the civilian government and the establishment of an interim Revolutionary Military Council. He declared a four day, 24 hour shoot-on-sight curfew, trapping some six hundred American medical students on the island. Equipped with only basic information, Washington feared the worst: a mass hostage situation similar to the Iran crisis that plagued the Carter administration. The U.S. response rapidly escalated, culminating in the decision to launch a military operation designed to seize the entire island, evacuate the American students, and restore a democratic government. Leading elements from the U.S. Army Rangers and United States Marine Corps began combat landings on October 25 although the last of the students were not rescued until October 28. Despite this, the operation was successful in that it achieved its objectives: all of the American students were rescued and democratic governance was restored to the island. However, there remains much debate over the legality of the operation, its attendant impact on international law, the real impact on U.S. international relations, and the necessity of the operation.

STRATEGY:
In the early 1980s, the National Security Council system suffered from structural ambiguities that resulted in a complex snarl of responsibilities and occasional lapses of clear leadership. This tendency was exacerbated by the distraction of Cabinet-level authority by the resignation of Reagan’s National Security Advisor on October 14. In the absence of higher authority, the situation in Grenada was dealt with exclusively by the Restricted Interagency Group, an unusual interagency group consisting of representatives from the Department of State, Department of Defense, and CIA. Nominally chaired by the State Department, every member in the group reported individually to their respective departments. No one in the group had clear authority. This early inertia was partially resolved by Cabinet-level involvement beginning on October 20 but by this time the situation in Grenada had become a crisis.

INTEGRATED ELEMENTS OF NATIONAL POWER:
Unity of purpose proved evasive during the early phase of U.S. strategy development – October 13 through October 20 – and the scope of the response continued to be negotiated until at least October 22. Once the decision was made to launch the invasion several flaws in planning and execution became obvious. Fundamental flaws in the intelligence cycle marred the entire operation, demonstrating failures to request and distribute information. The paucity of useful data resulted in an impracticable operational plan calling for a one-day rescue. In the event, the last of the American students on the island was not reached until the third day of combat operations.

EVALUATION:
Several characteristics stand out when considering Urgent Fury. The president was minimally involved in the development of the operation, and clear authorities were often lacking in the Reagan National Security Council system. Ambiguous or absent leadership let a stalemate occur between the bellicose, Reaganite State Department and the reticent, post-Vietnam Defense Department, squandering a significant portion of the early planning period. When Cabinet-level involvement did occur, military conservatism and civilian aggressiveness inflated the American response, turning a limited rescue operation into a full-scale invasion. When an invasion was decided on, excess secrecy in military planning excluded key support agencies and intelligence assets from pre-operation planning. During the conduct of the operation, interservice command, control, and communications protocols proved to be widely divergent. Limited ad hoc solutions were developed to make up for inadequate coordination of command, control, and communications systems between the services.

RESULTS:
Despite the problems faced during the execution of the operation, the mission was a success. The official casualty figures for the operation list 19 Americans dead and 115 wounded. 25 Cubans and 45 Grenadians were killed, with 59 Cubans and 358 Grenadians wounded. According to the Department of Defense, Urgent Fury cost $134.4 million. The intangible results remain the subject of fierce debate. The U.N. General Assembly condemned the action as did British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, whose government was angered by the Reagan administration’s failure to consult Downing Street prior to the intervention and severely embarrassed by the American invasion of an independent member of the British Commonwealth. Critics of Operation Urgent Fury occasionally note that, in retrospect, the U.S. students do not appear to have been in any real danger. On the other hand, some analysts claim that the operation significantly curtailed Communist military expansion, serving as a major politico-military Cold War success. Regardless, the problems experienced by the military during the conduct of the operation lent weight to the ongoing Nichols-Goldwater Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986.

CONCLUSION:
The situation in Grenada received only intermittent attention from the highest levels until it became an undeniable crisis. In practice, this meant that sharp differences between the Departments of State and Defense were played out in the collegial structure of the Reagan national security decision-making system without recourse to the president to force an early consensus. This highlights the necessity for the NSC system to function smoothly without detailed intervention from the president. However, ultimately, Operation Urgent Fury was a qualified success.

INTRODUCTION:
The 1994 U.S.-led intervention in Haiti occurred as a result of a 1991 coup by the Haitian military against the democratically elected President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The military coup forced Aristide to flee to the United States and ignited a refugee crisis. The U.N., the United States and the Organization of American States attempted to return Aristide to Haiti through a series of diplomatic missions and embargoes. The failure of these efforts became apparent when American and Canadian personnel aboard the USS Harlan County, who were to enter Haiti as part of the 1993 Governors Island Accord, were prevented from disembarking in Port-au-Prince by rioting supporters of the military government under the direction of General Raoul Cedras. Following this episode, the U.S. government began preparing for possible military action. In September 1994, while military planners were preparing Operation Uphold Democracy, the military intervention in Haiti, President Clinton deployed a team led by former President Jimmy Carter to make a final attempt at diplomacy. With U.S. forces airborne and en route to Haiti, the Carter mission succeeded in convincing Cedras to step down voluntarily. Thereafter, the U.S. military displayed immense flexibility in stopping the invasion and redeploying as a peacekeeping force. By the end of October, American forces and supporting agencies had established a secure environment and put Aristide back in control of Haiti. The force continued reconstruction and security efforts until the end of March 1995 when Haiti was declared sufficiently stable for the U.N. to take control of the peacekeeping mission.

STRATEGY:
Strategic planning for a possible intervention in Haiti was coordinated by NSC interagency working groups and resulted in the first ever political-military intervention plan. This strategy tasked the U.S. military with ensuring the security of multinational elements and assigned the job of economic and police force reconstruction to other agencies, such as the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Departments of State and Justice. Operational planning was conducted by individual agencies, but the lack of institutionalized avenues for sub-National Security Council interagency communication inhibited an integrated effort. Diplomatic initiatives and the desire for a surprise assault further complicated lower level interagency communication by requiring military planning to be done covertly. Operational and tactical coordination between military and civilian forces occurred only after U.S. forces had arrived in Haiti and as a result of significant efforts made by U.S. commanders and the U.S. Ambassador.

INTEGRATED ELEMENTS OF NATIONAL POWER:
Incomplete operational planning negatively impacted the integration of civilian and military efforts during the initial phase of Operation Uphold Democracy. Compounding this problem was the lack of a clear chain of command between civilian and military forces throughout the intervention. However, the military was able to form impromptu working relations with civilian agencies after the initial confusion and managed to fill the gaps created by the weak planning and delayed deployment of some civilian agencies.

EVALUATION:
The shortage of resources, absence of experienced planners and complex contracting process faced by civilian agencies; constraints on communication between civilian and military planning groups caused by the need for secrecy; the lack of institutionalized mechanisms for lower level coordination and the compartmentalization of military planning; misunderstandings between civilian and military communities derived from divergent organizational cultures; delays in the initiation of planning and interagency coordination as a consequence of the policy debate within the Clinton administration; and insufficiently clear authorities contributed to the initial confusion and weakness of the Haiti operation. However, the eventual success of the mission can be explained by excellent military planning and flexibility, as well as adequate informal cooperation between American commanders, the U.S. ambassador, and civilian agencies after the initial phase of the intervention.

RESULTS:
The failure of the Harlan County mission emboldened Cedras, signaled the collapse of the Governors Island Accords and initiated a series of events that ended with a United States intervention in Haiti. The initial dysfunctional cooperation among agencies contributed to a period of chaos following the immediate arrival of U.S. forces in Haiti. The disorder subsided when U.S. military forces assumed policing and institution building roles that allowed other U.S. government agencies additional time to organize and implement their missions. Eventually, civilian agencies increased their participation in and coordination of humanitarian, security and reconstruction efforts and, together with military forces, created the conditions required for the operation to be shifted successfully to U.N. control. Only one U.S. soldier was killed during the entire 18-month operation. U.S. spending on Haiti between 1992 and 1995 totaled approximately $1.6167 billion. However, it should be noted that the operation failed to bring long-term stability to the country.

CONCLUSION:
Most analysts of the 1994 intervention argue that Operation Uphold Democracy was successful in achieving the goals identified by UNSCR 940. Furthermore, many authors agree that U.S. agencies interacted effectively despite the ad hoc nature of the coordinating mechanisms. Overall, Operation Uphold Democracy is an encouraging example of cooperation between the U.S. armed forces, civilian agencies and nongovernmental organizations in a nation-building mission that illustrates the significant benefits such cooperation can accrue.

INTRODUCTION:
In October 1998, Hurricane Mitch, the most powerful Atlantic hurricane in history, slammed into the Caribbean coast of Central America killing or disappearing at least 19,000 people and displacing roughly 1.8 million. Mitch’s Category 5 strength and glacial pace created the conditions for catastrophic amounts of rain: one meter of water descended over Honduras in 72 hours. Honduras and Nicaragua suffered massive damage to economic and social infrastructure—roads, bridges, factories, hospitals and agriculture—at a cost of $8.5 billion. Hurricane Mitch’s devastating impact on Central America resulted in an unprecedented U.S. government (USG) response. Never before had a foreign natural disaster elicited such comprehensive action. Overall, the USG performed commendably and coordinated well with Central American counterparts, though interdepartmental cooperation was not without significant glitches.

STRATEGY:
According to protocol, USAID’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) leads the USG response to international humanitarian crises. However, Mitch quickly overwhelmed OFDA and the Honduras-based Joint Task Force Bravo (JTF-B) as civilian and military officials struggled to cope with insufficient resources and interagency confusion. Presidential Decision Directive 56 had stipulated a framework for integrated USG responses to complex contingencies which could have been enacted in response to Mitch but, as the catastrophic scale of the hurricane became apparent, bowing to Congressional pressure, President Clinton appointed an ad hoc task force leader charged with coordinating response activities and reporting directly to the Office of the President. Similarly, an internal USAID report suggested that the transition from emergency response to long-term development lacked coherent policy guidance to harmonize the expectations of the USG, host governments and civil society groups.

INTEGRATED ELEMENTS OF NATIONAL POWER:
The USG mission was well-spliced into the broader relief efforts, yet the response was slowed by poor assessments, lapses in leadership, confusion regarding departmental capabilities, and a misalignment of organizational priorities. These problems were illustrated by a counterproductive dynamic that unfolded between USAID and DOD during emergency response efforts. However, as mission success became less time-sensitive and USAID assumed a more central role, agencies collaborated more satisfactorily. Analysts point out that USG integration with domestic private donors, NGOs and media outlets, as well as international NGOs and contractors, was generally weak. Some analysts indicate that during long-term reconstruction, USAID’s integration with host state mitigation efforts sidelined civil society.

EVALUATION:
There were two principal strengths of the USG plan. First, America’s relief and reconstruction initiative was massive, comprehensive and magnanimous, employing a multitude of technical capacities from numerous government departments, including direct White House involvement. Second, OFDA and DOD benefited from established working relationships that predated Mitch with local authorities in host governments. Consequently, both organizations demonstrated effective coordination with host countries during rescue and reconstruction phases. However, the relief effort exhibited many weaknesses. Most importantly, the mission was constrained by the absence of an efficient contingency framework for mission leadership and resource allocation at the outset, and by a lacking external framework for harmonizing long-term development goals with host countries and indigenous civil society groups. In addition, OFDA and JTF-B suffered from a dearth of interdepartmental working relationships, which resulted in time lost.

RESULTS:
The U.S. intervention muted the humanitarian crisis and put Central America on a path to early economic recovery. The scale and commitment of USG involvement also increased American soft power in the region and worldwide. Mitch reconstruction preceded a period of close ties between Central America and Washington, heralding advances in trade interconnectivity and facilitating increased cooperation in narcotics interdiction. The costs of failures in the USG approach were varied. For example, inefficient delegation of activities led to poorly engineered bridges and dreadfully designed resettlement communities. Bypassing civil society also undermined democratization in Nicaragua and Honduras.

CONCLUSION:
This case study demonstrates the difficulty of constructing coherent, integrated U.S. government responses to natural catastrophes—events which are increasingly salient threats to America’s national security. In response to the Mitch disaster of 1998, on balance, America acted commendably though there was room for improvement. In all likelihood, storms like Mitch and Katrina will continue to result in massive socio-political upheaval, tremendous economic losses and massive human migration, all of which impact U.S. national security.

INTRODUCTION:
From 1954 until the mid-1970s, Laos was the scene of substantial American political and military intervention as successive administrations attempted to forestall the establishment of a communist government in the newly independent Lao kingdom. Despite its short tenure, the Kennedy administration was particularly important in committing the U.S. government to a policy of steadfast covert military assistance to non-communist factions in the Lao civil war. Indeed, Kennedy not only markedly shifted American strategy in support of a neutral coalition government, but also established unique country team structures that endured for over a decade. The 1975 communist victory in Laos has led most analysts to characterize the American assistance effort as an exercise in futility. However, several assessments of U.S. involvement also note the unique levels of innovation and interagency coordination the U.S. assistance program achieved despite relatively limited resources.

STRATEGY:
Though the President encountered bureaucratic and other resistance in his diplomatic endeavors, Kennedy’s pursuit of a neutral government political settlement in Laos was a deliberate strategy that employed military and diplomatic tools to advance American objectives. The post-Geneva Accords military assistance program, by contrast, evolved in a relatively ad hoc fashion in response to in-country events as the administration sought to preserve the neutral Lao government.

INTEGRATED ELEMENTS OF NATIONAL POWER:
Bureaucratic conflict, at times, obstructed policy formation in Washington. In contrast, the U.S. Government agencies in the field—notably USAID, Department of Defense, CIA, and Department of State officials in Laos—demonstrated impressive levels of cooperation empowered by the authority of the U.S. Ambassador. Civil-military conflict was manifested in coordinating the air war, but overall the U.S. Country Team achieved notable integration of the elements of national power despite limited resources and other obstacles.

EVALUATION:
Presidentially empowered ambassadors, detachment from Washington, Country Team innovation and expertise, as well as flexible funding structures appear responsible for producing a united assistance effort in Laos. Yet, bureaucratic tensions and entrenched Washington world-views also created shortcomings in strategy development and implementation.

RESULTS:
Overall, the literature emphasizes the costs of American involvement, most commonly the financial toll, the failure of American objectives, and U.S. as well as Lao casualties.

CONCLUSION:
In addition to offering distinct insight on country team cooperation in a remote and challenging theater, the study also illustrates patterns of policy-making within the Kennedy administration serving as an interesting example of American involvement in unconventional warfare, an increasingly important aspect of present-day U.S. national security policy. In analyzing the U.S. government’s approach to the Laos crisis under Kennedy, authors note the worthwhile nature of the Geneva Accords and the achievements of a united, unorthodox country team. In the end, however, analysts agree that Kennedy-era policy towards Laos proved unsuccessful. The diplomacy of the Geneva Accords, could not bring peace and covert military assistance was likewise incapable of defeating communism in Laos.

INTRODUCTION:
Human activity is increasingly being transferred to, and becoming reliant on, cyberspace. Governments, militaries, critical infrastructures, businesses, and societies now depend on information and communications technology (ICT) to function. The reliance of the United States on such systems, the possible misuse of the cyber-domain by violent non-state actors such as terrorists, and the proliferation of nation-state strategic information warfare programs has raised awareness of the need to incorporate cybersecurity strategies into U.S. foreign and national security policies. To date, there has been no (unclassified) large scale, nationally significant event from which to judge the costs of an attack on ICT critical to U.S. national security. Other nations have not been as fortunate. Russian hacker-networks indirectly linked to the Kremlin opened a devastating cyber-front against Estonia in 2007 as part of a political protest. During the recent war against Georgia, Russian hackers instigated a front in cyberspace the night before conventional forces began their operations. Over the years, in the United States, Chinese based hacker networks have managed to extract forty terabytes of information critical to U.S. national security from cyberspace. Many military analysts believe cyber defense and attack will be vital to future military efforts.

STRATEGY:
The National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace (NSSC) is the codification of earlier Presidential Directives and laws into a coherent national strategy. As per NSSC mandate, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is assigned as the lead agency to serve as a federal focal point for the coordination of government and industry cybersecurity efforts. As noted in the Cyber Incident Annex of the National Response Framework, during a cyber-attack, the Interagency Advisory Council (IAC) and National Cyber Response Coordination Group (NCRCG) are the main mechanisms activated to coordinate the interagency response within the National Cyber Security Division (NCSD) at DHS. Upon the detection of an attack, the IAC, comprised of senior representatives from 13 Federal agencies, is activated by the Director of Homeland Security. The NCRCG provides expertise to the IAC and facilitates a harmonized response to a cyber-attack. To date, these mechanisms have only been activated during crisis management exercises. Additionally, the NSSC grants private industry significant responsibility to secure cyberspace. This element of strategy has drawn criticism from experts. Further, modifications to the NSSC were made with the issuance of the classified Presidential Directive 54/Homeland Security Presidential Directive 23 in 2008 which detailed a Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNSI). Part of this initiative is the creation of the National Cyber Security Center (NCSC) within DHS to secure cyberspace vital to national security.

INTEGRATED ELEMENTS OF NATIONAL POWER:
The implementation of the NSSC strategy for responding to and preparing for cyber-attacks among agencies and departments has proceeded well in most key areas. The DHS/NCRCG/IAC have demonstrated through crisis management exercises their utility in coordinating a response to a cyber incident of national significance. However, there is a significant lapse in implementing the cybersecurity strategy within individual agencies/departments. To address this, the NCSC is tasked with securing all federal information systems. Another point of concern brought up in the secondary literature with regard to cooperation involves information sharing limitations between DHS and the private sector since the private sector tends to withhold information on the threats to and vulnerabilities of their systems out of fear that their customers will discontinue use of a service after discovering a networks’ weakness.

EVALUATION:
Following the guidelines of the NSSC, DHS has produced an interagency mechanism to secure cyberspace. However, DHS exercises indicate that limitations exist in implementing the strategy due to the technological complexity of the subject and lack of private-sector understanding of federal security postures after activation of the IAC and NCRCG. In addition, competing priorities and limited resources and cybersecurity personnel are problems. Further, the private-sector and intelligence community’s unwillingness to share information with non-members of their respective organizations contributes to the weakness of current cybersecurity efforts. This, combined with similar secrecy concerns within DOD, obstructs cybersecurity information sharing. Overlapping responsibilities with various DHS units, limited available resources to deal with the multitude of competing priorities, redundant capabilities in various government departments and agencies, and the lack of an integrated mechanism for coordinating response are additional variables contributing to the weaknesses in the strategy. Finally, the inherent insecurity of Internet communication protocol, domain name-server, and other technical variables makes pinpointing the origin of an attack difficult, thereby complicating the response to a security breach.

RESULTS:
The United States continues to face significant risk from cyber-attacks. Although DHS leads the interagency response to such threats, and DOD is also organized and equipped to respond to cyber-attacks, failure to plug holes in federal and private critical information systems leaves U.S. cyberspace interests vulnerable to both amateur and professional attackers. Thus far, cyber-assaults of particular note have been Chinese efforts. These attacks are best described as cyber-espionage since their scope is geared more towards gathering information rather than destroying ICT. Yet, it has been noted that the full extent of such attacks cannot be known, and it is possible that the hacker networks responsible for carrying them out have left computer programs that may allow for future access to the U.S.’s critical information infrastructure.

CONCLUSION:
To date, the cybersecurity strategy and U.S. organizations responsible for securing ICT remain in a state of near constant flux. Overall, the government has been generally flexible in adjusting its cyber strategies as necessary and despite its flaws, the NSSC has brought a degree of organization to the interagency. The anti-regulatory framework remains a critical flaw in current national cybersecurity strategy since private industry is not likely to fully disclose threats and vulnerabilities to information systems.

INTRODUCTION:
Climate change is a far reaching hazard of nature rather than a threat emanating from a foreign government or terrorist group. However, climate change is increasingly designated as a crisis with national security implications. Global warming presents grave economic, political, and security challenges to modern nation-states. At present, global warming is not a calamity occurring within a definite time period and requiring immediate government action. Instead, it is a growing risk that may culminate in a true crisis or catastrophe in the future. Therefore, any assessment of the United States government’s response to global warming should focus on the preparation it has undertaken in anticipation of the impending crisis rather than its response to future climate change effects. The policy planning and implementation associated with such government action is the subject of this case study. The merits and shortcomings of U.S. climate change policy are a controversial subject. The history of U.S. policy responses to environmental challenges, beginning in 1960, has elicited a mixed variety of praise and censure. Secondary literature on the U.S. decision to reject the Kyoto Protocol, citing economic damage and other sovereignty concerns, is particularly critical.

STRATEGY:
Due to the inherently preparatory nature of U.S. climate change strategy, federal policy development has largely been planned rather than ad hoc. The U.S. government has developed effective organizational strategies to coordinate and integrate more than a dozen federal agencies in the Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) and Climate Change Technology Program (CCTP). Although the U.S. government failed to include essential agencies such as the EPA in its policy decisions regarding the Kyoto Protocol, it was still able to arrive at a policy and act on it in a planned and systematic way.

INTEGRATED ELEMENTS OF NATIONAL POWER:
In general, U.S. strategy implementation exhibited good interagency cooperation, although lapses have occurred in the past, as when no lead agency existed during the 1970s to provide overall coordination. Recent federal programs, such as CCSP and CCTP, have integrated more than a dozen government agencies in climate change policy implementation efforts, and a cabinet-level management structure has been successfully employed to plan and implement interagency coordination. The Department of Commerce (DOC) and Department of Energy (DOE) served as lead agencies for CCSP and CCTP, respectively, providing clear lines of leadership authority that secured organizational success. However, interagency cooperation was either poor or nonexistent in the U.S. response to the Kyoto Protocol. Most notably, the Environmental Protection Agency, the principal body responsible for enforcing emissions requirements, was poorly integrated into the policy making processes of the Bush administration. This is evidenced by an EPA report released in 2002 contradicting the official position of the president on the Kyoto Protocol. Furthermore, there is a striking inconsistency between state and federal responses to the Kyoto Protocol. The state of California and a group of northeastern states have expressed official support for the protocol, implicitly deviating from federal policy.

EVALUATION:
The relative success of the U.S. government in establishing new federal programs (CCSP/CCTP) to confront environmental challenges can be attributed to the breadth of integration across federal agencies, clear interagency authorities, and the employment of a lead-agency approach. A principal weakness of CCSP and CCTP is the lack of budgetary authority among member agency directors. The agency principals often had to depend on persuasion to secure funding and had little to allocate at their own discretion. Furthermore, new initiatives developed by CCSP and CCTP, however effective, will not necessarily be adopted by industries in the private sector. The failure of federal policy makers to propose a successful alternative to the Kyoto Protocol can best be attributed to the poor integration of essential federal agencies such as the EPA into the decision process.

RESULTS:
Annual budgets for CCSP and CCTP are two billion and four billion dollars, respectively. Due to the preparatory nature of U.S. climate change strategy, the precise benefits of U.S. mitigation efforts remain unrealized unless a true environmental crisis occurs. The benefits of CCSP and CCTP are difficult to quantify and come in the form of risk mitigation, the reduction of likelihood that a catastrophic environmental crisis will occur in the future. However, there are immediate costs to American prestige and soft power associated with the U.S. failure to develop a suitable alternative to the Kyoto Protocol. As seen by many Europeans, the United States has set itself against the world without credible justification. By failing to propose an international alternative to Kyoto, the United States has also increased, or at least failed to reduce, the risk of a global environmental crisis. Rejection of the Kyoto Protocol, however, did bring financial benefits: the United States has avoided the economic costs of the protocol’s emissions regulations, estimated by some to amount to 4% of U.S. Gross Domestic Product.

CONCLUSION:
From a systems viewpoint, the U.S. government has exhibited good organizational capabilities in certain instances of policy planning and implementation. The CCSP and CCTP represent the effective integration of a broad array of federal agencies and national security resources. While the U.S. government seeks to balance concerns of sovereignty with the necessity of intergovernmental coordination, it has yet to find such an equilibrium. Of particular concern from an organizational perspective was the United States government’s ultimate inability to develop a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol. In short, the current national security system proved incapable of addressing security issues of the global commons.