Call for Re-Design: National Security Apparatus

Two Decades Late. A post–Cold War military for a post–Cold War world. By Frederick W. Kagan. National Review June 16, 2008, Pg. 36

The current U.S. national-security organization was designed during the Cold War to face the threats of that struggle. The National Security Act of 1947 created the Air Force and what became the Defense Department, and reshaped the intelligence agencies. The structure was tweaked occasionally, but in very minor ways, until the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986, which made important changes (although nowhere near as fundamental as those made by the National Security Act). The U.S. military has remained virtually unchanged in its basic structure and function since then.

The world has changed, and the threats we face have changed, and that means it is time for a fundamental reorganization of our national-security apparatus.

Mr. Kagan is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and the co-author with Thomas Donnelly of Ground Truth: The Future of U.S. Landpower.