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Governments want to control information. To do this, they have elaborate systems for promoting themselves via propaganda departments and for ensuring confidentiality with official-secrets laws. There are good reasons for these: people need information, and national security deserves secrecy.
While some national security advisers have eschewed the Scowcroft Model and sought to 'operationalize' the NSC or pursue their own policy agendas without regard to the cabinet, the president and the country are best served by the NSC's adherence to its intended 'honest broker' advisory role.
John McCain has taken tens of millions of dollars from special interests and lobbyists in his senate and presidential campaigns. Now, we have to wonder if he will be able to remain objective on national security matters, as millions pour into his 'charity' from oppressive foreign governments.
During the campaign, Trump in many ways repudiated President Obama's national security and foreign policy approach on issues like the Iran nuclear deal and immigration. So there's a real question of continuity or disruption with Trump, which wouldn't have existed if Clinton was president-elect.
The president doesn't order the military to seize political opponents. He doesn't order his intelligence community to lie about national security for political purposes. He uses the military or intelligence communities to protect the United States and our citizens, not to help him win elections.
You know, there's a real irony in U.S. assistance programs. First of all, I think it's misnamed. We're not so much trying to help people as we're trying to help ourselves. So let's be clear about this. So these are - in my view, they're cold calculations of national security and not aid programs.
I think this is a part of John McCain that a lot of people don't know about, is that he took younger senators under his wing. And, in my case, I - he taught me so much about national security and foreign policy, even when we didn't always agree. He took me four times with him to Iraq and Afghanistan.
America needs a new generation of leaders to address the big issues facing the country: alleviating the middle class squeeze and promoting economic opportunity, confronting the significant national security challenges threatening the safety of our people, and reforming the culture of Washington, D.C.
Despite global economic concerns, other nations are continuing to push forward and invest in their space capabilities. A U.S. withdrawal from the industry will only allow others to surge in their own capabilities, potentially impacting our national security and technology competitiveness in the future.
The administration of George W. Bush, emboldened by the Sept. 11 attacks and the backing of a Republican Congress, has sought to further extend presidential power over national security. Most of the expansion has taken place in secret, making Congressional or judicial supervision particularly difficult.
The idea that an actress - mostly lauded for her performances in more than a dozen films - somehow represents a threat to Iran's national security is laughable at best. But in Ahangarani's case, far from anything humorous, the allegations have actually resulted in the sober prospect of real prison time.
I've been subject to how many security clearance procedures and I must say as irritating as some people may find them I think they are absolutely essential to making sure that people who work in sensitive positions in the national security field in our government are entirely loyal to the United States.
For the United States to recommit itself to the obligation that we undertook in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that many other states undertook, which was to work towards disarmament and the eventual elimination of nuclear weapons, is something that manifestly serves our national security interests.
We probably haven't seen the variety and diversity of threats to Americans' safety and well-being and our national security in a long, long time. Some have said it almost makes you yearn for the Cold War days when you knew who the bad guys were and who the good guys were, and there was a wall dividing us.
In the budget, the president will call for a five-year freeze on discretionary spending other than for national security. This will reduce the deficit by more than $400 billion over the next decade and bring this category of spending to the lowest share of our economy since Dwight Eisenhower was president.
I've been thinking, in an age of Trump where you don't know the direction of the country, the person you need most is a steady conservative hand like Mark Kirk in the Senate to be advising the president, especially on national security topics ... which is my particular expertise after 23 years in the Navy.
The National Security Council assists the president by ensuring that he receives the best views and options from the various departments and agencies on any given issue. The ultimate policies are, as they should be, then decided upon by the president - not by the NSC staff or the national security adviser.
To me, freedom of speech and debate are necessary inputs in solving any of our nation's problems, from homelessness and economic inequality to banking, the environment, and national security. Freedom of speech is what Larry Lessig would call a 'root' issue; working on free speech is striking at a root issue.
To accomplish its mission, the FBI relies heavily upon its law enforcement and intelligence partners around the nation and around the globe. By combining our resources and our collective expertise, we are able to investigate national security threats that cross both geographical and jurisdictional boundaries.
Friendly governments do not act so as to undermine the national security of their friends, and do not presume to know better than their friends how they should contend with the many challenges they face. The Swedish government would do well to rethink its intention to act in this way towards its friend Israel.
Ms. Rice was a bad national security adviser and a bad secretary of state. She was on the wrong side of some of the administration's biggest internal policy fights. She had a tendency to flip-flop when it came to the president's core priorities, and her political misjudgment more than once cost Mr. Bush dearly.
Bob Gates is really emblematic of the modern CIA. He joins it in 1968, just a day before the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia. And, of course, he rises very quickly. In less than six years, he's on the National Security Council staff, at the closing weeks of Richard Nixon's presidency and then on into Gerald Ford.
Despite unprecedented levels of technological advancement and the interconnectedness of the world, the pursuit of truth in the realms of foreign policy and national security remains a critical issue. This is because the level of 'noise' that must be sifted through has also reached an unprecedented size and scope.
The president has a right to discuss his national security policies with the public. But that should be done in the light of day without endangering our sources or methods. The public has no need to know details about intelligence assets or special operations units. Such disclosures endanger those who protect us.
The president recognizes that funding global health is good for national security, domestic health and global diplomacy. Consequently, President Obama has steadily increased funding for the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, which was created by President Bush and has strong bipartisan support.
In general, preliminary Force Protection information is shared throughout the national security community - and with U.S. allies - as part of our ongoing efforts to ensure the safety of coalition forces overseas. Leaks compromise and disrupt the critical interagency work to collect, assess, and ascribe culpability.
There is a widespread view among the liberal intelligentsia to the effect that Henry Kissinger, U.S. National Security Advisor from 1969 to 1975 and Secretary of State from 1973 to 1977, was a bad man. That may even be an understatement. In this fashionable consensus, he is not just a bad man: he is a war criminal.
9/11 was a gamechanger in so many terrible ways, not just for the United States and for our own national security apparatus but for the whole world. And those attacks blew apart any notion of separation between foreign and domestic threats, any notion that such attacks only happen to other people in other countries.
The time has come for President Obama to formally rescind his order to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay and end his irresponsible allegations of injustices at the facility, which operates in a framework that respects the rule of law, keeps terrorists off American soil, and bolsters our national security.
I have nothing but contempt for Gadhafi. I'm not a Gadhafi supporter in any way. However, it's not clear to me that it's a vital and compelling national security objective of the United States that we ought to use military force to remove him from power. He's not the only unpleasant and unsavory dictator in the world.
Some say Edward Snowden is a hero and a patriot. Others say he's a fool and a traitor. The evidence is mounting that the guy who leaked the details about the National Security Agency's Internet-eavesdropping program may be something more sinister - namely, a willing tool in China's ongoing cyberwar against our nation.
President-elect Donald Trump has a host of national security challenges to deal with as he assumes office, from the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan to the grinding Syrian civil war to the flexing of Russian muscles under President Vladimir Putin to how to deal with ISIS as the terrorist army retreats in Iraq.
We need a new generation of leaders who will promote policies that will foster economic growth and alleviate the middle class squeeze, defend America's national security against those who threaten our people, reform the culture of Washington, D.C., and reassert the constitutional principles that make our country unique.
Trump himself has not laid out a clear agenda on the national security issues that are the most pressing for the United States, from the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan to the deepening Syrian civil war to the fight against ISIS in Iraq and Syria and the flexing of Russian muscles under President Vladimir Putin.
We need to have a national security that puts steel in front of our enemies. I would send weapons to Ukraine. I would work with NATO to put forces on the eastern border of Poland and the Baltic nations, and I would reinstate, put in place back in the missile defense system that we had in Poland and in the Czech Republic.
Let me say this: I believe closing Guantanamo is in our Nation's national security interest. Guantanamo is used not only by al-Qaida, but also by other nations, governments, and individuals - people good and bad - as a symbol of America's abuse of Muslims, and it is fanning the flames of anti-Americanism around the world.
If Israeli intelligence that has been shared with the United States - whether the National Security Agency, the C.I.A., the Defense Department, or the White House - is not safely guarded, Israel faces a major threat to its security. Cooperation with America's agencies is deeply embedded in Israel's intelligence community.
What we've seen over the last decade is we've seen a departure from the traditional work of the National Security Agency. They've become sort of the national hacking agency, the national surveillance agency. And they've lost sight of the fact that everything they do is supposed to make us more secure as a nation and a society.
That the Islamic State is guilty of horrific atrocities is common knowledge. But most Americans seem unaware of the human toll of our own actions, the consequences this has for our national security and our reputation, and that, too often, the civilian casualties we cause are the result of avoidable mistakes. This must change.
Patrick Murphy's decision to support a deal that infuses the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism with $150 billion, confers international legitimacy on Iran's expansive nuclear program, and even allows Iran to inspect its own military sites demonstrates a lack of judgment and inexperience in matters of national security.
Allowing suspects to indefinitely linger in our cells is, in fact, detrimental to our national security goals. If a suspect is proven to be a terrorist, for the sake of the victims and deterring any future attacks, he or she must be brought to justice. America has done this with Timothy McVeigh and hundreds of other terrorists.
There's the assumption being made by the national security advisers to the Obama administration that the North Korean leadership is not suicidal, that they know they will be obliterated if they attacked the United States. But I would point that everything in South Korea and Japan is well within range of what they might want to do.
In 2012, General Dempsey, General Petraeus directed the CIA, Secretary Panetta and Secretary Clinton recommended to the president to robustly arm and train the Syrian moderates. He says no. In 2013, conduct a military strike, same national security team, against the Assad regime because he violated the chemical red line. He says no.
China has national security laws that compel Chinese companies to provide the government with information and access at their government's request. And virtually all Chinese companies of any size are required to have Communist Party 'cells' inside them, to make sure the companies stay in line with the party's principles and policies.
Many of the benefits from keeping terrorism fear levels high are obvious. Private corporations suck up massive amounts of Homeland Security cash as long as that fear persists, while government officials in the National Security and Surveillance State can claim unlimited powers and operate with unlimited secrecy and no accountability.
I believe in an America in which the fruits of productivity and prosperity are shared by all, by workers as well as owners, by those at the bottom as well as those at the top; an America in which the sacrifices required by national security are shared by all, by profiteers in the back offices as well as volunteers on the front lines.
In 1945, at the beginning of the Cold War, our leaders led us astray. We need to think of the Cold War as an aberration, a wrong turn. As such, we need to go back to where we were in 1945 - before we took the road to a permanent war economy, a national security state and a foreign policy based on unilateralism and cowboy triumphalism.
Even though we still don't know any precise details, we're already making it clear that some proposals like a border tax or "buy-American" regulations are heading in a protectionist direction. The Americans' sudden proposal to classify certain steel products as national security-related is also something that we find highly problematic.
The Environmental Protection Agency's first-ever limits on carbon pollution from power plants will create clean- energy jobs, improve public health, bring greater reliability to our electric power grid, bolster our national security, demonstrate the United States' resolve to combat climate change and maybe even reduce our utility bills.
My view is that the cyber threat is bigger than any one government agency - or even the government itself. But the FBI brings a rare combination of scope and scale, experience, and tools to the mix. We investigate criminal activity like intrusions and cyber attacks, but we also investigate national security threats like foreign influence.