Strengthening Spacecraft and Security: Reforming U.S. Planning and Resource Allocation
Report: Strengthening Spacecraft and Security: Reforming U.S. Planning and Resource Allocation
Authors: Cindy Williams and Gordon Adams
Institution: MIT Security Studies Program Occasional Paper
Date: June 2008
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This report looks at the arrangements planning, resource allocation, and budgeting for U.S. security and statecraft. It identifies crucial problems and offers recommendations for reform within the departments and agencies of the executive branch, in the White House, and in Congress. The report examines the processes through the lens of four cases: the effort to counter biological threats and prepare for disease pandemics; programs to counter nuclear terrorism; international security assistance; and post-conflict stabilization and reconstruction in Iraq since the end of the initial combat phase in May 2003.
The report also makes recommendations for changes to organizational structures, processes, and tools surrounding planning, resource allocation, execution, and accountability for stabilization and reconstruction (S&R) missions.
Changes to Organizational Structures
Roles and missions review
The next administration should carry out a full-scale review of the current executive branch structures and authorities for S&R operations, including the participation of a bipartisan panel of outside experts.
Organization of the Executive Office of the President
The next administration should reconfigure the EOP to strengthen White House oversight of planning and resource allocation for S&R missions. Specifically, the next president should:
- Set aside the lead agency arrangements and other structures called for in NSPD-44 and Department of Defense (DOD) Directive 3000.05.
- Vest the responsibility at National Security Council (NSC) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for overseeing the planning, funding, coordination, and implementation of S&R missions.
- Create a new senior director position on the NSC staff to coordinate interagency planning and oversee the implementation of stabilization and reconstruction by the appropriate agencies.
- Hold the new senior director responsible for resolving policy and program disagreements among departments and agencies.
Organization of State/U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)
The next secretary of state should resolve the duplication of responsibilities for S&R activities between USAID’s Office of Technical Assistance (OTA) and Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) and the State Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS). The capabilities of those offices should be merged, with a single office providing leadership and overseeing the development of an institutional capacity and the personnel for civilian participation in S&R operations.
Organization in the field
At the field level for any S&R operation, future administrations should establish the following offices:
- For each operation, a single office in the field with overall responsibility for planning and oversight of in-country S&R operations, each staffed with representatives from the agencies involved in the operation and headed by the chief of mission or a presidential special representative with authority over all non-military operations in the country. The office should make maximum use of the interagency capabilities for carrying out these operations, drawing both on DOD and on U.S. foreign policy and foreign assistance assets.
- An office similar to the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) for ongoing review of S&R operations.
Changes to Processes
Intelligence and planning assumptions
The next administration should build on the lessons of past crises, invest in accurate intelligence, and use that intelligence in developing the plans for S&R operations.
Improving the linkages between strategies and budgets
The new administration should take the following actions to strengthen the linkages between strategies and resources, including S&R strategy:
- Within the first year, the NSC and OMB should jointly conduct, with interagency support, a Quadrennial National Security Review (QNSR). The QNSR should establish top-down priorities for national security and statecraft. It should start with the administration’s overarching strategy; articulate a prioritized list of critical missions; and identify the major federal programs, infrastructure, and budget plan that will be required to implement the strategy successfully.
- NSC and OMB should work together to develop a national security planning guidance (NSPG) that provides detailed guidance for agency actions and programs and considers resource tradeoffs and constraints with respect to a small handful of important crosscutting policy areas. An NSPG should be prepared every two years, and each successive NSPG should focus on a few crosscutting missions. The first one should include S&R as one of those crosscutting missions.
- The QNSR and the NSPG should inform OMB’s fiscal guidance to State and DOD. The secretaries of state and defense should be directed to use the QNSR and the NSPG to inform their planning and resource allocation for S&R.
- The NSC and OMB should use the QNSR and the NSPG as the basis of an annual review of State and Defense program and budget documents.
New human resources policies for training, education, and career development
An interagency training and education program should be established to develop defense, foreign policy, and foreign assistance and other U.S. agency personnel to provide surge capability to carry out S&R operations.
Define and implement cross-agency professional career paths for personnel who could be involved in S&R operations, including flexible hiring mechanisms to obtain skilled personnel from the private sector on a temporary basis.
Contracting and accountability
The next administration should implement the recommendations of the SIGIR to provide for greater flexibility in the uses of contracting rules, clarify program requirements, develop flexible funding instruments, and focus greater attention on the long-term costs of projects and their sustainability by the receiving government.
Capturing lessons learned and evaluating performance
The next administration and Congress should work together in a bipartisan effort to capture the lessons learned about planning, resource allocation, implementation, and evaluation from S&R operations in Iraq and in Afghanistan.
Process changes in Congress
The 111th Congress should make the following changes:
- Mandate a bipartisan panel, as proposed above, to review the roles and missions of executive branch departments and agencies in S&R operations. Upon completion of the panel’s work, Congress should review the resulting recommendations and should enact appropriate reforms.
- Mandate the institutionalization in the executive branch of a QNSR and a biennial NSPG. The QNSR should be submitted to Congress and available to the public; the NSPG may be classified.
- Conduct joint hearings on S&R policies and processes, and on ongoing and emerging S&R operations. Topics could include interagency roles and missions, costs of ongoing operations and those under consideration, and issues related to planning and execution.
Changes to Tools
Emergency supplemental appropriations
The next administration and Congress should work together to reduce significantly the use of emergency supplemental budget requests, limiting such requests to genuine emergencies. Specifically, the two branches should:
- Establish strict definitions covering spending that qualifies as an emergency for such appropriations.
- Avoid the use of emergency supplemental appropriations to fund ongoing activities.
- When ongoing activities are involved, review emergency supplemental appropriations for them within the normal agency budget processes.
- Require that emergency supplemental requests be transmitted as an integral part of the base budget request.
Improved reporting mechanisms
The next administration should create data-gathering and reporting mechanisms for reconstruction spending that provide transparent and timely information on spending and outcomes of local stabilization and reconstruction projects to the agencies and the Executive Office of the President (EOP), and to the Congress.
Budget execution systems in the State Department
The next secretary of state should put in place budget execution systems for State/USAID similar to those in DOD, permitting more consistent and transparent reporting.
Advance budget planning and contingency funding
During the planning of S&R operations, future administrations should work with Congress to ensure that adequate funds are provided initially for the civilian capability needed to plan and put in place the U.S. government response to post-conflict reconstruction operations. In addition, the administration should request contingency funding to enable a quick U.S. government response to the needs of a failing or post-conflict state.
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