Terrorism and National Security Reform demonstrates that blue-ribbon commissions can be powerful vehicles for policy change, overturning the conventional wisdom that views them only as devices for passing the buck. Jordan Tama explains how the unique political credibility of commissions can enable them to forge bipartisan consensus on tough policy challenges. He also shows that commissions are most valuable during a crisis, when policymakers face pressure to make changes but frequently cannot agree on what to do. Using an original database, case studies, and more than 200 interviews of policymakers and commission participants, Tama reveals how commissions have shaped Barack Obama's plan for ending the Iraq War, spurred the largest government and intelligence overhauls since 1947, and driven many other elements of U.S. counterterrorism policy. In an era of unrelenting partisanship and extreme polarization, this book shows that commissions are increasingly valuable policymaking tools.

The United States' failure to educate its students leaves them unprepared to compete and threatens the country's ability to thrive in a global economy and maintain its leadership role. This report notes that while the United States invests more in K-12 public education than many other developed countries, its students are ill prepared to compete with their global peers. According to the results of the 2009 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), an international assessment that measures the performance of 15-year-olds in reading, mathematics, and science every three years, U.S. students rank fourteenth in reading, twenty-fifth in math, and seventeenth in science compared to students in other industrialized countries. The lack of preparedness poses threats on five national security fronts: economic growth and competitiveness, physical safety, intellectual property, U.S. global awareness, and U.S. unity and cohesion, says the report. Too many young people are not employable in an increasingly high-skilled and global economy, and too many are not qualified to join the military because they are physically unfit, have criminal records, or have an inadequate level of education. The report proposes three overarching policy recommendations: implement educational expectations and assessments in subjects vital to protecting national security; make structural changes to provide students with good choices; and, launch a "national security readiness audit" to hold schools and policymakers accountable for results and to raise public awareness.

This book argues that Japanese politicians pay more attention to security issues nowadays because of the electoral reform.

How can the United States craft a sustainable national security strategy in a world of shifting threats, sharp resource constraints, and a changing balance of power? This volume brings together research on this question from political science, history, and political economy, aiming to inform both future scholarship and strategic decision-making.

On August 24-25, 2010, the National Defense University held a conference titled “Economic Security: Neglected Dimension of National Security?” to explore the economic element of national power. This special collection of selected papers from the conference represents the view of several keynote speakers and participants in six panel discussions. It explores the complexity surrounding this subject and examines the major elements that, interacting as a system, define the economic component of national security.

National security, a topic routinely discussed behind closed doors by Washington’s political scientists and policy makers, is believed to be an insider’s game. All too often this highly specialized knowledge is assumed to place issues beyond the grasp—and interest—of the American public. Author D. Robert Worley disagrees. The U.S. national security system, designed after World War II and institutionalized through a decades-long power conflict with the Soviet Union, is inadequate for the needs of the twenty-first century, and while a general consensus has emerged that the system must be transformed, a clear and direct route for a new national security strategy proves elusive. Furnishing the tools to assist in future national security reforms, Orchestrating the Instruments of Power articulates and synthesizes the concepts of America’s economic, political, and military instruments of power.

The Project on National Security Reform submitted its 2-year study of the national security system, Forging a New Shield, to the President, President-elect, and Congress on November 26, 2008. Before the Project finalized the report's recommendations, its Vision Working Group tested the findings against a diverse set of scenarios to determine if the recommendations were robust and effective. This volume documents the scenario-testing process used by the Vision Working Group and includes the actual pre-reform and post-reform scenarios, and details many other scenario techniques used in the overall study. Results revealed that each of the five major findings improved the performance of the current national security system, but, on the whole, the findings concluded that the national security system was at risk of failure and needed serious reform. The work of the Vision Working Group has led to the formulation of an additional recommendation: The country must establish a mechanism to infuse greater foresight into the Executive Branch, and in particular the national security system. This proposed mechanism, named the Center for Strategic Analysis and Assessment, would exist and operate within the Executive Office of the President. This volume details the proposed architecture and operation of the Center.

National secuirty strategy is a vast subject involving a daunting array of interrelated subelements woven in intricate, sometimes vague, and ever-changing patterns. Its processes are often irregular and confusing and are always based on difficult decisions laden with serious risks. In short, it is a subject understood by few and confusing to most. It is, at the same time, a subject of overwhelming importance to the fate of the United States and civilization itself. Col. Dennis M. Drew and Dr. Donald M. Snow have done a considerable service by drawing together many of the diverse threads of national security strategy into a coherent whole. They consider political and military strategy elements as part of a larger decisionmaking process influenced by economic, technological, cultural, and historical factors. I know of no other recent volume that addresses the entire national security milieu in such a logical manner and yet also manages to address current concerns so thoroughly. It is equally remarkable that they have addressed so many contentious problems in such an evenhanded manner. Although the title suggests that this is an introductory volume - and it is - I am convinced that experienced practitioners in the field of national security strategy would benefit greatly from a close examination of this excellent book. Sidney J. Wise Colonel, United States Air Force Commander, Center for Aerospace Doctrine, Research and Education

In an increasingly complex and unpredictable world, a growing number of observers and practitioners have called for a reexamination of our national security system. Central to any such reform effort is an evaluation of Congress. Is Congress adequately organized to deal with national security issues in an integrated and coordinated manner? How have developments in Congress over the past few decades, such as heightened partisanship, message politics, party-committee relationships, and bicameral relations, affected topical security issues? This volume examines variation in the ways Congress has engaged federal agencies overseeing our nation's national security as well as various domestic political determinants of security policy.