Development of national security agencies in zegart's book

Amy B, Zegart’s “ Flawed by Design: The Evolution of the CIA, JCS, and NSC”

‘ Flawed by Design’ by Amy B. Zegart (1999) is an intensifying, gratified book determined to provide an entire framework that pictures the development of the National Security Council (NSC), Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Zegart constructs a model of formulating the national security agency that she analyzes with three establishments, which are the main themes of her book.

The “ new institutionalist” (Zegart 1999, 8) is argued by Amy Zegart as a construct of national security institutions (NSC, CIA and JCS) which proposes that these institutions were not created to provide for the interest of the nation. Zegart says, “ The War and Navy Departments, the intelligence bureaucracy, and the Congress were all too busy guarding their own interests to worry about national ones” (Zegart 1999, 10). She mentions that the bureaucracy within the national security agencies has greatly been overlooked by scholars of IR and political fields of U. S. Zegart implies.

In contrasting the realist theory of agency creation and development with the new institutionalist model, the realist model evolves in retort to the global arrangement while the institutional description is that agency arrangement and growth is determined by the Congress and interest groups and highlights that the this environment in which the interest groups sustain is termed as domestic politics (Zegart 1999).

On reviewing theoretical offering, gives rise to the “ new” institutionalist model as Zegart’s study points out that the interest groups and power dealers are considered to be comparatively less influential in IR, driving Congress to be less dependant on the drive to system and the primary model best workable to the regulatory authorities.

Flawed by Design is an analysis of institutionalization in primary and significant agencies responsible for developing and maintaining the national security policy of the United States of America namely NSC, CIA and the JCS, all encompassing in the currently developed Department of Defense (DOD) (Zegart 1999). All these agencies prevailing since the Cold War are considered to be the outcome of what is under arguable terms the most significant legislative decree in affairs of the international arena, i. e. the National Security Act of 1947.

Zegart’s assertion that “ we know more about mobile nuclear missile silos than we do about the original set up of the National Security Council system, the Central Intelligence Agency, or the Joint Chiefs of Staff” is undoubtedly an overloud statement and holds no empowerment” (Zegart 1999, 3). Flawed by Design, is seen to follow the magnificent custom of examining the intertwining of the religious followed factors of public organizations: “ bureaucracy, politics, and public policy with reference to American national security” (Zegart 1999, 3).

The Joint Chiefs of Staff too molded out to be a weak correspondence for aligning operations of the military forces, “ barely adequate,” as mentioned by Colin Powell. In Flawed by Design: The Evolution of the CIA, JCS, and NSC, Amy Zegart states that the unsuccessful efforts of rescuing Americans in Iran in 1980 can serve as a good example. Due to the structure of the American military organization, not a single officer was accountable for strategizing and administering the attempt—a complete mistake that played a role in the catastrophe (Carter and White 2001).

It was the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act, which can be termed as a successful effort to provide the JCS chairman complete empowerment to fix the situation with the help of the Joint Chiefs. And where JCS could not work properly, CIA and NSC were completely impossible to operate fruitfully (Moore 1998-99). Ever since the Soviet Union collapsed, intermittent appeals to eradicate any of the institutions (due to their failures) have been turned down without any proper reasoning.

On investigation, the cause for the NSC and CIA to grow immensely strong lays down in the development of the legal statute; Congress paid mere attention on the fusion of the forces rather than eradicating these to develop new ones. The NSC’s formation was not followed by any discussion and the argument over the centralization of CIA was concluded with CIA’s administration to be handed over to the civil or military power (Haass 1997).

Finally, Zegart proposes a theoretical model which caters in explaining how an organization running under the government originates and impacts growth and effectiveness. Amy Zegart mentions that “ national security organizations are not rationally designed to serve the national interest” (Zegart 1999, 8).

She categorizes this mediocre performance of the organization to aspects causing the primary design and progress of the association. In the midst of the designing of basic national security agencies, a disagreement of political nature and negotiation amongst primary stakeholders govern the practice. Moreover, the strength lashing the new organization is not of great global apprehension or congressional authorization but somewhat a thrust away from the administrative division (Carter and White 2001).

A secondary role is, however played by the Congress. It is the omission by the Congress theoretically speaking but practically is irregular and unproductive owing greatly to the electoral inducement and a reluctance to use up politicized resources. It also mirrors an overlapping analysis that national security is mainly a presidential sphere. While law highlights most important characteristics of agencies, not all can be encoded (Zegart 1999). Thus the subsequent issue, administrative interests, tends to be an added evolutionary point of concern. The receding flow of a variety of significant bodies and alterations in their grouping over the span of time stands out as the reason for the agencies to develop and change.

This book confronts the realist and traditional new institutionalist models of agency development and change. In their position, she presents a “ national security agency model” (Zegart 1999, 10), that may perhaps be best explained as the “ new institutionalism meets the two presidencies” (Carter and White 2001). In presenting her customized new institutionalist loom, Zegart also highlights the reason for predicting the stringent but current institutionalist model, for instance the dominance of congressional partialities and failure to notice or explain the evolution of the agency. This does not grasp in the strategic administrative policies (severely due to the streaming weakness of noticeable groups when contrasted to the domestic strategy).

Rather, evolution of agency could be defined by the structure of the agency, the interests of the appropriate political players and external disturbances. There are reasons for drawing a line of similarity among the new institutionalism and previous bureaucracy models based on politics. However Zegart authors that there are big differences that have not been and cannot be clarified. The chronological study in the case studies utilized in the book are also not satisfactory and do not fulfill the purpose. The literature is filled with positions for all individuals, regardless of sex, age or occupation who, according to Zegart can clarify that Congress has enforced the National Security Council on President Truman (Zegart 1999, 54).