What can history teach the architects of the next National Security Strategy? Attempting to tackle modern issues by drawing on lessons from the past has always been fraught with risk. Sir Michael Howard wrote: “analogies with events or personalities from other epochs may be illuminating, but equally they mislead… what is valid in one situation may, because of entirely altered circumstances, be quite untenable the next time it seems to occur.”[1] As a result, writers of the next National Security Strategy must avoid treating history as a catalogue of tested and proven policies and strategies that officials can peruse. However, while history cannot provide specific solutions to specific problems, it can reveal the existence of recurrent or enduring human phenomena that may have modern incarnations that today’s U.S. officials must similarly consider or confront.

As the United States faces another dramatic shift in the character of its strategic competition with states like Russia and China, it should include in the next National Security Strategy proposals for the expansion, synchronization, and further centralization of U.S. national security organizations’ prerogatives, authorities, and decision-making. Particularly since the Industrial Revolution, both the scope and complexity of war and strategic competition have increased dramatically in a relatively short time. This change has placed ever-changing and expanding demands on national strategy and the organizations responsible for its design and implementation.

Historical case studies like the German General Staff and British Committee of Imperial Defense are particularly illuminating.

Consequently, states have been forced to adapt to acquire new or improved capabilities to compete effectively. They have historically done so in part by expanding the powers, prerogatives, and jurisdiction of their strategy-making organizations, while further centralizing authority and decision-making to promote more effective coordination and execution. Historical case studies like the German General Staff and British Committee of Imperial Defense are particularly illuminating. Even if they cannot provide specific blueprints for what U.S. officials should do today; they can show the size, scope, and nature of what is needed to face another dramatic shift in the character of strategic competition.

The Prussian General Staff in the Napoleonic Era

It is easy to take for granted the importance of organization to national strategy, in which case the work of Prussian General Gerhard von Scharnhorst in the early 19th century serves as an important case study. During the final years of the Napoleonic Wars after Prussia suffered substantial losses in the field, a cadre of visionary reformists led by Scharnhorst proposed and implemented a series of radical structural reforms, including the establishment of a centralized planning body that became known as the Prussian General Staff.[2]

Scharnhorst’s reforms show architects of the next National Security Strategy that, when faced with a dramatic shift in the character of strategic competition, changes to just the national strategy are not enough.

For Scharnhorst, poor strategy or subpar battlefield decisions alone did not bring about the strategic and operational failures that Prussia had recently suffered against France. Instead, their recent losses resulted primarily from a deeply flawed military organization requiring fundamental change to meet the unprecedented challenges of Napoleonic warfare.[3] In the 19th century, the line between war and peace was more distinct and national security was more synonymous with military strategy than it is today. Therefore, with the ascendance of Napoleonic warfare, Scharnhorst now faced a dramatic shift in the character of strategic competition. Scharnhorst’s response—the creation of the General Staff—established for the first time a body directly responsible for the planning and execution of national strategy. The structural reforms brought about by the General Staff expanded Prussia’s capability to manage and control all aspects of its military system by solidifying links between dissipated parts. It also centralized decision-making, creating better coordination across all its armies and commanders.

Scharnhorst’s reforms show architects of the next National Security Strategy that, when faced with a dramatic shift in the character of strategic competition, changes to just the national strategy are not enough. To overcome the new kinds of demands placed on national strategy by strategic competition’s changing character, nations like the U.S. must also reform those organizations responsible for strategy by expanding their powers and centralizing decision-making authority.

The General Staff under Moltke

The evolution of the German General Staff in the latter half of the 19th century provides some insight for contemporary officials on how the changing character of strategic competition often requires organizations responsible for strategy to expand their capacity to act. At the time in question, Field Marshal Moltke served as Chief of General Staff. Under his leadership, the German General Staff directed Prussian forces in its successful and lopsided wars against Austria in 1866 and France in 1870. The General Staff emerged victorious from these conflicts in part because it successfully adapted by involving more variables and issues in strategic planning and doing so long before war broke out.

History therefore suggests that the writers of the next National Security Strategy should consider expanding the capacity for action of current national security organizations like the National Security Council.

By Moltke’s time, states could no longer expect to win wars if they began to mobilize only after they declared them. To ensure victory, strategists now had to prepare well ahead of time. In terms of strategic planning, not only would the General Staff need to prepare the military for war, but it also had to ensure that other parts of government and even society had been coordinated and synchronized with military planning well in advance. Thus, beyond the further centralization of all military planning, training, and organization, the General Staff incorporated aspects into strategic planning such as railroads, telegraph communications, and other infrastructure.[4] Such matters could no longer be left to civilian management during peace, only for the military to use those resources during war. Officers now also had a say in where railroad tracks would be laid and telegraph lines would be built. Because such resources would possess increased military importance at the outbreak of conflict, strategic planning expanded vastly in scale and scope.

Moltke’s General Staff understood how strategic competition was changing as a result of decades of industrialization and technological advances. As the demands of national strategy expanded, so, too, did the authority of the responsible organization. History therefore suggests that the writers of the next National Security Strategy should consider expanding the capacity for action of current national security organizations like the National Security Council. While the U.S. should not presume that reforms exactly like Moltke’s would retain their effectiveness if applied today, it should look at expanding its capabilities and powers in a way that matches the current character of strategic competition.

The British Committee of Imperial Defense

As the character of strategic competition evolves, forcing states to expand the capabilities and prerogatives of its bodies responsible for national strategy, these states must also centralize and synchronize both new and existing capabilities to effectively plan and execute national strategy. Great Britain’s creation of the Committee of Imperial Defense in the early 20th century exemplifies how a state reforms existing structures and establishes new institutions to centralize decision-making and ensure effective coordination of national strategy.

The character of strategic competition had continued to evolve up to the turn of the 20th century as the line between peace and war had become increasingly blurred, even more so than during Moltke’s time as Chief of General Staff. The British government needed to prepare to take immediate action, at any hour, should the country enter a state of war. The demands of warfare required comprehensive, whole-of-government and even whole-of-society planning beforehand, so that mobilization could occur seamlessly and practically overnight.[5]

The committee therefore concluded that Britain's strategic problems could not be solved simply by the formation of a new foreign or military policy…

In the wake of Great Britain’s surprising defeat in the Second Boer War, the government formed a committee to scrutinize overall national strategy and to make recommendations to avoid similar strategic catastrophes in the future. The resulting Esher Committee concluded that there ultimately existed “no means for coordinating defence problems, or for dealing with them as a whole for defining the proper functions of the various elements, and for ensuring that… peace preparations are carried out upon a consistent plan, and… in times of emergency a definitive war policy based upon solid data, can be formulated.”[6]

In other words, while the British government possessed a plethora of ministries and departments responsible for national strategy’s ever-increasing number of pieces, there existed no effective way of ensuring those pieces all operated in cohesion. The committee, therefore, concluded that Britain's strategic problems could not be solved simply by the formation of a new foreign or military policy; rather, the nation needed to establish a new institution for the coordination and integration of national strategy and the organizations responsible for its various parts.

The British government, therefore, established the Committee of Imperial Defence in 1904. Up to that time, no organization had existed for the sole purpose of coordinating national strategy, nor was any previous or existing British institution structured like the new committee. For one, a secretariat appointed by the Prime Minister, rather than the Prime Minister himself, ran the committee’s daily operations. The secretariat managed the committee’s paper flow and coordinated all of its planning.[7]

Its other membership remained elastic, but it almost always included representatives from every department or ministry whose bureaucratic responsibilities necessitated their involvement in the crafting of national strategy.[8] This process now not only included the various branches of the military, colonial offices, and foreign ministry, but also involved those responsible for the regulation of private industries, infrastructure, and manpower deemed essential for wartime mobilization. The committee was further composed of subcommittees, ad hoc planning groups, and, for the first time, a centralized council of military chiefs that answered directly to the Prime Minister.[9] The British government now had a strategy-making body responsible for balancing all competing geopolitical demands and producing a national strategy that used all available capabilities in a synchronized and effective manner.

Just around a decade later, the plans, mechanisms, and structure established by the Committee of Imperial Defence were put to the test on the eve of World War I. While from the British perspective the global conflict could be considered a tactical, operational, and strategic failure in many ways, the committee did accomplish its goal of effective and near-immediate mobilization. According to Sir Maurice Hankey, the secretariat of the Committee of Imperial Defense before World War I, “The pre-arranged steps for passing from a state of peace to a state of war in a single night worked, on the whole, smoothly and silently [during the Great War].”[10] The British continued to improve and reform the committee, relying on it for strategic planning until the end of World War II.

While the National Security Council coordinates interagency processes and synchronizes department policies, the next National Security Strategy should propose additional reforms to further centralize authority and enhance interagency coordination…

For Great Britain during this time, the shorter, relatively more limited wars of the 19th century had begun to evolve into the total wars of the 20th century. Over this period, the British government had created and maintained more and more departments and ministries responsible for pieces of the Empire and its strategy. This process, however, also necessitated additional organizational reforms within the British government to streamline its structure, centralize planning, and synchronize all aspects of national power.

A Committee of Imperial Defence might not solve any of the United States’ problems today. However, the United States still faces the problem of centralization and coordination caused by the changing character of strategic competition. While the National Security Council coordinates interagency processes and synchronizes department policies, the next National Security Strategy should propose additional reforms to further centralize authority and enhance interagency coordination, particularly if the National Security Strategy also proposes structural reforms that expand the authority of or increase the number of issues managed by the Council.

The National Security Council and the Cold War

More recently, the passage of the National Security Act of 1947 can also serve as an important example of how the United States, faced with a new kind of strategic competition with the Soviet Union, both created novel organizations to handle new and existing aspects of national strategy and centralized decision-making authority into a coordinating body ultimately responsible for the crafting of national strategy.

At the dawn of the Cold War, officials knew strategic competition with the U.S.S.R was becoming unprecedented in its character. They worried about the implications of their new, precarious situation and the possibilities of future conflicts. Michael Hogan explains: “the long term threat required a permanent program of preparedness, and the danger of total war dictated a comprehensive program that integrated civilian and military resources and obliterated the line between citizen and soldier, peace and war.”[11] Government officials and academics began using the term national security to describe this new character of strategic competition.

American officials knew that the government’s defense organizations were not prepared for the demands of national security. World War II revealed critical flaws in the way the nation formulated and executed strategy. In a private letter during the war, General George Marshall complained of the “serious disadvantages” he faced when debating wartime strategy with the British, in part because their system for strategic planning eclipsed his nation’s.[12] Meetings with Roosevelt, he admitted, lacked the efficiency of the British system.[13] Marshall understood that an inadequate administrative organization hampered effective strategy-making and execution.

In essence, in 1947 the United States followed in the footsteps of both the Germans in the 19th century and British in the early 20th century.

Thus, in order to meet the challenges of national security during the Cold War, U.S. officials created what scholars have termed the “national security state” through a series of organizational reforms enacted in the National Security Act of 1947.[14] The act consolidated the various military departments into one single Defense Department, led by a single secretary and a Joint Chiefs of Staff. The legislation also created new organizations like the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Resources Board, responsible for coordinating private industry and resources with national security demands. Finally, all the new and existing national security organizations were tied together by a centralized coordinating body for national strategy: the National Security Council, which continues to be the coordinating body of the interagency today.

In essence, in 1947 the United States followed in the footsteps of both the Germans in the 19th century and British in the early 20th century. Facing a new and dangerous incarnation of possible war, U.S. officials embraced organizational change as a means to meet the demands of the geopolitical environment and competition with the Soviet Union. These organizational reforms both created new capabilities and expanded the scope of national strategy. They also created new means for coordinating these capabilities, tools, and departments, allowing the executive branch to centralize important strategic decision-making and synchronize government to those decisions.

Implications for the Next National Security Strategy

As the Biden administration prepares to draft the next National Security Strategy, the United States faces another shift in the character of strategic competition. The U.S. once again finds itself in a competition with peers or near-peers that echoes back to the great-power competition of previous centuries. However, countries like China and Russia are competing with the U.S. in new and underdeveloped domains: information warfare, cybersecurity, and space, to name a few. Additionally, the unprecedented speed of technological innovation in areas like artificial intelligence, unmanned systems, and 5G threatens U.S. dominance in existing capabilities.

History shows that organizational reform remains critical to the strategic success of a country in the face of unprecedented challenges.

The specific contexts of each of the case studies make the particular reforms implemented less relevant than the general purposes they were meant to achieve: expand the capabilities and prerogatives of existing national security organizations while ensuring the synchronization of all capabilities and institutions by a centralized coordinating body. Even before the next National Security Strategy, the Biden administration has already taken a number of encouraging steps. For instance, it has added new nonstatutory members to the National Security Council, including the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Secretary of Labor, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, citing “the cross-cutting nature of a number of critical national security issues.”[15] Such a move both expands the capabilities of U.S. national security planning while still centralizing that planning at the National Security Council.

Still, U.S. officials can do more, and they should propose more reforms in the next National Security Strategy. They should solidify the initial steps taken by the Biden administration and make these new members statutory for all future administrations. The U.S. should look at ways to deepen coordination and cooperation with non-governmental organizations and businesses. The administration should further centralize national security planning wherever possible, regardless if such changes require either an expansion of power, personnel, or resources at the National Security Council. History shows that organizational reform remains critical to the strategic success of a country in the face of unprecedented challenges. The architects of the next National Security Strategy should learn this now, rather than later.

Leo Li is a U.S. Army officer who has worked on Indo-Pacific issues for the Office of the Secretary of Defense (Policy). The views represented in the article are the author’s alone and do not reflect the views of the U.S. Army, Department of Defense, or U.S. Government.

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Header Image: Chess, (Maarten van den Heuvel).

Notes:

[1] Sir Michael Howard, “The Use and Abuse of Military History,” Parameters Vol. XI, No. 11, 9-14.

[2] Charles Edward White, The Enlightened Soldier: Scharnhorst and the Militarische Gesellschaft in Berlin, 1801-1805 (Westport: Prager Publishers, 1989).

[3] Ibid, 133.

[4] Helmuth von Moltke, Moltke on the Art of War: Selected Writings, ed. Daniel J. Hughes (New York: Ballantine Books: 1993), 107.

[5] Julian S. Corbett, Naval Operations: History of the Great War Based on Official Documents, vol. 1 (London: Longmans, Green, and Co, 1920), 20

[6] As cited in Franklyn A. Johnson, “The British Committee of Imperial Defense: Prototype of US Security Organization,” Journal of Politics 23, no. 2 (May 1961), 235.

[7] Maurice A. Hankey, Diplomacy by Conference: Studies in Public Affairs 1920-1946 (London: Ernest Benn Limited, 1946), 85.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Franklyn A. Johnson, Defence by Committee: The British Committee of Imperial Defence, 1885-1959 (London: Oxford University Press, 1960).

[10] Hankey, Diplomacy by Conference, 91.

[11] Michael J. Hogan, A Cross of Iron: Harry Truman and the Origins of the National Security State 1945-1954 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 14.

[12] George C. Marshall, The Papers of George Catlett Marshall, vol. 4, ed. Larry I. Bland (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), pp. 50-52.

[13] Ibid.

[14] National Security Act of 1947, 50 U.S.C, § 401 (1947).

[15] “National Security Memorandum 2 (nSM-2): Renewing the National Security Council System,” Feb 4, 2021.