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Flawed by Design: The Evolution of the CIA, JCS, and NSC

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This is a very worthy and thoughtful book. It breaks new ground in understanding the bureaucratic and political realities that surrounded the emergence of the National Security Council, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA was weak by design, strongly opposed by the military services from the beginning. Its covert activities emerged as a Presidential prerogative, unopposed by others in part because it kept CIA from being effective at coordinated analysis, for which it had neither the power nor the talent. Most usefully, the book presents a new institutionalist theory of bureaucracy that gives full weight to the original design, the political players including the bureaucrats themselves, and external events. Unlike domestic agencies that have strong interest groups, open information, legislative domain, and unconnected bureaucracies, the author finds that national security agencies, being characterized by weak interest groups, secrecy, executive domain, and connected bureaucracies, evolve differently from other bureaucracies, and are much harder to reform. On balance, the author finds that intelligence per se, in contrast to defense or domestic issues, is simply not worth the time and Presidential political capital needed to fix but that if reform is in the air, the President should either pound on the table and put the full weight of their office behind a substantive reform proposal, or walk away from any reform at all-the middle road will not successful.

In her book, "Flawed by Design," Amy Zegart attempts to explain the origin and organizational flaws of the CIA, JCS and NSC, all falling within the newly created Department of Defense of the National Security Act of 1947. Up front, she compares them to domestic regulatory agencies and dispels the notion that the national security agencies work reasonably well and work to serve the national interest as they were designed. She describes the lack of authority of the now defunct Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) over the non-CIA parts of the intelligence community, as well as cites the bumbling bureaucracy of the JCS prior to the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 (Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1947). She asserts that Congress intentionally designed these bureaucracies not to work, in order to protect the interests of other congressionally favored bureaucracies. For example, the Navy preferred not to have the Joint Chiefs interfering with its affairs, and the War Department (renamed the Department of Defense following the National Security Act of 1947) along with the State Department, did not want the DCI to interfere with their own intelligence-gathering and analysis.

In order to adequately analyze these American bureaucracies, she writes, "national security agencies are too domestic for students of international relations and too foreign for students of American politics." Zegart examines the forces that shaped the initial design of the CIA, JCS, and NSC and identified ways that indicated they were handicapped by design. For example, Zegert asserts that due to weak interest group influence, pork barrel projects, casework, and other important district issues, Congresspersons have very little incentive to spend time and money involved with the national security agencies; besides, she adds, to whom would they use for accurate information, if not the bureaucrats themselves. The bottom line, according to Zegert, is that national security agencies are influenced heavily by executive branch political objectives within an environment of sporadic congressional oversight and sketchy interest-group politics. In contrast, domestic regulatory agencies receive regular congressional oversight with interest groups and legislative supporters influencing both agency design and daily operations.

Zegart explains the challenges of the NSC and JSC as they struggled to evolve, describing how the NSC overcame its initial handicaps as several presidents liberally retooled, and thus, continually reinvented the NSC staff. She also describes how the JCS remained mired in ineffective design allowing for self-interest politics and in-fighting amongst the service chiefs and foot-dragging or "shirking" unpopular orders for nearly forty years. She goes on to explain how the CIA suffered from its inception as a result of President Truman's desire for military unification and intelligence reform. Those goals were secondary to his main desire to refurbish the nation's feeble defense structure. But the military services resisted any plans for change, and with no political leverage, Truman relented. His efforts and legislative recommendations resulted in a central intelligence apparatus of coordination, evaluation, and dissemination, but incapable of collection. It is by design, the author asserts, that the CIA struggles with flawed systems of management and accountability within the clandestine agency, which may lead to corruption and espionage, and which also might explain why the agency struggles to this very day with chronic problems concerning accuracy of analysis and estimates. This design, however flawed to an outsider, has provided a valuable asset to Presidents who favor using the agency for various covert operations.

In Flawed by Design, Amy Zegart convincingly articulates her message: the agencies Americans count on most for protection from international threats are, by design, largely incapable of doing so. By arguing that U.S. interests have been compromised by the inferior design of our national security agencies, Zegart highlights the weaknesses and subsequent responsibilities placed on our President and the bureaucracies charged with overseeing U.S. foreign policy. The only criticism of the book is that her writing style challenges the reader-- it's not an upligting, inspiring book (hence, the title). In a doomed attempt to count the times Zegart uses a disparaging remark in her book, this reader quit at page two, about half way down, after realizing she had already used the words "handicapped," "crippled," "murky," "weakness," "failures," "poor," "problems," "scandals," "little incentive," "never," "illegal," and "subversion."

Zegart is very well informed of the origins and organization of our national security agencies, and she produces a scathing analysis of our country's highest government agencies.

A fine political sciene academic book. A number of strengths:
- A well organized book. One looking to just understand the argument or theory of the book can read the first two chapters and the conclusion.
- A strong case is made on behalf of new institutionalism, as opposed to realism, in explaining the creation and development of the National Security Council, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Central Intelligence Agency. Bottom line is that foreign policy agencies are created amidst the politics of the day and are never created so as to achieve true national security objectives. Among the interesting findings is that Congress and the interest group community was not seriously involved in the creation or development of the three national security structures. New institutional theory regarding domestic areas does involve Congress and IGs. Worse for anyone hoping to fix initial design flaws is the fact that, as hard as it is to make agencies function from the get-go, it's even harder to fix them later on.
- The case studies are well written and interesting narratives.
Some weaknesses:
- Congress's involvement does not necessarily mean formal votes and hearings. Hence, influential folks can play a role in behind the scenes manners.
- Congress pushed through the Goldwater-Nichols Act in the 1980s with a SecDef who was opposed, a president who was not engaged. That's a heck of a piece of contrary evidence that Zegart does not dedicate enough time to.
- A tad bit too much repetition.
- Politics in the late 1940s is not the same as politics in the early 21st century. Globalization and the interlocking nature of domestic and foreign policies may weaken Zegart's findings.

More can be said. Overall, a fine book and well worth the time.

With Flawed by Design, Zegart makes a spectacular splash into the world of professional political academic analysis. Trained at Stanford University, Zegart employs an approach that is both refreshingly "old school" in its historical approach and new school in its analytical rigor. In short, Zegart has offered up a piece of academic literature that is certain to become a classic. Look out for this rising star over the next 10 years. Let's only hope that the "rational choice" dogma of the field doesn't precluding Zegart from continuing her Tiger Woods-like path through the political science circuit.

The book arrived in the estimated time and in the condition advertised by this seller.