The Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense, International Security Affairs (ISA), is often described as the “Pentagon’s State Department,” having administrative responsibility for military aid to foreign nations, for liaison with the Department of State, for following up National Security Council decisions, and for arranging Defense participation in international conferences.
Over the years, ISA has enjoyed the leadership of several outstanding men of government, among whom are the Honorable William P. Bundy, Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs, and the Honorable Paul H. Nitze, Secretary of the Navy. The present incumbent is the Honorable John T. McNaughton. This article will focus on the evolution of ISA and the role it plays in the formulation of national security policy.
1947-1949 The Office of the Secretary of Defense was relatively small before the Korean war. In addition to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Munitions Board, and the Research and Development Board, there was only the War Council, now called the Armed Forces Policy Council. The staff of the Secretary of Defense included only three special assistants, who were primarily engaged with fiscal, budgetary, and military aid matters and who worked with the Armed Services in co-ordinating the Defense Department’s responsibilities in these fields.
The War Council advised the Secretary of Defense on both civilian and military matters during this period. In 1949, the War Council was made the major intra-departmental body to consider problems before they were submitted to the National Security Council. But the War Council proved ineffective as a policy formulating instrument for politico-military affairs, partly because it overlapped the role of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as the principal military advisers to the President and the National Security Council. In addition, the then existing State-Army-Navy-Air Force Coordinating Committee (SANACC), which was in effect a clearing house for information, tended to short circuit the War Council’s work. The SANACC was finally abolished in late 1949.
1949-1952 After passage of the Mutual Defense Assistance Act of 1949, the Secretary of Defense established an Office of Military Assistance (OMA) to work with State and the Economic Co-operation Administration in administering the military aid program, and the Army was designated by the Joint Chiefs of Staff as their executive agent for Mutual Defense Assistance.
The outbreak of the Korean War and the defense build-up which followed brought about a broad expansion of the international security affairs’ area. United States military aid was substantially increased, NATO was strengthened, plans were made to rearm Germany, and a Japanese peace treaty was signed. But, the embryo International Security Affairs organization, which then consisted of the Armed Forces Policy Council and the Office of Military Assistance (OMA) still proved inadequate in handling all of the politico-military problems that arose. Some, such as the strategy re-evaluation contained in one of the basic National Security Council policy papers, and the instructions to the United States’ delegate at the Panmunjom armistice negotiations, were apparently handled by special ad hoc groups composed of State Department and Joint Chiefs of Staff representatives. On other problems, a representative of International Security Affairs was included, as was the case with the proposal to rearm Germany. According to one participant in the State-JCS-ISA conferences on the subject, the National Security Council never formally discussed this decision, although it was cleared with each member individually.
On 19 December 1950, President Harry S. Truman established the position of Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs. The responsibility of this office and the staff associated with it were steadily increased so that by 1952, these responsibilities included general politico-military matters, NATO and the Mutual Defense Assistance Program, and coordination of all National Security Council matters.
Meanwhile in 1950, a memorandum of agreement between the Secretaries of Defense, State, Treasury, and the Director, Economic Co-operation Administration had established the International Security Affairs Committee (ISAC). The Office of the Director of International Security Affairs, although in the State Department, was almost “supra- departmental” since the Director, in his capacity as Chairman of ISAC, exercised responsibility for the government as a whole. This committee thus became the formal mechanism for the interdepartmental coordination of foreign aid programs and its Director was also the State Department’s Director of the Mutual Defense Assistance Program. The Defense Department’s focal point for co-ordinating foreign aid now became the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs who was to provide a Defense Department viewpoint for ISAC, as well as for the NSC. This office was located in the Department of Defense.
There was a most complex relationship during 1951 and 1952 among the various departments involving the Director for Mutual Security, who at the time was Mr. Averell Harriman, and the additional and quite unique office of the President’s Special Representative in Europe. The Special Representative (initially Mr. William H. Draper) was to act for the President as the senior U. S. civilian representative and to speak for the government as a whole. In effect, he possessed a merger of the authorities of the Secretaries of Defense, State, and Treasury and the Director for Mutual Security. The Defense Department’s focal point for co-ordinating aid was at that time the Assistant to the Secretary for International Security Affairs. Defense was usually represented by someone from the ISA staff on the various interdepartmental groups such as the Foreign Military Assistance Co-ordinating Committee and the Economic Defense Advisory Committee as well as the International Security Affairs Committee.
The complicated accounting and budgetary arrangements involved in the Mutual Defense Assistance Program required the addition of a budget advisor and a statistical advisor to the International Security Affairs staff. They specialized in international programs but were responsible to the Defense Comptroller and used the Comptroller’s office for much of their clerical and administrative support. This was the first step toward the subsequent creation of an independent ISA comptroller.
1953-1955 In February 1953, the Assistant for International Security Affairs was promoted to the rank of Assistant Secretary of Defense, and his office underwent still further changes. Later in 1953, Reorganization Plan Number Six to the National Security Act of 1947 abolished the unwieldly structure of Boards and Committees within the Office of the Secretary of Defense. The Munitions Board’s Office of International Programs was transferred to ISA and became the Office of Foreign Economic Defense Policy under the Office of Foreign Economic Affairs. This latter office developed area branches which were assigned to work closely with the country officers at the State Department. The direct liaison that has been encouraged to ensure that the Defense Department officials are kept abreast of the current thinking and development at State has worked exceptionally well in recent years.
Other changes brought about in 1954 saw the creation of the Office of the Director of National Security Council Affairs which was created within ISA to improve co-ordination with the National Security Council. The Director was made responsible for a synthesis of Defense Department recommendations on matters to be considered by the Council or on policies and actions of the Council. The Director also served as the Defense representative on the National Security Council Planning Board when this Board was in existence. These functions brought about a marked improvement in integrating the Defense Department into the larger national security structure.
An important change also in 1954 came about as the result of an agreement between the Assistant Secretary and the Defense Comptroller which resulted in the setting up of an independent ISA Comptroller. This was important because it was a departure from the usual organization, and is an arrangement still unique in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
Another innovation at this time was the International Security Plan which brought together by country various directives, policies, and programs concerned with mutual defense assistance. National Security Council guidance was so broad that different agencies interpreted policy in different ways. There also had been too little co-ordination between the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Department of State. The plan was designed to overcome jurisdictional disputes and ensure co-ordination at the departmental level.
1956-1960 By 1956, the evolution of the ISA organization had resulted in the following major units: (1) The Office of National Security Council Affairs; (2) The Office of Foreign Military Affairs including a plans division, a policy division with area branches, a foreign economic defense division, and the Permanent Joint Board on Defense (U.S. and Canada); (3) A Comptroller; and (4) The Office of Military Assistance Programs. The last named was divided into a control division, which directly supervised the Military Aid Advisory Groups (MAAGs) in foreign countries; the operations division, which coordinated and processed military aid requirements requested by our allies and approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and the procurement and production division which was concerned with such matters as overseas procurement.
As the scope and nature of the United States’ commitments overseas changed, so did ISA’s organization. The body not only kept pace with, but sometimes exceeded the rest of the Defense Department in being organized and reorganized. On 1 January 1956 a complete revision was made by the new Assistant Secretary of Defense (ISA), Gordon Gray.
The functions already described for the various units of the organization were in large part reassigned within ISA by Mr. Gray’s reorganization. These were substantially the recommendations made by Cresap, McCormick, and Padget, Management Consultants of Chicago, who made a survey of ISA at the request of Mr. Gray in the fall of 1955. A major addition was an Office of Operations Co-ordinating Board Affairs which was more accurately a transfer from the Office of Special Operations. This office was designed to perform for the then existing Operations Co-ordinating Board (OCB) what the Office of National Security Council Affairs did for the NSC. A complete separation of the International Security Affairs Comptroller from the Defense Department Comptroller was made final by the 1956 reorganization.
The internal reorganization produced other major changes which resulted in regional directors being delegated liaison functions with the MAAGs. Their establishment as independent units was a parallel to the State Department organization. The Plans Division of the old Office of Foreign Military Affairs became the Office of Planning. Foreign economic defense responsibilities were transferred to a new office of Special International Security Affairs which was charged with preparing Department of Defense policies on international conferences. Preparing for and arranging defense representation at these conferences became one of ISA’s more important tasks, since the large number of collective security pacts required that Defense participate equally with the State Department. United States’ support of NATO military activities continued as in the past to be furnished by the military departments, acting as administrative agents for the various services. Internationally budgeted support was provided directly by the Secretary of Defense from military assistance appropriations. The Office of Military Aid Programs was abolished also at this time and its functions transferred to a new office of programming and control, which today has been incorporated into the Office of the Director for Military Assistance.
The operation of the Office of International Security Affairs, more than most other organizations has varied widely under different leaders. Each Assistant Secretary who has served in ISA since 1950 has changed something of its organization. The more important changes have been mentioned in the preceding paragraphs. For the most part, the internal changes have been designed to improve the over-all contribution made by the Office and have tended to strengthen the working relationships with the Department of State and other departments.
Today, the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs has a staff of 300 people including a Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary who is the “Vice President” in the organization, six additional Deputy Assistant Secretaries and 169 professional or project officers of which 72 are military officers from all branches of the Armed Forces—14 are naval officers. The major units are:
The Policy Planning Staff
Directorate for Arms Control and Foreign Economic Affairs
Office of Europe and North Atlantic Affairs
Office of Near East-South Asia & MAP Policy Review
Office of Foreign Military Rights and Africa Affairs
Office of Director of Military Assistance
Office of Far East and Latin American Affairs
Office of International Logistics Negotiations (See Chart)
The Policy Planning Staff is divided into a policy division, a plans division, and a special studies division. Presently headed by an Army brigadier general, the planning staff is likened to the Policy Planning Council of the State Department and is concerned with long-range politico-military planning as well as current problems. This office played a large supporting role to the ad hoc committee established by President Kennedy to advise the President during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, and is considered to be one of the most important and influential groups within the Defense Department.
Within the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Arms Control is a Directorate for Foreign Economic Affairs, which is responsible for keeping abreast of economic policies in all foreign countries including those of the Sino-Soviet sphere. These functions along with the policies of the Department of Defense on international organizations, on disarmament, and for international conferences were from 1956 to 1962 under the Office of Special International Affairs which has been abolished.
The Director for Foreign Military Rights Affairs is under the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Africa and has cognizance over all existing Base Rights agreements in foreign lands as well as Status of Forces Agreements which are maintained with all countries in which U. S. military forces are stationed such as Korea, Japan, the Philippines, and West Germany. This office is primarily composed of people with extensive backgrounds in international law.
Such grouping of responsibilities as the above indicates appears on the surface to bear little correlation as to similar functions. Why, for example, is the Director of Africa Affairs placed under the same Deputy Assistant Secretary as the Director for Foreign Military Rights. The answer appears to be one of simply distributing the responsibilities and work load more evenly among the six Deputy Assistant Secretaries. The organizational structure of ISA is in no way considered to be sacrosanct, and close co-ordination among all branches of the organization is maintained and encouraged which, as will be pointed out later, is most important to the over-all functioning and effectiveness of ISA.
Since 1962, the functions relating to Defense policies on international organizations such as NATO, SEATO, and CENTO and policies relating to participation in international conferences have been under the various regional desks for the countries concerned in these organizations and conferences. NATO affairs is, at present, under the cognizance of the Deputy Assistant Secretary (Europe and North Atlantic Affairs). SEATO, ANZUS and CENTO affairs are the responsibility of the Near East-South Asia Region section of the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Near East-South Asia and Military Assistance Program Review.
Director of Military Assistance. Perhaps one of the most significant branches of ISA today is the Office of the Director of Military Assistance which has replaced the Office of Programming and Control established in 1956, which in turn replaced the then existing Office of Military Aid Programs. The title for this office has thus come full circle, and again represents more nearly its actual function For the first time in the history of the program, the Director of Military Assistance is a U. S. Navy vice admiral who became Director in September 1965.
The creation of a Director of Military Assistance in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (International Security Affairs) was a part of the many new administrative procedures incorporated into the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 largely as a result of recommendations of the Draper Committee.
The Draper Committee—chaired by William H. Draper—was created by President Eisenhower in November 1958 under the full name of “President's Committee to Study the U. S. Military Assistance Program.” The Draper Report was not the first on this subject. During the 1950s there were 15 major studies, but the Draper Report was the most comprehensive, scholarly, and definitive, and it did result in extensive changes in aid legislation.
Under the provisions of the Foreign Assistance Act certain conditions must be fulfilled and certain restrictions must be adhered to before the President is authorized to grant military assistance to any particular country. Under the law it is the Secretary of State who has the responsibility for the continuous supervision and general direction of all foreign aid, including military. It is the Secretary of State who makes the determination for the President as to whom qualifies for the assistance under the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and that it is within U. S. foreign policy and defense interests to grant the aid. The Secretary of State after making these determinations advises the Secretary of Defense who initiates the action to program the delivery of the military assistance.
The Secretary of Defense has the following responsibilities regarding the aid: procurement of the military equipment, supervision of personnel training in the operation and handling of the equipment, movement and delivery of the equipment, and the priority of procurement and delivery. The administration of the program is in the hands of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (ISA); his senior military advisor, the Director of Military Assistance; and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The JCS has several specific responsibilities in connection with the administration of military aid programs which include recommending strategic military objectives, force objectives, and priorities. In addition, the Joint Chiefs of Staff is responsible for establishing a MAAG in the countries receiving the aid for the purpose of training and assisting the foreign military personnel in the use of the military equipment being furnished.
The individual military departments have the responsibility to prepare data and budget estimates, advise program changes, procure, deliver, and sell equipment and support the MAAGs. These functions are all performed in close co-ordination and co-operation with the Director of Military Assistance in ISA who maintains an extensive system control and programs branch which is charged with reviewing, evaluating, and planning for prior year programs, current year programs, and future year planning.
The Military Assistance Comptroller is in the Office of the Director of Military Assistance and as mentioned earlier is now a separate agent from the Office of the Defense Department Comptroller. Within this office, there is a budget branch and a finance and accounting branch which is responsible for co-ordination and review of all reports received from the JCS, the individual services and the MAAGs themselves concerning the costs and budget estimates for the implementation of the various military assistance programs. The Office of the ISA Comptroller prepares the proposals that are sent to the Bureau of the Budget to be incorporated in the President’s request to Congress for Military Assistance Program funds for each fiscal year. It is also the responsibility of this office to keep abreast of the actual expenditures of funds made and to provide the necessary assistance to the Inspector General, Foreign Assistance, who under the provisions of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 is charged with the responsibility for continuous audits and review of the efficiency and economy of programs, determination that the program is in compliance with applicable laws, and evaluation of assistance program effectiveness.
The Inspector General, Foreign Assistance, has his office in the State Department and is advised by the Secretary of State of his decision to grant military assistance at the same time that the Secretary of Defense is similarly advised.
The system for administering military aid may seem somewhat complicated but it has virtues which were not available in earlier programming. The most important improvement over previous systems is that there is a correlation of responsibility and the program is reviewed by all echelons from the Secretary of State down to the MAAGs. Each echelon has the opportunity to review the feasibility of the programs and make recommendations, and co-ordination is provided by the Director of Military Assistance in ISA.
Office of International Logistic Negotiations. The U. S. International Logistics Negotiations (ILN) program has recently come to the attention of the public, and the press in particular, as a consequence of the Pakistan- India confrontation over Kashmir. The Military Export Sales program conducted by the 27 man Office of International Logistics Negotiations is headed by the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (ISA/ILN). The Office of International Logistics Negotiations has been in existence since June 1962 attempting to associate industry and defense in a search for an understanding of the problems involved in broadening military exports and to act as a point of co-ordination for the solution to these problems.
The specific interest of the Department of Defense in the Export Expansion Program is stated in the following three objectives:
To promote the defensive strength of our allies consistent with our own political-economic objectives.
Promote the concept of co-operative logistics and standardization with our allies.
Offset the unfavorable balance of payments resulting from U. S. military deployments abroad.
It is the goal of ILN to maintain a 1.1 billion dollar cash receipt level through 1970. While this is a conservative goal, military sales exports represent a break with traditional service-oriented conservatism which has in the past not been associated with commercial ventures. Military sales are deeply imbedded in military-political thinking, and it is in this light that the Office of ILN within ISA is conducting its program to bring the military man in the field in contact with our military allies to begin the process of resource use and at the same time bring industry more actively into the program.
The Office of ILN is the newest in ISA and as such is probably the most noninstitutionalized organization within ISA today.
With the growth of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and particularly the Office of the Assistant Secretary for International Security Affairs, a focal point has been created for Department of Defense positions on national security matters. This growth in size and power of the international security affairs area of the defense establishment has resulted from awareness of the fact that defense policies are not a matter of military strategy alone, but involve the availability of resources—men, money, and materials—and relationships with allies and international organizations. They, therefore, require the co-ordination of many different government agencies.
The Office of International Security Affairs in the Pentagon has, in effect, been placed between the two main sources for military and political advice—Defense and State. As has already been pointed out, in addition to responsibilities for military aid to foreign nations, ISA regional and country directors maintain direct liaison with the regional desks of the State Department.
A closer look at the specific day-to-day working relationships of ISA both from within and without the Defense Department reveals the magnitude of the role that this office has come to play in national policy formulation.
The Office of ISA is basically a non-institutionalized organization which enjoys and readily uses its prerogatives to cut across traditional governmental and service lines in search of answers and solutions to current problems. It is, as a result, both responsive and quick in furnishing the Secretary of Defense with the necessary information and analysis to support him in his capacity as a statutory member of the National Security Council. These prerogatives on occasion have been criticized by some as having the effect of by-passing older and more traditionally structured organizations such as the individual military services and the JCS. This, the critics point out, is not to say that a “military opinion” is absent from the decisions or positions arrived at by ISA. Such opinions are invariably supplied by the project officers (both military and civilian) assigned to ISA who have authority to deal directly with a service action officer, Joint Staff officer, or even a unified or specified command in order to obtain the information required for the position being formulated. However, the ingredient that is feared, by the critics, to be forsaken in this approach is the acquiring of a Joint Staff “military position” which may or may not be the same as a “military opinion” on any given issue. Although it may surprise those bound by tradition, this procedure, it can be argued, is not much different from the informal relationships that are employed in the practical functioning of most organizations. Of course one can point to many dangers in such a procedure, such as the risk of overlooking some important aspect of the problem by relying on one or possibly two “opinions” instead of a well considered “position” of many. The expertise and personality of the individual introducing the “opinion” and not the position he may occupy, has become the creditable point in this argument. In ISA today this is the reality. The Assistant Secretary of Defense for ISA, and his deputies are men who enjoy reputations as men of valued expertise. And, these men and their assistants are today exercising a great deal of influence in national security policy formulation.
This procedure of using men for what they can do rather than because of the titles they may bear is not a new approach in defense organization. James Forrestal, the first Secretary of Defense, liked to insist that he was not as much interested in the diagram of organization as he was in the names in the little boxes. This view is a common and important one. Organizations are made up of men; there is no substitute for their quality. Formal organization was in the mind of Mr. Forrestal not all important, but in large-scale organizations, he realized, it is an unavoidable starting point of inquiry.
To develop this thesis of a few enjoying considerable influence a step further, it is necessary to mention the veto influence that the planners and desk officers in ISA are in a position to exercise over positions submitted by the Joint Staff concerning military matters.
To do this, let us consider a hypothetical but nevertheless typical problem situation. A situation is developing in country X which can affect U. S. interests on a wide range of issues—economic, military, as well as political. The dispatches sent by the Ambassador are distributed simultaneously to the State Department, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and ISA. The regional desk officer in ISA gets in touch immediately with the corresponding desk officer in State either in person or by telephone. The method of contact depends on the classification or sensitivity of the matter to be discussed. After this contact and an initial exchange of information, the ISA officer begins to develop “Defense’s” position based on the best available information. This information may be contained in existing contingency plans, or as mentioned above, obtained by direct liaison with the individual service action officers, or by direct contact with various members of the Joint Staff. If some of the information sought is available from a unified commander in the field (e.g. CINCPAC, CINCLANT) direct inquiry is made. If necessary, the ISA officer may likewise contact any other agency or department in the government for information.
In the meantime, the Joint Staff has also received the same dispatch. But the Joint Staff Officer does not enjoy the benefit of direct and informal relationships with other agencies and departments other than the unified commands. He is restricted by the functional and structured lines of communication that are inherent in the military chain of command. As hard as he may try, it is not possible under the existing procedural restrictions to prepare a Joint Staff position that is a consensus of all three services in the time frame that the task is being accomplished by the ISA officer operating under a completely flexible modus operandi. Not only do the internal discipline and traditional institutions of each service hinder the Joint Staff officer, but the difficulties in obtaining an agreed position among the services is also a source of delay, and in some instances produce less than a creditable result. As a consequence, the position that finally is forwarded by the Joint Staff to the Secretary of Defense (it goes via ISA on all politico-military matters) may be late in arriving, or may have little validity when it does arrive because of the concessions made in the compromise to obtain a consensus. As a further consequence, the position rendered by the Joint Staff may not be in agreement with the position arrived at by the ISA officer. It is now subject to being changed or overruled. Here again, expertise and personality enter the area of decision. Should the ISA officer wish to challenge the Joint Staff position he can make his disagreement known to his immediate superior who in the majority of situations is one of the Deputy Assistant Secretaries of Defense. He may also, to support his disagreement, go back to the individual service action officers who worked on the JGS position to get their separate thoughts on the issue itself and to determine those items which may have been eliminated or modified in order to establish an agreed position. Should he discover that there was a 2-to-l vote on the position in the first place, or that in gaining the consensus a significant compromise was made, his argument for challenge is further substantiated. All this, of course, tends to weaken the Joint Staff position and strengthen the arguments of the ISA officer when he presents his challenge to his superior. It is not uncommon in these instances that the Joint Staff position is overruled in favor of that of the ISA action officer.
Although it is possible for Joint Staff positions to be overruled by ISA, it must be pointed out that the issues on which this occurs are not of a substance that would classify them as primary issues, which are dealt with by the members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff themselves and whose decisions on such issues are sent directly to the Secretary of Defense, and are thus not directly subject to a veto by ISA.
The issues which are subject to overruling by ISA are, nevertheless, issues which are of such a nature that they can and often times do become a part of over-all national security policy.
Timothy W. Stanley, in his book American Defense and National Security, writes, “Formulation of national security policies can be likened to a triangle with the President at the apex, the Secretary of State at one angle, and the Secretary of Defense at the other. The National Security Council might well occupy the center.” The two Secretaries, however, are themselves the peaks of their own vast organizational pyramids. Each and each alone is charged with the primary responsibility for his area. It is the office and person of the Secretary rather than the department itself which is assigned responsibilities and must give advice to the President. Although he cannot dodge the ultimate responsibility, the Secretary must delegate some of it. In the case of International Security Affairs, the powers and duties of the Secretary of Defense have been delegated to an Assistant Secretary and his Staff. In addition, the Assistant Secretary for ISA alone of the Assistant Secretaries, is represented on the body known as the Joint Secretaries—comprising the top two civilian officials of the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of each military department. He also attends the twice weekly- policy meetings with the Department of State, and enjoys close working relationships with numerous other agencies, including Arms Control and Disarmament and the Director of the National Security Council. Just as the Department of State represents the United States as a whole in international matters, so ISA represents the Pentagon in dealing with other agencies—and with other countries.
Dr. Stanley aptly sums up the role of ISA when he writes “Of all the units under the Secretary of Defense, the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs is the one most directly related to the over-all organization for national security.”
The working relationships of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (ISA) which allow him to cut across many service and departmental lines reflect in large measure the personality of the incumbent Secretary of Defense, and have resulted in the focusing of a great deal of power and influence on the Assistant Secretary which is readily transmitted through the Secretary of Defense to the National Security- Council. With reliable and meaningful information to assist him in the decision-making process, the Secretary of Defense is playing a leading role in the formulation of national security policy in the nation today.