Presidential Command: Power, Leadership, and the Making of Foreign Policy from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush

An aspiring strategist must understand how to make the machinery of foreign policy implement a president’s strategy. Peter Rodman, who served in senior roles in five presidential administrations, provides the Rosetta Stone for making the U.S. interagency system work, a challenge he calls effecting “presidential command.” A challenge in the American systems is that the main national security departments and agencies have independent authorities and powers and need not defer to each other on decision making or implementation. The interagency process centered on the National Security Council (NSC) system coordinates decisions but lacks line authority over departments and agencies. Only the president, whose vast responsibilities limit the time he can devote to foreign policy, is the only person who can exercise command over the system. Rodman shows that there are three core requirements to make the system work. The president must have a clear worldview and strategy and a desire to exercise leadership. He must appoint cabinet and agency heads who do not seek to be independent actors but rather who will impose the president’s will on their organizations. And the NSC-led interagency process must give department and agency heads a fair opportunity to provide options and advice to the president on key decisions, which ensures that they will not resist implementation of outcomes that do not go their way. This book shows how presidents from Richard Nixon through George W. Bush succeeded and failed in these terms, with the administration of President George H.W. Bush serving as the exemplar case.