August 04, 2017

Can This National Security Council Handle a Real Crisis?

By Loren DeJonge Schulman

It’s hard to believe, but this administration has not experienced a genuine national-security crisis in more than six months in office.

Yes, missile tests in North Korea and a boiling regional spat in the Middle East are spiking blood pressure across DC, but the most nightmare-inducing risks have originated in the president’s own social-media rhetoric, not the crises themselves. Recent turmoil within the National Security Council has been almost entirely generated by its own members, some of them newly former. While the people in the West Wing protest and sputter in response, let me put it this way: Have they moved their entire professional wardrobe to their file cabinet? Have they purchased underwear on Amazon because they don’t have time for laundry? Have they resignedly given their mothers the number to the White House Situation Room? Are they working late due to physical threats or just because the president tweeted again? Don’t worry, they’ll get their turn, and North Korea and others look more than willing to assist.

Read the full article at The Atlantic.