QUESTION: How is the National Security Council organized and how does it work? We asked @realbobj, Bob Jensen. Follow this thread for the answer. 
ANSWER: The National Security Council (NSC) and supporting staff are part of the President’s personal staff at the White House and their main role is to advise and assist the President on national security issues.
They do this by developing policy options using a multi-level decision-making process that helps achieve the national security and foreign policy agenda of the president. This includes coordinating input and policy proposals from across the government; analyzing/refining them;
facilitating interagency compromise between competing interests; and finally presenting clear options for a decision by the President. Once the decisions are made, the NSC helps ensure implementation and collaboration across the U.S. Government.
The actual NSC is chaired by the President and consists of key N/S cabinet secretaries (State, Defense, Treasury, Attorney Gen, Homeland Sec, Energy) and sr natsec directors/advisors. It is supported by 4 levels that develop, review and screen policies for the NSC to consider.
The process starts with NSC staff guiding Interagency Working Groups (IWG) who gather input from their agencies to develop draft policy proposals. These are submitted to Policy Coord Committees (PCC) chaired by Sr NSC Directors and made up of Sr officials from relevant agencies.
A Deputies Committee, chaired by the Dep Nat Security Advisor (NSA), which includes the dep secretaries and deputies to directors of security agencies, establishes and oversees the PCCs. This committee evaluates PCC policy proposals that then go to the Principals Committee.
This is chaired by the NSA, includes all the members of the NSC minus the President and Vice President. They do the final negotiations and coordination before the proposals go to the full NSC and the President.
The NSC staff (and related PCCs) are organized by geographic regions and by functional areas such as Regional Affairs, International Economic Affairs, Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, Strategic Planning to name a few. They currently number about 110 people.
In addition to a handful of permanent staff and political appointees, NSC staff are mostly career civil servants detailed for a year or more from key departments and agencies. All are top policy and subject matter experts and represent the best of their agencies.
More about Bob Jensen here: linkedin.com/in/bobjensenst…
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