{"id":18485,"date":"2025-07-06T14:37:44","date_gmt":"2025-07-06T14:37:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=18485"},"modified":"2025-07-06T14:37:45","modified_gmt":"2025-07-06T14:37:45","slug":"inside-the-dysfunction-at-rubios-shrunken-national-security-council","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=18485","title":{"rendered":"Inside the Dysfunction at Rubio\u2019s Shrunken National Security Council"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>&#8220;Since Rubio took over the NSC, he has shrunk its staff by more than half. It now has fewer than 100 people, according to a person familiar with the NSC process. Arguably more importantly, Rubio has imposed changes to what\u2019s called \u201cthe interagency process\u201d \u2014 a key function of the NSC that involves coordinating policy and messaging across government agencies and departments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That process, two people told me, is now one in which important meetings aren\u2019t held, career staffers are often in the dark about what\u2019s expected of them and some people or their institutions try to take advantage of power vacuums. I granted many of those I spoke to anonymity to discuss internal administration dynamics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some U.S. diplomats and other national security professionals are worried that the current structure means small crises will explode into big ones because they don\u2019t get early attention, and that key officials who deal with priority issues, such as Ukraine, are being iced out of important conversations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One of the people familiar with the AUKUS situation said the broken process was already fueling turf fights, such as with Colby, a man known for challenging status quo thinking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s Game of Thrones politics over there,\u201d the person said.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/magazine\/2025\/07\/02\/trumps-national-security-council-is-flailing-00436700\">https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/magazine\/2025\/07\/02\/trumps-national-security-council-is-flailing-00436700<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Since Rubio took over the NSC, he has shrunk its staff by more than half. It now has fewer than 100 people, according to a person familiar with the NSC process. Arguably more importantly, Rubio has imposed changes to what\u2019s called \u201cthe interagency process\u201d \u2014 a key function of the NSC that involves coordinating policy and messaging across government agencies and departments.<\/p>\n<p>That process, two people told me, is now one in which important meetings aren\u2019t held, career staffers are often in the dark about what\u2019s expected of them and some people or their institutions try to take advantage of power vacuums. I granted many of those I spoke to anonymity to discuss internal administration dynamics.<\/p>\n<p>Some U.S. diplomats and other national security professionals are worried that the current structure means small crises will explode into big ones because they don\u2019t get early attention, and that key officials who deal with priority issues, such as Ukraine, are being iced out of important conversations.<\/p>\n<p>One of the people familiar with the AUKUS situation said the broken process was already fueling turf fights, such as with Colby, a man known for challenging status quo thinking.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s Game of Thrones politics over there,\u201d the person said.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/magazine\/2025\/07\/02\/trumps-national-security-council-is-flailing-00436700<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[221,272,355,314,1665,1484,1056,1097,170,1055],"class_list":["post-18485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-donald-trump","tag-foreign-affairs","tag-foreign-policy","tag-international-relations","tag-marco-rubio","tag-national-security","tag-navy","tag-submarines","tag-trump","tag-weapons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18485"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18485\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18486,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18485\/revisions\/18486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}