White House Warriors: How the National Security Council Transformed the American Way of War

by John Gans

Since its founding more than seventy years ago, the National Security Council has exerted more influence on the president’s foreign policy decisions—and on the nation’s conflicts abroad—than any other institution or individual. And yet, until the explosive Trump presidency, few Americans could even name a member.


“A must-read for anyone interested in how Washington really works” (Ivo H. Daalder), White House Warriors finally reveals how the NSC evolved from a handful of administrative clerks to, as one recent commander-in-chief called them, the president’s “personal band of warriors.”


When Congress originally created the National Security Council in 1947, it was intended to better coordinate foreign policy after World War II. Nearly an afterthought, a small administrative staff was established to help keep its papers moving. President Kennedy was, as John Gans documents, the first to make what became known as the NSC staff his own, selectively hiring bright young aides to do his bidding during the disastrous Bay of Pigs operation, the fraught Cuban Missile Crisis, and the deepening Vietnam War.


Despite Kennedy’s death and the tragic outcome of some of his decision, the NSC staff endured. President Richard Nixon handed the staff’s reigns solely to Henry Kissinger, who, given his controlling instincts, micromanaged its work on Vietnam. In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan’s NSC was cast into turmoil by overreaching staff members who, led by Oliver North, nearly brought down a presidency in the Iran-Contra scandal. Later, when President George W. Bush’s administration was bitterly divided by the Iraq War, his NSC staff stepped forward to write a plan for the Surge in Iraq.


Juxtaposing extensive archival research with new interviews, Gans demonstrates that knowing the NSC staff’s history and its war stories is the only way to truly understand American foreign policy. As this essential account builds to the swift removals of advisors General Michael Flynn and Steve Bannon in 2017, we see the staff’s influence in President Donald Trump’s still chaotic administration and come to understand the role it might play in its aftermath.


A revelatory history written with riveting DC insider detail, White House Warriors traces the path that has led us to an era of American aggression abroad, debilitating fights within the government, and whispers about a deep state conspiring against the public.

Genres: History, Politics, Nonfiction, American History, Military Fiction, War, Government

272 pages, Hardcover

Published May 14, 2019

About the author

John Gans, PhD, is the director of communications and research at Perry World House, the University of Pennsylvania's global policy institute, and a fellow at the German Marshall Fund. A former chief speechwriter at the Pentagon, he lives in Haddonfield, New Jersey.

Reviews

[Emmet Sullivan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good overall, but there some chapters where it strains to adhere to any sort of overall thesis. It basically details the growth of the National Security Council staff’s power since its creation. Each chapter corresponds to a presidential administration. The strength is that Gans does a good job of highlighting a sizable group of people who hold significant sway over presidential decision making but otherwise don’t get a lot of press coverage. If you like Chris Whipple’s books on chiefs of staff or CIA directors, this fits that mold quite well.

I think the big weakness for me is that it draws conclusions that seem a bit extreme based on the evidence that’s presented in the book. The basic argument is that the NSC staff has grown in size, power, and importance, but largely operates below the radar which creates accountability problems. Gans repeatedly declares this throughout the book, but I’m not sure that he really proves it in a convincing way. Regardless, at just over 200 pages, it’s a worthwhile read for those who are interested.

[Andrew Carr · Rating 3 out of 5]

Writing about organisations can be hard. It's easy to get bogged down in the continuity - what they did each day - and in the change - the big reforms - expecting readers must share the full journey of knowledge as you did, detail by agonising detail. Gans avoids this in his tale of the National Security Council (NSC), via a series of pen portraits of key figures and key moments.

This is therefore not an attempt to tell the full history of the NSC, so much as to evoke how it operated across different eras and the common and divergent themes of that operation. With access to many who operated and the eye for a good tale, this is an engaging and easy read.

One insight that jumped out to me was the power of ideas. For all the debate about structure and agency in how we analyse politics, little is more important than the quality of ideas. These need not be new ideas as Gans stresses, and they may seem appealing because they serve either the agency or agents. But without good ideas, no structure, and no agents, not even those with the power to weild the vast power of the United States government can achieve much of anything.

Second, I was struck by how commonly these 'strategists' proposed military actions as a way of sending a 'signal' to the adversary - often with little clear sense of whether the adversary would understand it in anything like the way it was intended. Using force to achieve a political result is the foundation of strategy. But few of us are strategic translators - that is, capable of explaining how the force achieves political effects in the language of our adversarys'. Too often we speak our own language, sometimes as assertively as we can, never taking the time to learn how the adversary speaks or hears and befuddled why we are not being understood.

One to pick up if interested in US national security policy and administration.

[Alexandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must-read for anyone interested in history or foreign policy. Gans pulls back the curtain on arguably the most powerful yet opaque body in foreign policy decision-making, the National Security Council. Each chapter recounts a different administration — as told through the work of an NSC staffer. Through these beautifully-written portraits of largely unknown staffers, Gans reveals the chilling, outsized influence of this small, unelected institution on American war and peace. From this perspective, even the policy success stories seem more luck than skill — leaving readers concerned about the NSC's continued unchecked power.

[Jesse Young · Rating 3 out of 5]

An easy-to-read and compact history of the NSC, with a specific focus on the major staff personalities the attracted the most attention -- especially from Reagan forward. This provides a great overview of the institution, but if two criticisms can be made, it's that a) Gans is far too focused on the notion that the NSC is most relevant during war and conflict (the vast majority of the book is consumed by military matters); b) the book feels almost too brief at times, given how passingly it treats enormously complex moments and matters.

[Jas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved the organization of this book, and appreciated that it had just the history/analysis balance I was hoping for (90/10 imo). This is an impressive work

[Andro Mathewson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Terrific account of the history of the NSC told through intertwined stories and personal accounts. Great read!

[Jack Aneesh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Got an advance copy of this through a friend in DC. Knew only a few names associated with the NSC -- Kissinger, Rice, Flynn and McMaster - but I gave it a read anyway. Gans writes a fast paced book that gives enough background to catch up. I learned a lot from it about American national security and the people who make it. Recommend

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Prior to reading this book I had little knowledge of the National Security Council. Yes, I knew that it was some kind of agency that advised the President; little did I know that it was sometimes quite controversial; sometimes dysfunctional, other times effective. Why, in 1947, was it formed? Well, President Truman didn't cotton to making policy decisions alone. But wasn't that the job of cabinet officers? Yes, historically, but now with the Cold War, executive decisions needed to be more concise, straightforward and rapid. Early NSC advisers were James and Michael Forrestal, Brent Scowcroft. Then came the ambitious and canny Henry Kissinger advising the prickly, elusive and awkward Richard Nixon. Later, well-known advisers and organizers: Al Haig, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, Richard Holbrooke, Michael Flynn, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Bob Gates, John Bolton. Others were publicity shy and astute lesser known counselors: Morton Halperin, Philip Dur, Richard Haass, Meghan O’Sullivan, Anthony Lake, Douglas Lute, Alexander Vershbow, Nelson Drew. Not to forget NSC going off the rails with Iran-Contra and the shenanigans of Oliver North. (Poor Reagan didn't know what was going on in his basement.) At its best, NSC drives strategic national agenda security policy making. I'm happy to know more about it.

[Matt Danner · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good book to pick up if you already know a decent amount about how the executive works, but not the place to start. I've read plenty about the National Security Council and I have a small amount of personal experience in policy formulation, so I was able to keep up. However, someone new to the field is probably going to struggle with this book. Gans' style is choppier than I like. The transitions are rapid and he skips forward and backward in time within administrations. The chapters are divided into 3-4 page subsections, which I also found distracting. This felt like a series of articles that had been compiled into a book. There were also many, many unnecessary quotations and dependent clauses, which also distracted and annoyed me and made portions tough to follow.

Overall, I give Gans an A- for content and research but a D for style and readability.

I much preferred Rothkopf's Running the World. That one is long and very in-depth but never felt like a slog.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read for class, did you know JFK was a terrible multitasker?

[Justin Goldman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a fascinating series of vignettes from the former speechwriter of Secretaries of Defense Ash Carter and Chuck Hagel. With a newly sworn in Presidential Administration in Washington D.C., it is an interesting time to see how the concentration of power within the National Security Council. (NSC) has grown under both Republican and Democratic Presidents. The discussion around the efforts of Dr. Meghan O'Sullivan within the Bush 43 NSC to advocate for what became "the surge" of U.S. forces in Iraq in 2007 is quite interesting, with the NSC involved in military planning that certainly infuriated some in the Pentagon. It was fascinating to read about the aftermath of the Iran–Contra scandal the Tower Commission was commissioned by President Reagan in December 1986 with three commissioners, including Brent Scowcroft. This study of the future role and how the NSC should conduct its business surely influenced him as his management of the NSC in the Bush 41 Administration is still often described as a model for those charged with these duties. While Dr. Gans is critical of the growth of the NSC and its overreach, the couple of hundred or so staff on the NSC have a critical function to get information to the departments and agencies across the government in order to execute the polices the NSC is responsible for advising the President on.

[Dennis Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

White House Warriors: How the National Security Council Transformed the American Way of War by John Gans is a great book. It is a selection of case studies, small thematic microhistories into particular decision-making processes during different administrations starting from the inception of the National Security Council under Nixon right on down to the near-present. At the time of the book's publication, Donald Trump was still in office and McMaster was NSA. There are a lot of clashing personalities, as well as the development of a full national security bureaucracy in direct subordination to the president - as opposed to its more horizontal original structure. There's some good information here and some interesting political history. I was a bit taken aback when the last part of the book, after I already decided I liked it, stated this was adapted from a dissertation and it was populated with people I knew from my Johns Hopkins days. Overall, good book.

[Jeffrey Bostick · Rating 2 out of 5]

This dry and anodyne account surveys the evolving role of the National Security Council in generating and executing US foreign policy. Gans focuses on individual staff members serving under each President since the NSC's inception to describe major events (the bombing of Cambodia, the Lebanon intervention, Iran/Contra, the Iraq troop surge, etc) through the eyes of these somewhat behind the scenes actors. The NSC is either an unaccountable "common law" deep state or a flawed but necessary crutch that serves Presidents who would otherwise be overwhelmed by the bureaucracies at DOD and State. Is any of this a good thing or a bad thing? Gans says it's a little bit of both, although the suggestion is it's gotten to be more of the former over time. Either way we're left trying to decide if the sprawling American empire is more chaotic than it is legalistic. All of which causes us to wonder what difference that really makes.

[Jonathan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Far from convincing me of its necessity, Gans succeeded only in convincing me that the NSC has blinding pride its own competence despite all evidence to the contrary. Warmongering is perhaps my least favorite thing.

Vietnam War escalation (1960s): Advised deeper involvement without clear strategy or exit plan.

Bay of Pigs invasion (1961): Supported failed CIA-led Cuban invasion, embarrassing U.S. internationally.

Iran-Contra affair (1980s): Enabled secret arms deals and illegal funding of Nicaraguan Contras.

Iraq WMD intelligence (2003): Supported flawed WMD claims leading to Iraq invasion.

Afghanistan withdrawal (2021): Poor planning caused chaotic exit and Taliban’s rapid return to power.

I won't argue that its done no good (they were partially responsible for ending the Cuban missile crisis peaceably), only that the bad outweighs the good enough to argue for their dissolution.

[Ernest Spoon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not as interesting as I'd hoped, but informative. Don't know if I really learned anything. Well, the Reagan NSC was dysfunctional,giving lie the post-Reagan Grover Norquist propaganda of a focused administration. Of course this book also illustrates my contention that complicated government conspiracies are impossible, since both high-tier careerist and appointees spend an inordinate amount to time fucking over one another.

[Leo · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are few books that cover the history of the NSC and Gans brings light to a not so we'll known institution. The transitions from one administration to another are abrupt and the author assumes the reader already has a good understanding of the historical settings surrounding the situations he highlights. Still a good read for anyone trying to understand how such a minor concept post WWII has grown into the powerful office we have today.

[Tanner Mastaw · Rating 3 out of 5]

Such a worthy read - but to take it on requires some preceding understanding of the NSC process and subculture. There simply isn’t time and space within this volume to help the reader along.

For a piece set on illuminating a shadowy governing body, this book only scratches the surface on just how challenging it can be to keep up with the freewheeling Interagency.

[Anjuli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating book! The stories of people involved in decision making with the President were exceptional. The characters really came to life, especially in the context of history that Gans provides. Timely and interesting. I couldn’t put it down!

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 - enjoyed this book, and appreciate that it exists. Written by a former Pentagon official, particularly enjoyed the closing epilogue, which asked some pretty bold questions, including whether the NSC should be abolished.

[Ty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gans provides an interesting overview of NSC history, emphasizing that today's post-9/11 NSC is so plugged-in at the operational level that it is difficult for "the White House warriors" to remain honest brokers, regardless of which party controls the White House.

[Jordan Schneider · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well researched for what it is but limited in scope to a handful of select arcs, usually just one for each presidential administration. Focuses down on decisions around how to prosecute wars but the NSC has tackled far more than this. The topic still needs a 700 page treatment.

[John Wilander · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great historical account of the US National Security Council, from post WWII to early President Trump days. It’s focused on inter personal relationships, international conflicts and how they were solved, and the nature of the NSC’s often invisible power.

[Geoff Walling · Rating 3 out of 5]

Warriors is kind of a stretch, but it was semi-interesting.

[TX Poppet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly excellent. I wish the audiobook had been read by the author rather than Mr Monotone David Marantz, but the contents were gripping and thought provoking.

[Chad · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is must read material to any person interested in understanding a very critical part, yet largely unknown, of the U.S. foreign policy apparatus.

[Gary · Rating 3 out of 5]

An engaging portrait of the NSC.

[Cook Memorial Public Library · Rating 4 out of 5]

A 2019 staff pick recommended by Rob. Check our catalog: https://encore.cooklib.org/iii/encore...

[Allie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thorough explanation of the modern NSC.

[Gordon Kwok · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great short book for those who want a short history of the NSC. One area I wish that the book delved into a little more is how the individual NSAs ran the interagency process and gave a little bit of an inside scoop with examples of decisions that can be at the Deputies meetings and those made at the Principals meetings and finally decisions that ended up on the President's desk.