A whole of government approach for national security

Abstract

The national security system the President uses today allows little flexibility and agility to protect this nation from ever changing national threats. The lack of a common national government culture that facilitates a shared vision is evident. Additionally, the lack of inter-agency coordination and cooperation forces departments to focus on their own objectives and goals. However, with today's challenges, the demand for inter-agency collaboration has grown, and it has been identified as a necessity to achieve an adequate level of national security for the nation. The national security structure needs to operate as a system rather than a collection of separate components. A whole of government approach to planning, and programming and budgeting national security is a concept that could establish a unified effort between inter-governmental agencies to maximize all available resources in a collaborative effort. "Addressing new security challenges is less about an objective of dominance and more about predicting, preventing, and managing disruptions, such as proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, terrorist acts, global contagions, and natural disasters. This has led to the call for a whole of government approach to national security" (Gockel, 2008, p. 6). This project investigates how this approach could be developed and implemented across the federal government.