[Washington 10th Reuters]-US Assistant Secretary O'Brien (National Security Affairs), on the 10th, interviewed Reuters to reduce the National Security Council (NSC) staff size by about a third in the coming months Rather than telling Trump the direction of foreign policy, he revealed a plan to limit his role to collecting options.
Mr. O'Brien seems to want to restore the role of coordination between ministries that was originally envisaged by the NSC.
“The NSC is the coordinator of the White House policy, not the national security and foreign policy. It is the work of the responsible ministries,” he said. He is willing to share his opinion on national security with the president if requested, but he said that the premise is that the president will hear from him before that.
The number of NSC policy advisers is said to be reduced from the current 178 to 117. The scale will almost return to the size of the first Bush (child) administration's first president of Condoriza Rice.
Declaring the scale is for NSC efficiency, and it is not intended to reduce leaks to news media.
The main purpose is to send employees seconded from the Department of Defense or the Department of State at the end of their current appointment period, and will be done by the end of January next year.
