CSS Lunch Series | The National Security Enterprise ft. Roger Z George & Harvey Rishikof

Roger Z. George and Harvey Rishikof, co-editors of the new edition of The National Security Enterprise: Navigating the Labyrinth. George and Rishikof, along with selected contributors, discuss the second edition and the changes to national security that have taken place since the book's original publication in 2011.

About the Speakers

Roger Z. George is Professor of National Security Practice at Occidental College. During his thirty-year career as a CIA analyst, he also served at the State and Defense Departments and was the national intelligence officer for Europe.

Harvey Rishikof was formerly the Dean of Faculty and Professor of Law and National Security at the National War College. He has held senior positions in the federal judiciary, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the FBI. He has been the chairman of the American Bar Association's standing committee on law and national security, and he is currently the chair of the Advisory Committee of the Standing Committee on National Security for the ABA.

About the Book

This second edition of The National Security Enterprise provides practitioners' insights into the operation, missions, and organizational cultures of the principal national security agencies and other institutions that shape the US national security decision-making process. Unlike some textbooks on American foreign policy, it offers analysis from insiders who have worked at the National Security Council, the State and Defense Departments, the intelligence community, and the other critical government entities. The book explains how organizational missions and cultures create the labyrinth in which a coherent national security policy must be fashioned. Understanding and appreciating these organizations and their cultures is essential for formulating and implementing it.

Taking into account the changes introduced by the Obama administration, the second edition includes four new or entirely revised chapters (Congress, Department of Homeland Security, Treasury, and USAID) and updates to the text throughout. It covers changes instituted since the first edition was published in 2011, implications of the government campaign to prosecute leaks, and lessons learned from more than a decade of war in Afghanistan and Iraq. This up-to-date book will appeal to students of US national security and foreign policy as well as career policymakers.

Both editions of The National Security Enterprise have been written and published in cooperation with the Center for Security Studies.