National Security Policy

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The United States is a fully equipped, globally deployed, interagency superpower. Today, the United States forward deploys approximately 250 diplomatic missions in the form of embassies, consulates, and membership in specialized organizations such as NATO and the United Nations (Marcella, n.d.). The National Security Act of 1947 was a paradigm shift in the management of our armed forces and national security. There have been numerous pieces of legislation passed since 1947 that have modified the structures and rules by which the United States National Security Policy is made. A couple of these legislation examples are the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986 and the Homeland Security Act. With these latest pieces of legislation, the United States…show more content…
The leader of this coup and leader of this new military run government was Lieutenant General Raoul Cedras, President Aristides hand-picked chief of staff of the Haitian army (Kretchik, Baumann, & Fishel, 1998). Because of this blatant disregard for democracy, elements of a new crisis involving the United States were set in motion. Operation UPHOLD DEMOCRACY was an intervention with designed objectives to remove the military regime installed by the coup d’état, return the democratically elected President Aristide to office, and the creation of a stable and secure physical and political environment in which democratic institutions could succeed (Kretchik, Baumann, & Fishel,…show more content…
Military planning was then in full effect. As a result of the Goldwater-Nichols Act and resent success in Panama with Operation JUST CAUSE, joint operations was now the standard policy of planning and employment of forces under a unified combatant commander (Manwaring & Fishel, 2006). Military planners used the Joint Operations Planning and Execution System (JOPES) to formulate the military plans that eventually became Operation UPHOLD DEMOCRACY (Kretchik, Baumann, & Fishel, 1998). This planning process allows the combatant commanders to transmit the courses of action up the national security chain of command for consideration at the council. This planning and execution strategy that was implemented in this operation is a perfect example centralized control and decentralized execution. The way in which the national security system is now structured allowed the military to plan many courses of action. These are then sent up the chain where the National Security Council will often pick and choose what they like for the ultimate plan. This then gives the military commanders control of the operations once it

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