US National and Foreign Policy

National Security

The National Security Council (NSC or National Security Council) is an administrative organization directly under the President of the United States. It has an advisory, coordinating and sometimes pulse on issues of foreign policy, of national security, and more generally on all strategic issues. He is an actor in this little known, but major, sometimes predominant, the foreign policy of the United States.

It meets the statutory Vice-President, the Secretary of State (equivalent of foreign minister in other countries), the Secretary of Defense and national security adviser around the president. It presides, while its administration is led by national security adviser. There may invite other members as needed. Its primary function is to be an exchange forum for advising the president. As such, it meets regularly, according to the international situation and the priorities of the president. The board administration is responsible for the preparation of these general meetings. Interdepartmental committees (inter) also take place under the direction of national security adviser on specific topics.

At meetings of the Board, the President can make decisions, resulted in the national security adviser in the form of guidelines and that the participants must implement. As such, it has become an impulse decision, coordination and verification of their implementation in the hands of the president, strengthening its executive facing the Congress. Over time and depending on the personality of the national security advisor, he worked as a full administration, with its own existence, thus becoming one of the key actors in the formulation of U.S. foreign policy United, competing with the State Department and Defense Department .

During the existence of the board, the administration led by national security adviser has dominated the other actors of foreign policy, even to go beyond his duties to formulate and drive alone important decisions, sometimes without partners are informed. At other times, she has lost influence, reduced to a little office listened with only a few dozen people.

Should the executive branch do something with it in respect to the oil issues?

Closer attention to organization is needed mainly in the executive branch, but complementary actions by Congress, through legislation and hearings will also be needed. If the word 'oil' is very little in the report published by the Washington Institute for Near East Study, it is undeniable that the idea is omnipresent in such convoluted terms "energy security", "economic security", "vital interests of the United States ". The bottom line is indeed the geopolitics of oil. Despite the increased share of other energy sources, oil will remain for decades the main source of energy, but it is an exhaustible natural resource. Global oil reserves have declined from 18.2 billion barrels in 1999, falling to 1016 billion. The change in reserves and production will inexorably decline while, in parallel, increasing global energy demand is increasing. Such are the data which explain that oil is a key strategic issue.

With this certainty the United States has made ??a priority of the stranglehold on the world's oil. First consumer ...