US President Donald Trump is ordering a major overhaul of the National Security Council (NSC) that will see its size shrink significantly, the Associated Press (AP) reported on Saturday, noting it would lead to the ouster of some political appointees and return many career government employees back to their home agencies.
The plans involve slashing the number of staffers at the NSC to less than 150 from around 350 currently - and some of those cuts have already begun. The White House also plans to cut the number of NSC committees and for those that remain to meet less often, according to Politico.
The NSC, created during the Truman administration, is an arm of the White House tasked with advising and assisting the president on national security and foreign policy and coordinating among various government agencies, the AP report said.
A Reuters report citing sources said that "the NSC restructuring is expected to further reduce the agency's influence, transforming it from a powerful policymaking body into a small organization focused more on implementing the president's agenda than on shaping it."
In practice, the move is expected to grant more authority to the State Department, the Defense Department and other departments and agencies involved in diplomacy, national security and intelligence matters, the sources said, per Reuters.
A White House official involved in the planning characterized the reorganization as Trump and Rubio's latest move against what they see as Washington's "Deep State," Axios reported.
Diao Daming, a professor at the Renmin University of China in Beijing, told the Global Times on Sunday, that US President Trump tends to hold grievances toward long-serving elected officials within the establishment and career bureaucrats - those with professional expertise who hold long-term positions in the government. He views these individuals as part of the "Deep State."
The move is expected to elevate the importance of the State Department and Pentagon in advising Trump on important foreign policy moves, according to the AP report.
The NSC delivers professional decision-support when addressing critical issues, such as contextual analysis - mapping the historical evolution and current landscape of challenges and real-time assessment and actionable proposals grounded in historical precedent and technical expertise, Diao told the Global Times.
Any erosion of these functions would impair crisis comprehension speed and degrade the president's access to high-caliber advisory level. Expanding decision-making scope without maintaining analytical rigor risks navigating "uncharted waters," the expert said.
The FT reported said that Ivan Kanapathy, the NSC's senior director for Asia, remains in his role, though his China-focused team has been let go.
原文链接：[Global Times]US admin slashes NSC, move 'risks impairing decision-making process'
