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Biden's NSC to focus on global health, climate, cyber and human rights, as well as China and Russia
Source: Washington Post
Biden’s NSC to focus on global health, climate, cyber and human rights, as well as China and Russia
By Karen DeYoung
1/8/2021, 9:30:00 a.m.
The incoming Biden administration plans to restructure and expand the operations of the White House National Security Council, establishing new senior positions on global health, democracy and human rights, and cyber and emerging technology, signaling a sweeping shift in priorities, according to a senior adviser to the Biden transition.
Russia, which the Trump administration had subsumed into the NSC directorate for European affairs, will again be given its own NSC senior director, the adviser said, speaking on the condition of anonymity before the plans and positions were announced Friday.
“We expect to be taking a stronger position on China than has been the case in past Democratic administrations,” with significant new staff positions to handle “a much more assertive China abroad, and a much more repressive China” at home, the adviser said.
Each new administration has reorganized the NSC and put it to different purposes since the body was established more than seven decades ago to coordinate and reconcile diplomatic and military perspectives. Most have hewed, with mixed success amid competing priorities and conflicting personalities, to a basic formula in which NSC aides refine options, tee up final decisions to be made by the president, and make sure they are carried out.
President-elect Joe Biden, facing massive domestic problems and a rapidly changing strategic landscape, has said his goal is to break down barriers between national security and domestic policy, “especially on crosscutting issues” such as “covid, climate, migration and even U.S.-China relations that have touched so many domestic equities,” the senior adviser said.
-snip-
By Karen DeYoung
1/8/2021, 9:30:00 a.m.
The incoming Biden administration plans to restructure and expand the operations of the White House National Security Council, establishing new senior positions on global health, democracy and human rights, and cyber and emerging technology, signaling a sweeping shift in priorities, according to a senior adviser to the Biden transition.
Russia, which the Trump administration had subsumed into the NSC directorate for European affairs, will again be given its own NSC senior director, the adviser said, speaking on the condition of anonymity before the plans and positions were announced Friday.
“We expect to be taking a stronger position on China than has been the case in past Democratic administrations,” with significant new staff positions to handle “a much more assertive China abroad, and a much more repressive China” at home, the adviser said.
Each new administration has reorganized the NSC and put it to different purposes since the body was established more than seven decades ago to coordinate and reconcile diplomatic and military perspectives. Most have hewed, with mixed success amid competing priorities and conflicting personalities, to a basic formula in which NSC aides refine options, tee up final decisions to be made by the president, and make sure they are carried out.
President-elect Joe Biden, facing massive domestic problems and a rapidly changing strategic landscape, has said his goal is to break down barriers between national security and domestic policy, “especially on crosscutting issues” such as “covid, climate, migration and even U.S.-China relations that have touched so many domestic equities,” the senior adviser said.
-snip-
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/biden-nsc-covid-climate-cyber-china/2021/01/08/85a31cba-5158-11eb-83e3-322644d82356_story.html