Position:National Security Advisor
The National Security Advisor, a shorthand title for the position of Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, is the president's closest adviser on issues related to national security. They are a member of the National Security Council.
Relevant Professional Background:Jim Jones is a recently retired Marine General. He served in the military from 1967, when he was enlisted in the Marines, until 2007. Jones has served both as the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO and as the Commander of U.S. European Command (often shortened to EUCOM). He was chairman of the Atlantic Council at the time of his appointment. His bipartisanship and ability to maneuver within highly politicized bureaucracies are frequently cited traits.
Positions: Jones is better known for his pragmatic approach to challenges than for any particular ideological position. However, he has been critical of actions in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The 2008 Afghanistan Study Group Report, whose production Jones co-chaired, recommended that an overarching strategy be developed, that Iraq be delinked from Afghanistan and more forces be deployed, among other proposals. He is well-known for having declared to the Senate Armed Services Committee in 2007 that the "international community is not winning in Afghanistan," when it was not yet received wisdom. He also chaired the 2007 Iraq Study Group, which was very critical of the capacities of the Iraqi government, military and law enforcement, in contrast to the sunnier claims of the Bush administration that development was going apace.
read more: Iraq war | Afghanistan war
Goals: Jones is not known to have any particular stated objectives for the role of National Security Adviser. In keeping with both his disposition and the appointed role, he is likely to promote goals that harmonize the objectives of the State and Defense departments, while serving his own understanding of the process specifics required in specific contexts.
Challenges:
Jones' challenges will largely be those of coordinating and funneling the disparate viewpoints of other cabinet level members into meaningful advice for the president. The content of these viewpoints will be the primary military and foreign policy issues of the day, as well as security issues arising from globalization. Washington Note author Steve Clemons described the job of national security advisor in August 2008:
The complexity of the job requires someone who can work through conflicting agendas, see past them to key priorities, listen and work through 'all' scenarios, have facility with nuances -- and understand equally the challenges posed today by assymetric threats, rising peer threats, the avant-garde 21st century threats of climate change and transnational disease, classic WMD proliferation threats, and the threat represented by America's own implosion of global power -- at least in the perception of many other key global stakeholders.