The US National Security Council under Donald Trump: Legacy and Modern Features

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Abstract

The article examines in detail the modern four-level organizational structure of the US National Security Council system at the beginning of Donald Trump's second term as president. Such a four-level effective system may also be of interest to Russian foreign ministries. The article shows that, despite the negative attitude towards Democratic President Barack Obama, Trump during his first term maintained his reform of merging the apparatuses of the National Security Council and the Internal Security Council into a single whole. At the beginning of the second term, he also merged both councils into a single body. Trumpists considered the numerous NSC apparatus inherited from their Democratic predecessors to be a manifestation of a "deep state" hostile to them. Accordingly, a course was taken for a significant reduction in the size of the NSC apparatus, a decrease in the role of the NSC in the foreign policy process and, as a result, an increase in the role of the State Department and the Ministry of Defense.

About the authors

S. M Samuylov

Georgy Arbatov Institute for U.S. and Canada Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences (ISKRAN)

Email: fpcenter@rambler.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0003-4033-717X
Chief Researcher Moscow, Russian Federation

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