National Security and Double Government

Abstract

National security policy in the United States has remained largely constant from the Bush Administration to the Obama Administration. This continuity can be explained by the “double government” theory of the 19th-century scholar of the English Constitution, Walter Bagehot. As applied to the United States, Bagehot’s theory suggests that U.S. national security policy is defined by the network of executive officials who manage the departments and agencies responsible for protecting U.S. national security and who, responding to structural incentives embedded in the U.S. political system, operate largely removed from public view and from constitutional constraints. The public believes that the constitutionally-established institutions control national security policy, but that view is mistaken. Judicial review is negligible; congressional oversight is dysfunctional; and presidential control is nominal. Absent a more informed and engaged electorate, little possibility exists for restoring accountability in the formulation and execution of national security policy.

Keywords: national security, double government,terrorism, Obama, Bush, military tribunal, Guantanamo, habeas, ABM, drone, CIA, NSA, torture, covert operations, cyberwar, state secrets, national security letters, surveillance, whistleblowers, espionage, metadata, Bagehot, civic virtue, Truman, Madison, Mills