Since the transition team for President-elect Park Geun-hye kicked off, how to reestablish the National Security Council has become one of the most controversial issues in regard to re-organizing the executive structure at Cheong Wa Dae.

According to a media release, the council is expected to have a different structure and play a more comprehensive role than in former administrations. During Park’s presidency, the national security environment could become tougher than ever, including present and imminent military and non-military threats posed by North Korea.

The current system of the U.S. NSC was established after World War II with the National Security Act of 1947, which was initiated by Congress, not the president, in reaction to intelligence failures in identifying a potential Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, including President Roosevelt’s highly personalized management of U.S. foreign policy during the war.

As there are no laws or regulations on how the president makes a decision, the idiosyncratic character and leadership style of the president is key to defining the size, mission, and responsibilities of the council.

In the current discussions over designing the structure of NSC at Cheong Wa Dae, there are some critical factors to keep in mind.

First, the president is the person who makes the decisions. This principle reflects that the person in charge of overseeing the workings of the NSC ― probably the national security adviser ― is required to advise the president, rather than being a decision-maker.

Whether or not the NSA takes a leading policy development role is a separate variable for the president to consider while defining his or her roles including the NSC staff. In most cases, policy mistakes or failures were caused by inappropriate roles by the NSA or other NSC staff ― decision-making or implementation ― neither structural flaws nor malfunctions of the national security system.

Second, during the 18th presidential election, the most controversial election agenda was how to overcome a domestic economic depression. Under a global financial crisis, economics is regarded as one of the most significant issues for national security.

In the U.S., the Clinton administration made a historic change to the NSC structure by extending its membership to include the secretary of the treasury, thus establishing the National Economic Council working in almost the same way as the NSC. In a similar vein, after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, the Homeland Security Council was established along with the Department of Homeland Security.

Third, President-elect Park is required to review the effectiveness of the organizational structures of the foreign and defense ministries, including National Intelligence Service. It is very dangerous, wishful thinking to believe that the president is able to make better, more sound decisions by establishing the NSC or a control tower.

The NSC should be viewed as a supplemental mechanism for supporting the president’s decision-making by coordinating diverse ― sometimes conflicting ― opinions among ministries and agencies. The president might consider an additional informal mechanism to enhance her situational awareness through separate meetings with ministers.

Fourth, although national security affairs ― unlike other governmental decisions ― are mainly at the president’s discretion, how the NSC communicates with the National Assembly is a critical issue for Korea. In today’s security environment, it might be too dangerous to depend on the president’s decision entirely.

As political participation by the public is much more increased and diversified, the implementation of foreign policies without a wide public consensus and support would face enormous difficulties in terms of managing continuity and consistency.

Fifth, Korean policymakers are required to refresh their minds and eyes in identifying national threats. Military or non-military threats posed by North Korea are just the tip of iceberg.

For instance, a diplomatic rivalry between the United States and China is a much more complex and significant issue to Korea’s national security. And, although it is a fairly new concept to policy analysts and managers in Korea, sociological methodology sometimes plays a crucial role in producing the timely and accurate assessment of foreign threats as a preliminary analytical step of comparing and diagnosing competiveness between us and an adversary which is known as net assessment in the U.S.

It is unbelievable to find that the director of the Net Assessment Office at the U.S. Department of Defense has been appointed by every president since 1973, thus the director has never been replaced up to now.

By Park Jin-ho

The writer is a legislative assistant to Rep. Hwang Jin-ha of the ruling Saenuri Party. ― Ed.