Episode 371: Rice Bowls, Silos, & Firewalls - the National Security Bureaucracy

For the first time in eight years, we are watching a new team take over the national security infrastructure. Now is a good time to review, "Who is who in the zoo" and what exactly they do. 

In the alphabet soup of organizations, how do the NSC, NSA, CIA, DOD, DIA, DHS and DNI all work together - and in competition - to enhance national security? Though everyone likes to bash bureaucracies, they are important and are only as good as those who populate and lead them.

Our guest for the full hour to help us navigate the swamp the "blob" lives in will be Loren DeJonge Schulman.

Lauren is the Deputy Director of Studies and the Leon E. Panetta Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security. She most recently served as the Senior Advisor to National Security Advisor Susan Rice. Before returning to the White House in 2013, she was Chief of Staff to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs. She served as Director for Defense Policy on the National Security Council staff from 2011­–2012 and prior to that as a special assistant to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. She is a Texan (the obnoxious kind), mom to the most awesome pizza loving two year old ever, and spends too much time on twitter.