An Introduction of the United States National Security Council

United States National Security Council- Crisis Cabinet

           “When I first was assigned to this committee, I thought all I had to do for it was just encouraging a free debate among participants with some special situations for the interest of the debate. And then I had to come up with the contents of those ‘special situations’ which were ‘crisis sessions’. And I had to come up with the script student officers had to use in the crisis sessions. And I had to come up with new forms of debate to encourage a ‘free’ debate among participants. All I had to do was just making a whole new committee filled with a bunch of crisis sessions.”

             The United States National Security Council is an existing council led by the US president and various experts including the cabinet members and senior advisors. You may all know what had been discussed in this council- they have mostly constituted the first page of newspapers or magazines around the world. Those are varying from Libyan crisis to lead-up to the killing of Osama bin Laden, which are also the agendas of this council in YMUN 2012.

             The United States National Security Council IN YMUN 2012 distinguishes itself from other committees in two aspects. First, it has a different rule of procedure. It was made to mainly facilitate more opened debate than the formal debate of regular committees, yet based on several crisis cabinet rules from various MUNs such as of University of Pennsylvania. Second, it has no resolution. Instead, it has adopted three different measures to be debated just like the resolution which are; directives, communiqués, and press releases. Those three measures will act like the resolution which needs a discussion period and a voting procedure.

             Participants are taking different roles such as the US Vice President, UN Ambassador, Secretary of the State, and Senior Advisor for National Intelligence, and so on. So they are called ‘members’ not as ‘delegates’, and they must not represent their personal opinion or interest – just be based on their specialization and knowledge. Their objective is to assist the President to make the most appropriate decision for the urgent situations that might threaten the US security and foreign policy.

             While the general Model United Nations cherish the speech skills, lobbying skills or drafting a good resolution, USNSC will cherish the debating skills, knowledge of the personal information (to act like him/her), and mostly, the depth of the knowledge on the agendas. Since members have to first advise the president to the right direction, they should know not only basic but specified details on the crisis situation based on their specialization. For example, the Director of Central Intelligence Agency, David Petraeus, should know how many agents have been operating in the region and what the consequences of the increase of agents are. Members will be evaluated in terms of this priority, which makes an another distinction from general committees.

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