Welcome to Bombshell. I'm Erin Simpson. I'm Rada Aingar. I'm Lauren D. Young-Shelman. And we, as always, have lots to talk about. We don't have a guest this week. You're just with the three of us.

Our guests are our listeners this week. We're going to start with some questions from the audience,

which we actually are coming from the War Hall, brought to you from War on the Rocks for those paid

members there, and from our Facebook page. And so, Roda, what's the first question?

So we'll start with what is a national security advisor?

What makes a good one?

How do they pick their staff?

Lauren, you want to start us off with thoughts on this?

So a couple things about the national security advisor is that, one, their role is not set in

statutes.

The national security advisor did not come from the National Security Act of 1947.

There's just an executive secretary labeled in that.

And just over time, presidents have established a National Security Advisor to be their lead person running this process for them.

So as a result, it's fairly flexible, right?

These things evolve with different presidencies.

And if you're really into reading about these things, you can read David Rothkopf's book or other publications of different

strategies or types, archetypes of national security advisors. Yeah, the usual, as you're teaching the

National Security Act, you always say that the National Security Advisor and the national security

process is a function of the president. And they always change with every presidency. And it doesn't work unless you have one that really

adapts to the leadership style of the president. The one that everybody goes back to you as like

the best of all time is Brent Scowcroft. The Scowcroft model. The Scowcroft model

in which a couple of things about the Scowcroft view of the

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