The National Security Council is less a single agency than a process for bringing the President's top national security officials together. Its staff, part of the Executive Office of the President, prepares options, coordinates the agencies, and makes sure decisions are carried out. How much power it holds depends heavily on each President's style.
This guide explains how the council is built, how its role has changed, and the debates over it.
President Eisenhower ran a formal, heavily staffed system. President Kennedy cut it back and relied on small groups, as during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Under President Nixon, Kissinger made the advisor more powerful than the Secretary of State. In the Iran-Contra affair of the 1980s, NSC staff secretly sold arms to Iran and funneled the proceeds to Nicaraguan rebels, and the Tower Commission of 1987 recommended that the staff stay out of operations. In 2009 the separate Homeland Security Council staff, created after the September 11 attacks, was merged into the NSC staff.
Since the system set up in 1989 under President George H. W. Bush, policy has usually moved through layers. Interagency policy committees of assistant secretaries draft options. A deputies committee of second-ranking officials resolves disputes and prepares decisions. A principals committee of cabinet-level members meets without the President, and the full council meets with the President for the most important choices. Decisions are recorded in presidential directives, called National Security Presidential Memoranda in recent administrations.
The NSC staff grew from a few dozen in the 1960s to roughly 400 by the mid-2010s, including officials detailed from State, Defense, and the intelligence agencies. In May 2025 the administration cut the staff sharply, aiming for about 50 people, merged or eliminated several regional and issue directorates, and sent most detailees back to their agencies. Officials said the change would move policy work to the departments and make the NSC focus on carrying out the President's agenda.
By law the council includes the President, Vice President, and the secretaries of state, defense, and energy. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the military adviser and the Director of National Intelligence the intelligence adviser. Presidents also invite the treasury secretary, the White House chief of staff, the UN ambassador, and others. The National Security Advisor, a post created in 1953, manages the process and staff. Because the role is not Senate-confirmed, advisers rarely testify before Congress. From May 2025 the Secretary of State also served as National Security Advisor, a dual role last held by Henry Kissinger in the 1970s.
World War II exposed poor coordination among the military services and the State Department. The National Security Act of 1947 unified the military under what became the Defense Department, created the Central Intelligence Agency, and established the National Security Council to advise the President on integrating domestic, foreign, and military policy. President Truman initially kept it at arm's length, but the Korean War made it a regular forum.
Supporters of a lean council say a large NSC staff duplicated the work of the departments, slowed decisions, leaked, and sometimes pursued its own agenda, and that cabinet secretaries should be accountable for policy. Critics argue that a strong, honest-broker staff is needed to present the President with full options, to coordinate agencies with competing interests, and to manage crises, and that shrinking it concentrates decisions in fewer hands. Others have long proposed Senate confirmation of the National Security Advisor to increase accountability to Congress.
See the full picture in how foreign policy is made, follow the military side in the military chain of command, or see where the NSC sits in inside the White House.