Help with memo

Overview: Russia is among the NSC’s most difficult and complex policy challenges, so it will likely require a series of Principals’ Committee (PC) meetings to forge policy recommendations to the President.  Nonetheless, the first PC on Russia may be the most important, since it sets the stage for consideration of subsequent issues and challenges.

Remember, DoD is responsible for the country’s defense, but it’s also interested in broader policy issues that might affect its potential adversaries’ capabilities and constraints.

For this assignment, your role is the the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. 

Review the module three materials and your notes on them, with particular emphasis on the Graham ‘Foreign Affairs’ article (Nov/Dec 2019), the Topol NYT article (25 June 2019), and the Vershbow/Fried paper (23 November 2020).

Write a Briefing Memorandum to prepare the Secretary of Defense for these discussions.  You will need to be succinct he’s a busy guy but make sure that critical elements are included.

Include:

Select three policy elements, e.g., sanctions on Russian oil companies, that the SecDef should push and at least one that he should oppose.

Outline the views of other PC members who will be policy adversaries or supporters.  

Finally, assess NATO Allies’ likely reaction to at least two of the policy issues you are asking the SecDef to pursue.

This memo should be in the format of the example briefing memorandum provided but without any talking points.  In this case, you should drop the State Department header and, instead, use ‘Office of the Secretary of Defense, Pentagon, Washington, D.C.  20301.’  The ‘To’ line on the memo should read:  ‘The Secretary of Defense.’  The ‘from’ line should read:  ‘USD/P –‘ followed by your first name, middle initial, and last name.

There is no need to include a clearance page.  For an internal briefing memorandum for the Secretary of Defense from his staff, all of the clearances would be from the Department of Defense, but both ‘OSD,’ the Office of the Secretary of Defense and ‘JCS’ the staff of the Chairman that’s known as the Joint Staff.  Clearances might also come from the relevant ‘Combatant Command,’ in this case EUCOM as well as a Unified Command such as STRATCOM.  As with clearances at State, the objective is to make sure the SecDef is well-prepared for the meeting and that relevant members of his staff have been given the opportunity to express themselves in preparing the Secretary.