President Trump Should Create an Office of Crisis Identification

The OCI can quietly prevent federal catastrophes.

Years ago, a foreign policy specialist said that America has a Pearl Harbor mentality, i.e., it often waits until something blows up before acknowledging that a crisis exists.

The recent fires in Los Angeles will be studied for years to come as students of public administration (as well as decision making) explore how state and local leaders were able to play a prolonged game of denial, cutting the fire safety budget while shifting money to other programs, while the media and other potential whistleblowers remained silent.

The usual strategy of the guilty in such cases is to hope that the voters will be suddenly struck by a severe case of amnesia; one so prolonged that the leaders who produced the problem can magically transform themselves into saviors who are tackling the recovery.

That’s going to a hard sell in this case. New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was able to succeed in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks because he had no responsibility to prevent them. His handling of the aftermath was masterful, in part, because he was not carrying any guilt.

Los Angeles, of course, is very different. Mayor Bass is neck-deep in the quagmire. Her efforts to postpone finger-pointing are obviously self-serving and won’t deflect cries for her resignation. It may be difficult to find a city council member who is completely blameless. Where were they when the fire department funding was slashed?

A major rule in crisis management is that the best way to handle a crisis is to prevent it. Organizations may claim that they are eager to prevent crises, but the pressure of current problems often keeps attention and resources from being given to potential ones.

Think of how often Winston Churchill warned Britain about the rise of Nazi Germany, only to be mocked as a warmonger.

Consider how the expression “Kicking the can down the road” is frequently used in public discourse to describe postponing tough decisions. That cute metaphor disguises the fact that in the real world, the can gets larger and harder to kick and that eventually some unfortunate souls are going to have to move it. In the meantime, language is used to cloak an abdication of responsibility.

As a new presidential administration takes office, it’s time for a cost-cutting White House to ensure that the Los Angeles bungling is not duplicated at the federal level.

Here’s my proposal:

1. Create a small White House Office of Crisis Identification. Keep it small: 15 people at the maximum. That will cause it to prioritize. The budget must also be sparse. Tuck it into a corner of the White House basement. Have its chief report to the White House Chief of Staff, but with the option at all times of reporting directly to the President.

2. Give the OCI a broad mission: To identify and report the “500-pound gorilla” crises that are being ignored or hidden within the federal government. The crises need not be immediate. They may be years away, but they must bear a potentially serious threat. It is possible that current departments and agencies have already identified the crises but, for whatever reasons, the issue has not been resolved. The departments may need support to give the issue the attention it deserves.

3. Make it clear that the OCI’s perspective is to be in, but not of, the federal government. In order to be effective, the office must be candid and not captured by any department or smothered by the White House Chief of Staff. Although possessing no authority to execute its recommendations, the OCI has a grave responsibility to surface them.

4. The OCI members, to borrow a phrase from the Brownlow Commission that enlarged the White House staff back when Franklin Roosevelt was president, are to have a passion for anonymity. They should be power analysts, not power players. Their power to persuade will be key, but so too is the acknowledgement that the President calls the shots.

5. This OCI’s network of contacts will give its primary client - the President - a backchannel to learn what’s going on in various departments. [Study the “hidden hand” presidency of Dwight Eisenhower to find how a savvy president who used a highly formal decision-making process also had ways of learning about problems which otherwise may have been filtered from ever reaching him.] Establishing the OCI will fold Eisenhower’s backchannel into the White House process.

6. Let the OCI follow the medical maxim of “First, do not harm.” It is not in place to weaken the departments, but to assist them while furthering the broader mission. This is not a choice of either/or, but of both/and.

7. Finally, recognize that the job of an OCI is counter intuitive. It is to follow the method of hockey star Wayne Gretsky and skate to where the puck will be, not where it is. Traditionally, there is little, or no recognition given for preventing crises, and yet those bold actions are deserving of honor.

The innovative Department of Governmental Efficiency (DOGE) headed by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy promises to streamline operations and reduce spending. Even if it is a major success, however, management’s natural tendency to avoid confronting potentially serious problems will continue. A small but effective White House office dedicated to countering such procrastination possesses an enormous potential for good.

The president who establishes an OCI will have made a quiet but lasting step toward preventing future disasters. That is not a minor achievement.