Findings and recommendations include:
- Weaknesses in the national security apparatus, including stovepiping, inefficient communication, deleterious competition, and overlapping lines of authority, are problems of culture rather than bureaucracies.
- Stovepiping and poor information sharing together constitute a key vulnerability in the current system of threat assessment and response.
- Mechanisms of accountability are insufficient; their absence weakens the efficiency and reliability of threat analysis and assessment.
- Cross-cutting threats are the central national security challenge for the Obama Administration.