Talk:National security directive

Presidential Directives are not Executive Orders
Please see the section by this name on the discussion page on executive orders.
 * WagePeace (talk) 12:41, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Links 2 & 3 are broken
I tried looking up the sources 2&3 claiming that some presedential directives are classified on 'fas.org'--the links are broken. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.220.156.47 (talk) 19:48, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Fundamentally incorrect
The amount of cross- and mis-information in this area is getting to be too much for me...

This article should be titled "National Security Instruments" and all subtypes based in/on National Security Council policies should redirect to it.

A Presidential directive (also known as an 'Executive instrument' to a lesser degree) is the generic general or main category used for classifying the various types of recognized and/or official issuances made by the President (or as delegated within the Executive). The following "tree" depicts those various types of Presidential directives, past & present, in no particular degree or importance in relation to one another (i.e. alphabetical list!) except for National Security Instruments ( basically the historical timeline of use)


 * Presidential Directives
 * Administrative Orders
 * Certificates
 * Designations of Officials
 * Executive Orders
 * General Licenses
 * Homeland Security Presidential Directives
 * Interpretations
 * Letters [typically on Tariffs and International Trade, sometimes to/re: Congress]
 * Military Orders
 * National Security Instruments
 * National Security Council Policy Papers
 * National Security Action Memoranda
 * National Security Study Memoranda and National Security Decision Memoranda
 * Presidential Review Memoranda and Presidential Directives
 * National Security Study Memoranda and National Security Decision Directives
 * National Security Reviews and National Security Directives
 * Presidential Review Directives and Presidential Decision Directives
 * National Security Presidential Directives
 * Presidential Study Directives and Presidential Policy Directives
 * Presidential Announcements
 * Presidential Findings
 * Presidential Reorganization Plans
 * Proclamations
 * Regulations
 * Notes&#58;
 * 1) Homeland Security Presidential Directives are not technically National Security Instruments because they are not developed by/within the National Security Council. They are the domain of the Homeland Security Council (only 10 years old btw). HSPDs are, however, frequently issued at the same time and/or in conjunction with a similar, refined, related, etc. National Security Instrument - thus creating the confusion for most folks. It is hard to separate the two if one does not keep in mind which 'Council' is behind the issuance in short.
 * 2) [Presidential] Memoranda can fall under more than one heading (such as Administrative Orders, Designations, Interpretations) depending on its subject matter or scope.
 * 3) A [Presidential] Notice can fall under more than one heading (such as Administrative Orders, Announcements, Interpretations, Findings) depending on its subject matter or scope.
 * 4) A Presidential Determination can fall under more than one heading (such as Administrative Orders, Findings, Announcements) depending on its subject matter or scope.
 * 5) Throughout history and to this day, certain types are somewhat "dependent" on other types (a Certificate was most likely preceeded by a Proclamation for example)
 * 6) Certain types must be published by law while other types are left up to the discretion of the President (or NARA) to decide the level of circulation/publication. Of course, some are only available through formal request (FOIA) and still others never see the light of day during one's lifetime because they are classified for National security reasons and the like.


 * Most, if not all, of this info can be collected from just a handful of Committee Prints and CRS Reports to Congress. I'd love to straighten this and several similarly screwed up articles out as they pertain to the U.S. Presidency but being more of Wikisource-rat than a Wikipedia one, I'm not sure where to even start asking. -- George Orwell III (talk) 01:03, 23 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Indeed. The article wrongly states that a Presidential Directive is a type of executive order. This article needs to be far broader in scope. https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/98-611.pdf. Uglemat (talk) 18:06, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Carter era
The list and many documents are avaiable through the Carter Library / NARA - http://www.jimmycarterlibrary.gov/documents/pddirectives/pres_directive.phtml rhyre (talk) 14:36, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Obama Presidential Policy Directives
Presidential Policy Directive 20 should be added/mentioned in the article

https://www.hsdl.org/?abstract&did=725668

http://epic.org/privacy/cybersecurity/presidential-directives/presidential-policy-directive-20.pdf

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/07/obama-china-targets-cyber-overseas

The Department of Homeland security publishes a list of policy directives including abstract, and all of them should be listed in the article: https://www.hsdl.org/?search=&page=1&all=presidential+policy+directive&searchfield=title&collection=limited&submitted=Search --Kistano (talk)

Requested move 24 September 2017

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: moved &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 18:39, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Presidential directive → National Security Directive – Pursuant to the problem highlighted by, I have written a replacement article which is much broader in scope in my sandbox. That article should be moved here (I hope the editing history can be preserved). I have rejected National Security Instrument as the new title for this article, instead deciding upon National Security Directive, which is probably more used, and makes more sense because a lot of their names ends with "directive". Uglemat (talk) 16:54, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

Notifying recent editors:, , , ,. Uglemat (talk) 16:54, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

I have expanded the reasoning for this move request here: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject United States Government Uglemat (talk) 14:10, 25 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Full Title is given for each Presidential naming convention, no? Wouldn't it better to keep them all together?  X1\ (talk) 19:03, 24 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure I understand what you mean. To be clear, I'm proposing that the page National Security Directive should contain the various presidential directives issued through the National Security Council, whereas Presidential directive should describe all the types of directives (of which National Security Directive/Instrument is only one type). I imagine that in the future, all the types of National Security Directives will have their own section over on that page. Uglemat (talk) 19:26, 24 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Are you wanting to separate National Security Directive out of this article (per your sandbox) to make its own article? Per this article (maybe confusingly) National Security Directive is the Full Title of G. H. W. Bush's Presidential directives.  Beyond that, I am no expert of this technical nomenclature area.  X1\ (talk) 22:08, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
 * That can indeed be confusing (especially at present, given the tangled mess this subject is in). National Security Directive refers both to the NSC directives issued by Bush I, and the more general concept of directives issued through the NSC (which is the subject of this article at present, although it is mistitled and states various falsehoods). This is hard to avoid because of the tradition of each administration to invent a new name. (National Security Instrument, although it does not have this problem, is rarely used.) I propose that this article be moved to National Security Directive and deal with the more general concept, and my sandbox moved here. Uglemat (talk) 23:02, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I am noncommital, as I don't know enough about this article. Please count-me-out of the consensus process.  X1\ (talk) 19:46, 3 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Support move. Current name is misdescriptive and should be moved to the new name; Uglemat's sandbox draft is a great initial article for an article that is actually accurately about Presidential directives. TJRC (talk) 17:03, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Where the sources stand
This move has still note been carried out, even though it seems there is a consensus (, as far as I can see, has not taken a position. would certainly support the move, if he/she was still around). To make things more clear, let me list some sources, and where they stand:

I should also add that other sources use different names. Relyea uses "National Security Instrument", probably to avoid confusion, but also at one point uses "presidential national security directives". Gaziano 2001 also uses "national security instrument". Some sources use "presidential directives on national security", which implies a distinction. The important point is that there is a distinction. The name of the new article matters less. I simply think "national security directive" is the best name. These two sources above regularly use "presidential directive" to mean directives issued through the National Security Council. However, the report from 1988 also wrote "Congress is attempting to improve this situation through passage of H.R. 5092, a bill to establish the Presidential Directives and Records Accountability Act. This bill will require the registration of presidential directives, including national security directives," (emphasis added; note that this was issued before the Bush I administration). It seems like these sources are pretty lax about the distinction. That presumably is so because of uncertainty over what to call these directives (after all, they are not officially defined), and, in any case, the context makes it obvious what they are referring to.
 * Sources which use the term "presidential directive" in the general sense (a definition which includes Executive Orders, proclamations, and national security directives)
 * (This source is widely used)
 * Sources which use the term "national security directive" in the general sense of directives issued through the National Security Council
 * Sources which use the term "national security directive" in the general sense of directives issued through the National Security Council
 * Sources which use the term "national security directive" in the general sense of directives issued through the National Security Council
 * Sources which use the term "national security directive" in the general sense of directives issued through the National Security Council
 * Sources which may use the term "presidential directive" to mean directives issued through the national security council

I hope this makes it clear why an article titled "Presidential directive", which furthermore informs readers that "Presidential Directives...are a form of an executive order issued by the President of the United States with the advice and analysis of the National Security Council" (completely false) is problematic, and it needs to be dealt with. Uglemat (talk) 16:36, 3 October 2017 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Removed list of Reagan directives
I removed the list of Reagan NSDDs, because it's just too long and gets in the way. It's not really that useful, as both the Reagan Presidential Library and the Federation of American Scientists maintain the same list, available from the external link section. Uglemat (talk) 06:47, 5 October 2017 (UTC)