When someone tells me the NSC has whatever multiple of 100s staff, I do think it's wasteful and bad organization, because the same experts exist at the State Department, CIA, DoD and elsewhere (I know a lot of NSC staff is actually loaned from these agencies). NSC staff should be maybe a handful lead people on a topic, that make sure all the others spread around aren't butting heads, doing redundant work, and are all in the right meetings together.
There is organizational bloat in the NSC, DoD, etc. Which shouldn't be surprising because most private companies are also bloated. But when it comes to reducing the bloat, obviously the right strategy is not to just leave the seat unfilled, pretend nothing's changed and hope it all works. The structure needs to be rethought, possibly zero-based (restarted on a blank sheet), and tasks properly assigned to the personnel/teams that are indeed staying. Nothing that we've heard so far indicates any of this is being done, just that the seats are empty. Sounds more like Bannon trying to break the state than an effort at promoting cost-efficiency. Indeed we better hope nothing happens.
