Good luck, Jimmy.
There are several interesting things about this WP story:
- The MSM as is their custom either does not understand the story or is "dumbing it down" in the belief that complex thoughts are beyond the capabilities of the public. The story is being headlined as being about the Intelligence community. It really is much more than that. The story deals with whole complex web of homeland security agencies, things like the National Counter Terrorism Center, federal police forces, the intelligence world and the ever increasing number of consultant companies that service those activities and to some extent do their hardest work, the intellectual "heavy lifting " that is best done by the "graybeards" who have a lifetime's experience and reputations for high achievement. I know that will sound self-serving. People outside this world will ask why the government should pay again for the expertise of the real experts. Simple. If the government does not, then it can do without.
- In the world under discussion, bigger is not better unless you are talking about the number of policemen. At the end of the 1st Gulf War, DIA was thought by many to be a highly effective combat support organization. Norman Schwartzkopf didn't think so? Well Fat Norman couldn't have found his a-- with both hands if DIA had not devoted 2,000 odd of its people to exclusive support of FN's army in the desert. DIA then had 6,000 people worldwide. We were not undermanned. According to Dana Priest's story DIA now has 16,000 people and is still one of the smaller "players" in the national security world. What on earth are all those people doing? The answer she provides is that they are mainly getting in each other's way. I think that is true. I have the chance occasionally to see some heavy duty thinking done in war games, panel discussions, etc. It is noticeable that the more skilled are the people organizing such meetings the more they tend to isolate small groups of the highly capable to do the serious thinking. More is not better, bigger is not better. Gigantism is inherently bad.
- Why has this catastrophic growth occurred? There are probably several reasons, most of them embedded in our shared culture. We like big. There is an assumption in American culture that "bigger and more" must be better. We tend to assume that we can solve problems by throwing money and manpower at them. Why? We are addicted to the leveling idea. My insistence that smaller is better is typically seen as "elitist" because it implies that all people are not created equal and that some people do much better work than others, often being capable of the intuitive leaps called "intuition" by the "elitists" and "guessing" by the levelers. The levelers are in charge. Like "Poppy" Bush they are usually not good at "the vision thing." Their reaction to the need to do serious thinking about phenomena that do not have linear outcomes from present events is often to divide the "action" up into smaller and smaller pieces that do not expect much insight from individuals. Then these mental tessarae are submitted to the attention of layer upon layer of committees and inter-agency "coordination." What results is often not useful, but the process is manpower and contract rich.
- A corollary of having "process people" in charge is the proliferation of acronym heavy programs, SAPs, endless "experimentation" by groups like JFCOM and a general inability to do anything with less that 50 people and ten million dollars (petty change).
What is described in this article by Priest and Arkin is the confluence of several Washington government/consultant firm/think tank and academic "industries." They are the Homeland Security Industry, the Intelligence Industry, the Counter Terrorism Industry, the Cyber-Security Industry, etc. there are other growing government industries, Climate
control, etc.
Forget about what Eisenhower said. Worry about this. pl
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-10681861
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