Revisiting DR Kilcullen's piece on New Paradigms and the OSS

[St. Christopher]

I wonder if our current tool set is adaptable and flexible enough to do what is required? I wonder if we should or even if we can create capabilities within existing organizations with strong rational for remaining as they are, and strong culture that resists change – often for good intuitive reasons. Consider that possibly the best way to meet these challenges might be to create something new (in relative terms) to work with our other existing tools in accomplishing our strategic ends. If so, maybe its not as hard as we think it is – maybe a key quality of this organization is that it is people & grey matter focused – other then its human requirements (recruiting & retention), and the $$$ required to travel – its budget should remain small. This is tough, because the more I learn about the Inter Agency, the more I believe budget = power and authority – but maybe that is the point here. The people we would want in such an organization would have to be clever enough to get by on little, they’d need to be natural communicators, intuitive and audacious among other traits. They might not desire to be in some of our traditional agencies and services, but they might “fit” is a different kind of organization – and as such be attracted to it. They don’t need to be able to do the Darby Queen, or even run 2 miles in 18 minutes - however, would need to be willing and able to live without McDonalds and Wal-Mart. They could be men or women, ages 18 to however old they can be and still function at an alert level. They could (and perhaps should) contain a wide array of interests, and experiences (both professional and personal).

The program I support has been wrestling with this very issue for some time now, and I'm actually writing my master's thesis on it. Opinions vary from person to person about how to actually "fix" what's wrong with our government, but ultimately, the common theme I keep hearing is people.

The best solution given the bureaucratic torpor and intellectual retardation of the Interagency as a whole right now is a people-based solution. Start by training and educating national security officers. Select them from age 18 and shephard their aptitudes toward a range of national security-related career fields, be it in the military, diplomatic corps, the financial sector, economy, law enforcement, or NGO. Ultimately get them to serve in a wide variety of Interagency positions but never long enough to become inculcated into one agency's specific culture. Within a few decades, we'll have a multiple disciplinarian workforce open to the idea of reforming the executive branch to the degree it requires based on evolving threats.

Who selects these new national security officers? How are they trained? Where is the management function for their pedigree? That's probably the only "new" organization you'd need to create-- something at the executive level, NSC or at least superior to the Interagency itself. It would be more of a mechanism, not an organization per se. Its function is function: It is the fulcrum upon which the levers of reform are pulled. Perhaps it's an institue. Perhaps it's a service. But it is the brand management mechanism for this new pedigree of national security service.

If this sounds a little spooky, unrealistic, or even - dare I say it - like a subversive organization... that's the point. I quite believe that nothing short of a "scorched earth" scenario could adequately reform the executive branch to the degree required in the short-term. Therefore, I'm willing to live with several more years of failure and mediocrity if I can develop the qualified professional workforce I need to fundamentally change how our national security apparatus works. The bureacracy in place now is designed to preserve the status quo, not encourage innovation. The best way you can enforce reform, is by infiltrating the system and destroying it from within... while making it look like what you're actually doing is transforming it.

[Ken White]

The program I support has been wrestling with this very issue for some time now, and I'm actually writing my master's thesis on it. Opinions vary from person to person about how to actually "fix" what's wrong with our government, but ultimately, the common theme I keep hearing is people.

The best solution given the bureaucratic torpor and intellectual retardation of the Interagency as a whole right now is a people-based solution. Start by training and educating national security officers. Select them from age 18 and shephard their aptitudes toward a range of national security-related career fields, be it in the military, diplomatic corps, the financial sector, economy, law enforcement, or NGO. Ultimately get them to serve in a wide variety of Interagency positions but never long enough to become inculcated into one agency's specific culture. Within a few decades, we'll have a multiple disciplinarian workforce open to the idea of reforming the executive branch to the degree it requires based on evolving threats.

Who selects these new national security officers? How are they trained? Where is the management function for their pedigree? That's probably the only "new" organization you'd need to create-- something at the executive level, NSC or at least superior to the Interagency itself. It would be more of a mechanism, not an organization per se. Its function is function: It is the fulcrum upon which the levers of reform are pulled. Perhaps it's an institue. Perhaps it's a service. But it is the brand management mechanism for this new pedigree of national security service.

If this sounds a little spooky, unrealistic, or even - dare I say it - like a subversive organization... that's the point. I quite believe that nothing short of a "scorched earth" scenario could adequately reform the executive branch to the degree required in the short-term. Therefore, I'm willing to live with several more years of failure and mediocrity if I can develop the qualified professional workforce I need to fundamentally change how our national security apparatus works. The bureacracy in place now is designed to preserve the status quo, not encourage innovation. The best way you can enforce reform, is by infiltrating the system and destroying it from within... while making it look like what you're actually doing is transforming it.

Illness. First problem is that there's a virtual (so far non combat) civil war in this country to day. Fortunately, it only afflicts about 15% or so of the fringe elements on each side. The political divide is pretty significant for those elements and the leaners. This isn't a political blog and I only mention that to point out that the two poles in Congress would each agree to that scheme only if their agenda were followed. I doubt we can get there.

Regardless, that's still applying the fix to the symptom.

Most federal employees want to do a good job. Most of the problems in the Federal service, military and civilian, are caused by the ludicrous budgeting process that pits agencies against each other and the overweening bureaucracy that stifles -- even punishes -- initiative and deters rational decision making. Congress has passed many laws governing federal agency operations and they are as bad as the Tax Code. Congress has insisted the Federal government stick its nose into many areas of State and Local responsibility. We thus have a federal government that is marginally competent because it is forced to try to be everything to everyone.

If you want to 'fix' the "bureaucratic torpor and intellectual retardation of the Interagency as a whole," You will only be successful if you fix Congress. The suggested approach will be co-opted by Congress as quickly it it appears to be reaching some success.

Good luck on getting them to give up an iota of power. Until the American voter gets fed up and consistently votes incumbents out of office and those yo-yos realize they finally have lost their sinecure, there's little hope for much improvement. Congress is the ultimate arbiter of the staus quo -- they pay for it and reward it for not rocking the boat.

To get rid of sclerotic bureaucracy, you have to fix the heart and the arteries, not the hands and feet.

[emjayinc]

Yesterday's (NYT 11/14/07 OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR; Send the State Department to War) Max Boot article on this topic, also blogged at Tom Barnett around his evolved idea of the national force structure to deal with operations other than war, a Department of Everything Else. A DoEE, which would manage and deploy US elements of SysAdmin, addresses the national system perspective we're looking at here at a departmental or agency level. Contrasted with Doug MacGregor's and other reversionist "island America" proposals, Boot, Barnett et.al. point to an organizational principle along that of DHS, to deal with the universe of OCONUS challenges below the level of conventional warfare and general forces employment. GWOT is only one such challenge. Many comments here seem to be going the same direction. Really enjoy this thread's orientation, as a 60++ former Area Specialist who could probably put the boots back on in a Sysadmin outfit. Also note, regarding earlier comment about "the Phoenix program gone worldwide", that the Human Terrain Team looks like becoming a standard operating element, and do, indeed, resemble many "Phoenix" concepts, stripped of the polemics of the anti-war crowd.