T: There has been some discussion of what you mention, and I'm sure there will be more to follow. But the question of interoperability often does come down to politics, especially when systems needed for such interoperability do not exist in the needed quantities (airlift springs to mind first here). It's hard to provide mission assist when the assets needed for same do not exist.

I also suspect you will have some difficulty with the emerging threats idea. The U.S. as a whole has never been very good at identifying these. Depending on who you ask you will hear China, Radicalized Islam, Chavez, narco-terrorism...the list goes on. Often the identification of these threats is influenced by politics (either related to budgets or system development).