The Internet: A Portal to Violent Islamist Extremism

[marct]

Hi Bill,

Marc, I really enjoyed this post. We have so much talent in the free world that is stifled by government bureaucracy when we attempt to pull it into the defense establishment, not exactly a "locked" bureaucracy, but one that adapts too slowly in a time of rapid change. Our bureaucracy acts like a restriction plate in a race car that effectively limits its top speed.

Thanks . It's one of those Catch-22 situations unfortunately; the bureaucracy slows us down, often to the point of immobility, but, at the same time, it is absolutely necessary to have a bureaucracy (I won't go into the reasons why right now; I'm just coming off of a long discussion about bureaucratic stupidity in the hiring process ).

The talent we need to deal with today's non-traditional/irregular threats (maybe they are traditional/regular by this point, and we're simply living in the past) lies largely in the civilian world in small companies and within talented individuals (not the large defense companies, which are as bureaucratic as the military). The challenge is to incorporate this talent without destroying the talent.

The basic kludge to meet that need is to hire "consultants". The problem with that lies in both the hiring process, which is extremely problematic in most governments, and in what, exactly, consultants are supposed to do.

We are improving, but the speed of our evolution is restrained by the bureaucracy, while our more nimble foes can adapt much more quickly. It would be a different story if the deciding factor was who could develop the best fighter jet or stealth bomber. It doesn't take a lot of money to compete with us in the infosphere (blogs, twitter, other social networking sites, publically available encryption systems for e-mail, etc.). So how do we does a large, locked in bureaucracy compete and dominate in this sphere?

It can only do it in one of two ways (okay, these are they only two I see off the top of my head, but there probably are others...).

First, it attempts to annihilate its opponents and impose a Stalinesque reach and control that, ultimately, destroys it; the USSR, the ewestern Roman Empire of Theodosius, and the Byzantine Empire are historical examples of both. It ultimately fails since it can only react to the internally generated image of reality that it portrays (I can think of some corporate examples as well...).

Second, it can cheat and institutionalize elements that oppose its basic values of standardization and mediocrity. SF is one example of this type of thinking, but there are others. Personally, I think that what DoD should be thinking about is identifying individuals who think outside the box and are involved in the current counter-irhabi efforts, and put them on small retainers.

Many of us frequently reach outside the big machine for needed expertise, and SWJ is one example. Other examples are small companies forming like Terrogence Ltd. and Palantir that are agile enough to stay competitive with the threat (if they're left in the free market/open market system. Of course the challenge is getting money from the bureaucracy to fund this talent (relatively small in the big picture). You submit your requirement up through a long chain of approvers, many who don't understand your requirements, and are liable to kill the request before it sees the light of day (death in the middle). Yet you hear our leaders tell us we need to adapt. Much easier said than done.

Oh too true! Seriously, a lot of it does come down to funding especially since most of the people with this talent just do not want to work for a bureaucracy, and why many of them are either self-employed or work in tiny organizations. That was why I thought of the "retainer" solution as one possible alternative. Without some type of funding, then you are reliant on volunteer time which can be a problem...

On the messaging part I agree, and I see a trend towards decentralization, but that isn't the only issue. We need to restructure the staff, restructure the funding approval process, restructure the fighting force, etc., and we need to be able to do it quickly. More later.

Looking forward to it!

Cheers,

Marc