A good article and well worth noting not just from the FEMA aspect but because it reflects on a really entrenched piece of human stupidity.

During the invasion of Granada, the failure of different operations under the Joint umbrealla was so pathetic that one sergeant ended up using a pay phone to Washignton DC to find out what he was supposed to be doing. Turf wars between the proprietary investments of the Army, the Marine Corps, the Air Force and the Navy have ALWAYS cost the taxpayers billions more than they ever should have, and have ALWAYS cost untold amounts of time, materiel and lives due to massive inefficiency in any joint-services undertaking.

The Joint Simulation Program, intended to build a huge, all-services strategic and tactical simulation, ran years over schedule and billions over budget before it was canceled for non-production. The reason, above all else was two-fold: NO common design standards were imposed and NO authority was established at the top to enforce common design. Each service coped with the probelm as best they could; the Navy did the best job of trying to acheive cooperative design, but they could not overcome the intransigence and self-interest of the Army component, whose officers weren't sure what the definition of "Joint" was.

These are just a few examples. In the software business the redundancy and waste caused by not addressing commonalities with good common design elements has over the last twenty years amounted to billions and billions of duplicative effort and unnecessary expense.

This is "system ignorance" at its most appaling -- local arbitrary boundaries creating the false appearance of an autonomous effort with no cognizance of its need for interplay with a larger system. System-wide thinking is something that needs to be taught from kindergarten up, before the world as a whole gets shredded by small-minded buffoonery (if it hasn't been already). It is a woefully lacking skill.

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