Us and Them Archives - Page 2 of 2

Need to Share

“‘Need to share’ must replace ‘need to know.'” Lee Hamilton, vice chairman of the 9/11 Commission, said this in July 2004, shortly after the commission’s report came out.

In 2005 Hamilton told the Senate that before the attacks the FBI “could not overcome bureaucratic rivalries to share information with other parts of the intelligence community.” He called the divide between the CIA and the FBI “a serious shortcoming.”

President George W. Bush signed the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act in December 2004. Hamilton still warned that “institutional and cultural barriers to information sharing remain.”

Goldwater–Nichols

In 1983 the United States invaded Grenada. Army units found that their radios could not talk to Navy ships offshore. Colin Powell later said the invasion “succeeded, but it was a sloppy success.”

Grenada was one of the reasons for a new law, the Goldwater–Nichols Act. President Ronald Reagan signed it on October 1, 1986. Its purpose was to fix problems caused by rivalry between the armed services. One rule shapes the path to the top. An officer who wants to become a general or an admiral must first serve at least one tour of joint duty with another branch.

The Eagles and the Rattlers

In the summer of 1954, the psychologist Muzafer Sherif and his colleagues took 22 boys to a camp at Robbers Cave State Park in Oklahoma. The boys were 11 and 12 years old and did not know each other. They were split into two groups. The groups called themselves the Eagles and the Rattlers.

The staff then set up a tournament. The winning group would get a trophy, and each winner a medal and a pocket knife. The losers got nothing. The Eagles burned the Rattlers’ flag. Later the staff created problems that neither group could solve alone, such as a blocked water supply and a stuck food truck.

The study has critics. In her 2018 book The Lost Boys, Gina Perry argues that the staff shaped events more than the published account admits.

Silo

American organizations describe a department that keeps its information to itself as a silo, and breaking down silos is a standing management objective. The metaphor is agricultural — a tall sealed container that keeps grain in and everything else out, with nothing getting in or out except deliberately, through a small opening at the top.

Turf

Turf war. Land grab. Empire building. Not in my sandbox. American vocabulary for internal power struggle is territorial and about scope of control. None of it is about who writes the procedures.