The RMA and the Interagency: Knowledge and Speed vs. Ignorance and Sloth?

Abstract

The Joint Staff knows why interagency coordination does not occur. According to a Joint Staff memorandum, “in the past it has been extremely difficult to achieve coordinated interdepartmental planning” for two reasons: other agencies of the U. S. government do not understand “systematic planning procedures” and each agency has its own approach to solving problems. The State Department, for example, values flexibility and its ability to respond to daily changes in a situation more than it does planning, while the CIA is reluctant to coordinate for security reasons and USIA holds Defense and the CIA at arm’s length for fear that it will be seen as a mere dispenser of propaganda. If we are to have interagency coordination, the memorandum warns, “these inhibitions of other governmental agencies must in some way be overcome.”