this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2023
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You'd think the DoD's astronomical budget would cover this.
From what I've seen, a lot of the money goes to multiple layers of mid-level managers who don't actually do anything.
They are there to document in excruciating detail how their budget is NOT being misspent, because we can't abide waste and mismanagement!
This is the one. Has anyone here seen the dod acquisitions chart?
Heres a copy: https://www.wired.com/images_blogs/dangerroom/2010/09/atl_wall_chart.jpg
Holy fuck, it's like notes with strings on a cork board except even more insanely complex.
See, reading it over it seems to make sense, everything is double checked and reviewed by others to error proof, and all flows in a understandable direction.
The problem is how vague what is involved in each of these steps and how the funding is distributed. Like how many people are we paying to operate each point? How many redundancies are caught up within the burocracy of it all and siphoning off to various slush funds?
The only way to successfully operate this method they layout is if every single step performs their function, but at a 'federal' level that's like asking a cow to lay an egg.
Someone has to manage managements managers that manage the managers managers.
Not even that, theres lots of DoD employees (non-managers) that get paid pretty well just to sit on their asses and do not much of anything all day. It's the biggest social welfare program in the US.
I thought that was the TSA
The problem is two fold, the first is that any change in process or procedure has to be approved by a committee that probably has nothing to do with IT at all; and the second is that the DoD is full of higher ranking officers that if you have a 3 day turn around for a repair -- for example, they will threaten your very existence unless they are not done immediately.
The only solution I can think off is that the IT has to be removed from the DoD, and assigned its own budget and director.
Think about how many warlords we could bribe to protect American corporate interests in countries we aren't supposed to be involved in instead of new functions IT. Those American friendly dictators aren't going to arm and install themselves.