Transatlantic Armaments Cooperation - Federation of American ...

Organizational Culture
The U.S. does not have an organizational culture
that is conducive to international collaboration.
As noted above, these programs face
difficult challenges, including harmonization
of requirements (especially in the current era
of an uncertain threat) and cooperative program
management. An ineffective organizational
culture combined with these challenges has
aggravated the bad reputation of the U.S. as a
cooperative partner, as discussed earlier. Much
of the organizational culture problem lies
within DoD, particularly in the lack of effective
emphasis on or incentives for cooperative
involvement. Although DoD officially has policies
that are fully supportive of cooperative programs,
they are not rigorously pursued. As one
OSD official explained, “There is lots of cheerleading
for cooperative programs but very little
championing of cooperative programs within
OSD.” 13 Another OSD official stated that
although the U.S. says it wants maximum cooperation
publicly, in most cases it really doesn’t
want or need to cooperate. 14
Any cooperative venture adds complications
and to some degree ties the hands of the U.S.
on future prioritization decisions. In the past,
the DoD and the Services have not always been
supportive of cooperative programs when
difficult funding prioritization decisions were
required. In many cases, these types of funding
choices were made by the individual Services
and DoD did not make the extraordinary effort
6-9
needed to override them. The result is an attitude
within DoD and the Services that is it
acceptable (although not good) to cut/eliminate
funding for cooperative programs. Likewise,
the failure to enforce effectively the policy
requiring serious consideration of international
cooperation at the start of a program has resulted
in the policy’s being generally ignored. 15
This is especially true because the challenges
in harmonization of military requirements and
program management that must be overcome
to successfully cooperate add significant
complexity for PMs who are taxed enough in
U.S.-only programs. The few collaborative
arrangements that result lead to a thin pool of
U.S. international expertise to draw on when
considering future cooperative opportunities.
This lack of experience combined with little
education in cooperation results in ignorance
in the acquisition work force regarding international
cooperative programs. 16 Hence, the
U.S. finds itself in a cycle that is hard to break.
Barriers to cooperation within the U.S. government,
but outside DoD, reinforce the culture
that ignores international opportunities. PMs
and others in the acquisition workforce receive
little encouragement from the daunting prospect
of dealing with the bureaucracies of the
Departments of Commerce and State, not to
mention congressional budget issues. Moreover,
cooperation for US personnel is difficult
since they are not normally “internationalists.”
Americans rarely speak other languages, know
other customs, or the history of other nations.