DEFENSE SYSTEMS: What are the biggest challenges currently facing the military services and Defense agencies?
STENBIT: The dichotomy of trying to run a transformational Defense Department and run a war at the same time just tears everything apart.

Normally, the department is managing what it might be doing in the future, or fighting, as during Vietnam or the Korean War or World War II. We are fully engaged in fighting now, and we’re managing a transformation. Doing both is very difficult.

If you go to the acquisition systems, in some ways it could be good because it offers alternative ways to get things bought. The pressures to make the acquisition process itself more flexible are less now than it should be because there are several ways to go around it to get things into the field. It’s good in that it allowed a couple of good ideas to get out there. The good thing is you lose the regulatory constraints; the bad thing is you lose the regulatory constraints.

There are going to be a lot of systems that people have bought that don’t talk to one another. The department has done some good things that have made it better and some things that will make it tougher in a couple of years.

“I think we tend to malign intelligence and military cooperation by paying too much attention to the marginal issues.” — John P. Stenbit

DEFENSE SYSTEMS: Air Force Maj. Gen. Dale Meyerrose, CIO for the intelligence community, and Defense CIO John Grimes plan to assemble two teams of people—comprised of representatives from the services, agencies, contracting community and academia—to recommend ways to improve the certification and accreditation processes across the intelligence community. How do you perceive the seemingly closer coupling of the department’s CIO and intelligence communities?
STENBIT: Alan Wade, the previous CIO in the intelligence community, and I did the same thing. I think the will is there, but there’s a normal and logical problem in the current world where knowledge is power. If you’re in a smart-push system, there’s a certain tendency not to share. If you can get to a smart-pull system, you’d have to share. The rewards have to change. It’s not just an electronic transformation; it’s a tough, tough deal.

But, if you did a comparison to 1980, say, you’d see how far we’ve come. Today, there’s an enormously complex system whereby all kinds of intelligence resources are used with split-second cooperation. You are talking about improving on a system that is so infinitely better than it was 25 years ago. I think we tend to malign intelligence and military cooperation by paying too much attention to the marginal issues of today—without paying attention to the enormous progress.

DEFENSE SYSTEMS: Looking back, what are you least proud of about your time as Defense CIO from 2001 to 2004?
STENBIT: I think that it’s everybody’s duty, when you go into a complex organization, to make things simpler rather than more complex. I wish I could have made more progress with acquisition, technology and logistics. I didn’t make things worse, but I didn’t make things better either.

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