Featured Article: Fiscal Crises Experimentation…

Featured article:

Fiscal Crises Experimentation: A Darwinian Approach
by Allan D. Childers and Mark H. Sweberg

History demonstrates that periodically the nation goes through fiscal evolutions that change the environment in which U.S. government departments and agencies shape their organizations, programs, and activities. Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution posits that the struggle for resources favors actors who adapt best to their changing environment. Those who do not adapt tend not to survive. As a result, U.S. government officials responsible for international relations must recognize that serious policymaking, planning, and international programs that provide support in peacetime and during crises will not survive in the current fiscal environment by continuing to conduct business as usual.

America’s greatest resource is its peoples’ ability to adapt to necessary change. Today’s fiscal challenges offer renewed opportunities to refine U.S. government policies, practices, and procedures on a local, national, and international scale. Currently, policymakers and pundits view the collective capacities and capabilities of both federal and non federal departments and agencies as individual stovepipes that respond to international security, stability, and market opportunities through their individual processes and resources. The threats proffered by budget reduction initiatives are an opportunity for policymakers to take a fresh new approach to national and international causes—a whole-of-nation approach.

Experimentation can forge a way to evolve the structures and processes of departments focused on national security and foreign affairs…

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IAJ 4-2 (2013) pdf

Allan D. Childers is an expert in peacekeeping and interagency planning with General Dynamics. He previously managed the State Department’s Enhanced International Peacekeeping Capabilities Program as a member of the Political-Military Affairs Bureau.

Mark H. Sweberg, COO of Sweberg Consulting, serves as a senior policy consultant for reinvigorating the U.S. Air Force nuclear enterprise, drafting DoD training transformation policy, and developing comprehensive approaches to interagency coordination.