It is snowing again. I need to get out of here. There was a time when the prospect of the white stuff got my blood going, a sort of winter ‘Surfs up!’ to break out the Rossignols and do some serious schussing. But not so much these days, now that the legs creak and sway, and the pathetic bit sub-zero Virginia chill is enough to make my circulation slow to a crawl and possibly congeal.
I am not going to permit myself to sink into the last news cycle. Charlie Hebdo, the satiric magazine whose staff was slaughtered last week, published their new weekly edition with an inspiring cartoon that I do not fully understand. Vive la France!
Nor am I going to “unpack” the issues surrounding it, to quote the eponymously-named Mr. Josh Earnest. Life goes on here in the Washington fish-bowl.
When I had a full-time job, I used to generate a series of business commentaries on what was going on in town. I called them the “Weather Reports,” a slightly loopy way to inject some levity into the sometimes stultifying world of defense contracting. They were not exactly the Charlie Hebdo version of the Kipplinger Newsletter, with the weirdly scattered bolded typeface, but I had to disseminate the information anyway and decided I would have fun with it.
Our customers included the military intelligence folks at the Defense Intelligence Agency where I used to work, and naturally I would report the developments over there breathlessly, because even faceless bureaucracies have feelings, not to mention human foibles.
Along with the new year, we are going to see a new regime in place at DIA. Vince Stewart becomes the first Marine to lead the Agency, beginning Jan. 23 at a ceremony at 10 a.m. at DIA at joint Base Anacostia-Bolling (JBAB) on the wrong side of the Anacostia River.
Army’s LTG Mary Legere was initially thought to be the front-running candidate to replace Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, whose controversial reign ended with retirement last August. Congressional concern over the troubled DCGS (under DCSINT partial cognizance) apparently scuttled that nomination.
General Stewart’s previous job was as commander of Marine Forces Cyber Command, a useful background in today’s increasingly challenging digital environment. Prior to that tour he was Director of Intelligence for the Marine Corps.
Stewart inherits a DIA that has been under the civilian leadership of acting-Director David Shedd for months. After General Flynn’s abrupt departure in August, the White House took months to formally nominate Stewart.
The traditional role of DIA has been to provide insight into the makeup and capabilities of foreign military forces to the trilogy of its customers: combat units, defense planners and policymakers. It also provides “strategic warning,” or the forewarning of imminent attacks on the United States or its forces or allies as well as hostile reactions to U.S. reconnaissance activities and terrorist attacks.
OK, it has been a mixed record, but as they are fond of saying: “The bad guys only have to get it right once. We have to get it right all the time.”
General Flynn, a career Army intelligence officer, had led the DIA since July 2012, being selected after publically expressing the displeasure with the intelligence support he received as the J2 for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan.
The Joint Staff prefers to dole out the Directorship in a haphazard rotation between the Services- Army, Navy and Air Force- with the normal tour being between three and four years in duration. It has never gone to a member of the Marine Corps, which a pal noted “is technically part of the Department of the Navy.”
I have been hit by Marines for using that phrasing. They prefer to view the Squids as providing taxi and laundry services to the Corps.
There is a lot of positive PR about General Stewart. Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Mike Vickers commented: “Major General Stewart is an outstanding intelligence leader. I am confident he will take DIA to a new level of intelligence excellence.”
I hope so. What does it mean to the rest of us? In the great scheme of things, not much. I still do some part-time work dealing with the Agency, sort of as a translator, and seeing the place ruled by a steady hand will be a welcome relief. The turbulence under General Flynn was annoying for the contractor community, and he viewed us with suspicion, restricting access and impairing communications between the Government and the companies that provide a significant component of its work force.
The pendulum of “Lowest Cost Technically Feasible” criteria for contract awards may swing back toward true “best value” to the Government, which would be good for the vendors. The bottom-feeding conduct of some of the ethically-challenged competition has produced contract awards that simply are not able to be executed at the prices bid, and in a business when lives are on the line, that is just unacceptable.
Taken with the resurgent terror threat, I suspect that will also mean many tasks that were going to be allowed to expire with the purported victories in the old Iraq and Afghan wars will have to be renewed, since apparently the terrorists get a vote on all this, too.
A new year, a new Director, and a new threat vector, as well as new priorities are going to make 2015 an exciting year in the fast-paced world of defense contracting. I certainly support the “warning mission” that General Stewart is about to take up. Tell me when the jerks are coming for us, please. I will have an extra magazine ready.
I wish them well, and am glad I am not doing that full-time anymore. I think a road trip to someplace warm might be the better alternative.
Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303