How Prepared Is The CIA And Pentagon For The Next Crisis?

Will The CIA And Pentagon Be Ready For The Next Crisis? -- Fareed Zakaria, Washington Post

As Leon Panetta and David Petraeus move into their new jobs at the Pentagon and the CIA, they should use the occasion to fundamentally reorient U.S. intelligence and national security planning.

Consider the intelligence community. We spend around $80 billion on intelligence every year — more than the rest of the world put together — and yet we seem perpetually unprepared for global events. The CIA did not imagine the fall of the Soviet Union, the revolutions of Eastern Europe, the breakup of Yugoslavia, Sept. 11, Saddam Hussein’s nonexistent arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, the global financial crisis and, most recently, the Arab Spring.

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My Comment: Governments have a long history of never being ready for the next crisis .... and I do not believe that this track record is going to change in the foreseeable future. What governments can do .... and I agree with Fareed Zakaria on this point .... is that governments should have their fiscal house in order, as well as some resources and monies "socked away" that can be used when a crisis does occur. But telling government to save money and put some aside instead of spending it .... LOL .... that is never going to happen .... especially with the current batch in Washington.