Mismanagement at Defense Academic Center

Josh Rogin has the scoop on an investigation into mismanagement at the National Defense University's Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies which would comical if it wasn't so inept on every level as to be tragic. Apparently retired Lt. Gen. David Barno and his staff discouraged the use of Arabic at the center, held a major conference in Prague, a location totally unrelated to the subject matter, and exercised favoritism in faculty appointments. Rogin writes:

"I've never seen a situation in which such a small agency is mismanaged so badly," said one NESA employee with decades of government experience, who lamented that no official action has yet been taken. "It is to me incredible that you can have, on one hand, such mismanagement and that no one is prepared, evidently, to do anything about it."

Institutes like this are key examples of the extraordinary work people can do in government. It's not so much that mismanagement at organizations like this is more tragic than at, say, the Social Security Administration. But it is unfortunate that organizations like this can be so easily damaged by putting someone in place who is not up to the requirements of keeping them extraordinary.