@powellwi Lots of Big Projects in the .mil/.gov sectors fail; seemingly the more capital-intensive and politically visible, the likelier failure (or at least delayed, redefined "success") becomes. I don't believe that's a function of the domain so much as it is of the fox being given the only keys to the henhouse over the last thirty years or so.
Large orgs NEED to wake up and realize that having "one neck to choke" may be convenient in theory, but since in practice that "neck" tends to be staffed by former/future colleagues with large political resources at their disposal (think campaign dollars), practice rarely matches theory.
The real solution has to be decentralization where possible, redundant independently-sourced and -managed systems where it's not. We've spent half a century getting Proxmired in a morass of "do it cheaper." This was summarized nicely by a colleague of mine when I was working as a Beltway contractor: "We will pay any price to cut costs." Often, that price is just too high.
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