Distrust in the US Federal Government to Handle Crises

[Ernie]

"All the king's horses and all the king's men, couldn't put Humpty Dumpty back together again." Neither did the King and his men prepare for Humpty Dumpty's fall.

This first became apparent to me during hurricane Katrina. With all the assets and resources available to the US government, why was the preparation and the response so slow and so incompetent? This incident made me lose confidence that the world's superpower could handle crises well.

Bush and company were unprepared for Katrina.
Obama and company were unprepared for the Deepwater Horizon Oil Rig explosion and Benghazi
Trump and company were unprepared for Covid
Biden and company were unprepared for evacuating Americans and allies from Afghanistan

You can probably think of other examples.

I'm going to suggest some reasons for why countries with huge assets and power and communications fail so miserably at times of crisis.
1. Politicians and public figures spend to much time campaigning and grandstanding instead of preparing.
2. Some executives are governed more by ideology than by common sense.
3. There is too much bureaucracy and too many levels of power in order to make things happen in a timely manner.
4. Too many government contractors who are friends with politicians, who are basically operating on "government welfare" rather than building a competitive business.
5. Trillions of dollars get spent on initiatives that don't amount to very much, rather than putting money where it will produce results. Large corporations that are focused on quality and customer service get much more done for less.
6. And lastly... The Ambulance story... I know of church leaders who operate this way. They publicly state that they are opposed to discussing matters until the matter become a problem. "What if we would spend time discussing this matter and it never becomes a problem? Then we wasted all that time." I realize that it is impossible to prepare for every contingency. There is the law of diminishing returns. Too little preparation results in huge amounts of unnecessary crises management. To much preparation can keep anything from happening. The story before addresses the former.

https://www.justice4all.org/wp-content/ ... Valley.pdf

What other reasons do you have to suggest?

[ohio jones]

7. There are so many potential crises that preparing thoroughly for all of them is impractical; there's a tradeoff between preparing minimally for as many as possible, or preparing thoroughly for a few (and those may not be the ones that actually materialize).

8. Preparation is focused on the last crisis, rather than the next one. History repeats itself, but not always in the way we expect.

"If the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming..."

[Grace]

"All the king's horses and all the king's men, couldn't put Humpty Dumpty back together again." Neither did the King and his men prepare for Humpty Dumpty's fall.

This first became apparent to me during hurricane Katrina. With all the assets and resources available to the US government, why was the preparation and the response so slow and so incompetent? This incident made me lose confidence that the world's superpower could handle crises well.

Bush and company were unprepared for Katrina.
Obama and company were unprepared for the Deepwater Horizon Oil Rig explosion and Benghazi
Trump and company were unprepared for Covid
Biden and company were unprepared for evacuating Americans and allies from Afghanistan

You can probably think of other examples.

I'm going to suggest some reasons for why countries with huge assets and power and communications fail so miserably at times of crisis.
1. Politicians and public figures spend to much time campaigning and grandstanding instead of preparing.
2. Some executives are governed more by ideology than by common sense.
3. There is too much bureaucracy and too many levels of power in order to make things happen in a timely manner.
4. Too many government contractors who are friends with politicians, who are basically operating on "government welfare" rather than building a competitive business.
5. Trillions of dollars get spent on initiatives that don't amount to very much, rather than putting money where it will produce results. Large corporations that are focused on quality and customer service get much more done for less.
6. And lastly... The Ambulance story... I know of church leaders who operate this way. They publicly state that they are opposed to discussing matters until the matter become a problem. "What if we would spend time discussing this matter and it never becomes a problem? Then we wasted all that time." I realize that it is impossible to prepare for every contingency. There is the law of diminishing returns. Too little preparation results in huge amounts of unnecessary crises management. To much preparation can keep anything from happening. The story before addresses the former.

https://www.justice4all.org/wp-content/ ... Valley.pdf

What other reasons do you have to suggest?

Katrina, Covid, and the Deepwater Horizon Oil Rig, were unexpected happenings, with very little, if any time to prepare. Even Benghazi was unexpected.

Evacuating Americans and allies from Afghanistan, before Taliban take over, was not unexpected and without ample warnings.

There is a big difference. Just saying.

I agree completely with your reasons why the Federal Government can bungle a crisis. If you think about it, it all comes down to the pride and arrogance of our nation's leaders. And pride always comes before a fall. With the prior administration, they were humbled by the power of Covid. Add to the the president was impeached twice and lost the election. That should have humbled him, though I doubt it did.

Afghanistan will be Biden's fall, as well.

[justme]

Katrina, Covid, and the Deepwater Horizon Oil Rig, were unexpected happenings, with very little, if any time to prepare. Even Benghazi was unexpected.

Evacuating Americans and allies from Afghanistan, before Taliban take over, was not unexpected and without ample warnings.

there should have been plans in place for an oil rig spill/disaster.
there should have been plans in place for weather events, whether it was named katrina or had another name.
covid? again, i would think there should have been plans in place for health emergencies, whether it was covid or some other emergency.
there may have been little time if any to prepare, but if there had been adequate preplanning done, then when the disaster happened, there would have been a much better response.

[Ken]

The REALLY big unpredictable disasters for which we had warning and acted poorly were 9-11 and Covid-19. Everything else pales in comparison to those two. 9-11 more so for the two wars that it spawned and changes in American life as for the actual damage to the US.

Katrina and Deepwater Horizon were more ordinary disasters which were utterly predictable. The US has devoted massive resources to both hurricane prediction/preparedness and oil spill prevention/cleanup. We know with absolutely certainty that more hurricanes are going to hit the Gulf Coast in the future and we know there is risk of oil spills everywhere we do offshore drilling or offshore shipping of oil. We should not be drilling for oil offshore period.

Foreign military adventures are predictable in their failure. Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq, Somalia, etc. The notion that we can mold any foreign nation in our image is pure hubris. We can't even solve social and infrastructure problems and do "nation-building" in places like West Virginia which is crumbling socially and physically. What makes us think we can do so in a country the size of Afghanistan? Yet we still have neocon hawks today rumbling for war against Iran which is a country twice the size of Afghanistan with a population the size of Germany and orders of magnitude more wealthy and sophisticated militarily.

[temporal1]

7. There are so many potential crises that preparing thoroughly for all of them is impractical; there's a tradeoff between preparing minimally for as many as possible, or preparing thoroughly for a few (and those may not be the ones that actually materialize).

8. Preparation is focused on the last crisis, rather than the next one. History repeats itself, but not always in the way we expect.

"If the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming..."

DJT had an extra layer of catastrophe.
Career politicians hated him more than the Taliban, the pandemic, and/or any other disaster, real or imagined.

Career politicians in Congress and in the White House have earned distrust over decades.
They don’t care a whit their approval ratings are low. They can afford to be tone deaf.

Not public servants, they’ve crafted protections for themselves for every potential scenario.

[Wayne in Maine]

The Second World War. The US was barely prepared, and when we trained the soldiers who invaded Europe on D-Day they were trained for entirely different terrain and tactics. But the character and ingenuity of the citizen soldier and the adaptability of American Industry prevailed.The well prepared Wehrmacht failed on their own well prepared training grounds of France.

It was not preparation for a particular event that made that effort successful, it was the natural preparedness as a way of life and as a culture.

Now most Americans are weak and dependent and not even prepared when the shops run out of toilet paper.

[justme]

It was not preparation for a particular event that made that effort successful, it was being naturally preparedness as a way of life and as a culture.

I completely agree.

[temporal1]

It was not preparation for a particular event that made that effort successful, it was being naturally preparedness as a way of life and as a culture.

I completely agree.

i agree with your notes about preparedness; with your experience, i’m sure you know what you’re talking about! Wayne has a valid point. our culture is now groomed to feed at troughs. and demand more for their trouble.

one of the shortcomings of having strict term limits on U.S. presidents is, their temptation to “kick cans down the road,” onto those following. examples are the norm, not the exception. little or no prep, nothing gets fixed.

on the other hand, regimes with single leaders of decades, with all that power+control+potential, also fail.

no matter “system,” the people on the bottom are left to cope, pick up the pieces, abandon, rebuild.

God sent Jesus. Ever present. No term limits.

[Sudsy]

why countries with huge assets and power and communications fail so miserably at times of crisis

Because satan is the 'prince of the power of the air' Ephesians 2:2. He is the 'ruler of this world' John 12:31. Unbelievers are 'in the snare of the devil' 2 Timothy 2:26. They are under the 'power of the evil one' John 5:19, and are in bondage to satan Ephesians 2:2.

That doesn't mean God has lost complete control but rather satan's influence is allowed to operate and man makes many mistakes under that influence.

Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, who rely on horses, who trust in their abundance of chariots and in their multitude of horsemen. They do not look to the Holy One of Israel; they do not seek the LORD.

Isa 31:1

This has been and will continue to be the case until Jesus comes to establish His Kingdom and satan will no longer have his influence. Trust in God alone and point people to the Kingdom to come in it's fullness.