Bureaucratic Rigidity, Miles’ Law, and Military Innovation
By Matthew Fay
May 26, 2016
Miles’ Law is the principle in bureaucratic politics that one’s position in a bureaucracy determines one’s position on an issue.It is named for Rufus E. Miles, Jr., a supervisor in the Bureau of the Budget in the 1940s who told a group of subordinates that, in government agencies, “Where you stand depends on where you sit.†This aphorism has important implications for the role of personnel in the Pentagon’s current push for military innovation.
A post here yesterday discussed the New America Foundation’s Jeff Eggers’ recent op-ed at Defense One, in which he argued that promoting smarter officers is the key to innovation, rather than seeking greater access to Silicon Valley’s latest technology. While Eggers is absolutely right that innovation is not solely about technology, there is only minimal evidence to suggest that smart people or “visionariesâ€â€”as military historians Allen Millett and Williamson Murray refer to them—produce military innovation. Promoting smart officers is a worthwhile endeavor on its own, but it may have little effect on innovation because of the nature of bureaucracies and what Miles’ Law tells us about the role of personnel in them.
https://www.niskanencenter.org/bureaucratic-rigidity-miles-law-and-military-innovation/
