Recently I witnessed firsthand what organizations (inside and outside the government) have to do to comply with the massive number of regulations that exist today.
I found out that 2015 holds the record for the most regulations passed in a single year. One study counted the number of pages that appear in the registry of regulations: There were over 80,000 pages listing the new and proposed regulations in the Federal Registry.
Think about all the people who must file and maintain those regulations on paper and online, all the lawyers who must interpret those regulations and provide guidance, the hours it takes to make military leadership aware of those regulations, and all the work that must be done to comply with them.
Business Insider even wrote about outrageous military regulations. While the article focuses on the Marine Corps regulation regarding haircuts, I am sure it would be easy to find similar tedious regulations in every part of government and the defense industry. Let’s face it and put it into military terms: The topic of ridiculous regulations is a target-rich environment.
Perhaps the decades of regulation, policies and procedures are impacting the military's ability to keep pace with the rate of change that is taking place today. It seems impossible for our country to keep pace with the rate of technological change that is occurring, and that could pose a national security threat.
