The recent shootings at the Fort Hood military base near Killeen, Texas are yet another example of how a range of government entities struggle with how to adequately strategize, plan, and implement in the contexts of domestic and global complexities, multidimensional risks or uncertainty, and market transformations. The current global economic crisis illustrates as well how our federal bureaucracy is not decentralized or flexible enough to respond to unexpected crises in a pragmatic and equitable manner. The failures of public sector systems and organizational structures at both the federal and state levels were front and center during the Hurricane Katrina disaster. Government responses to each of these crises have proven to be slow, costly, and botched. While our military and national security functions performed well during the 9/11 crisis and since that time, we have yet to see the success of structures and systems across domestic policy-related federal agencies that prove our government can handle a massive crisis situation on the ground in this country. Our federal bureaucracy may be inherently unable to prove broad-based systemic effectiveness and efficiencies, primarily because it will always be subject to politics, and political calculations will always trump sound and practicable public policy decisions. The federal government spends too much time managing crises on the back end that could be avoided if political leaders were willing and courageous enough to attack the little foxes that ultimately spoil the whole vine.