During a criminal investigation, one of the main criteria followed by investigators to identify the culprit is determining the individual who would have gained the most from committing the crime.

They search for the “motive,” or who could have benefited from the offense.

This concept was succinctly captured by the ancient Romans in a simple, pointed question: “Cui prodest?” (Who benefits?).

“The topic today is an adversary that poses a threat, a serious threat, to the security of the United States of America.

This adversary is one of the world’s last bastions of central planning.

It governs by dictating five-year plans.

From a single capital, it attempts to impose its demands across time zones, continents, oceans and beyond.

With brutal consistency, it stifles free thought and crushes new ideas.

It disrupts the defense of the United States and places the lives of men and women in uniform at risk.

Perhaps this adversary sounds like the former Soviet Union, but that enemy is gone: our foes are more subtle and implacable today.

You may think I’m describing one of the last decrepit dictators of the world.

But their day, too, is almost past, and they cannot match the strength and size of this adversary.

The adversary’s closer to home.

It’s the Pentagon bureaucracy.”

These are the words of Donald Henry Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense, in his introductory speech at the Pentagon on September 10, 2001, titled Beginning of the Department of Defense Logistics and Acquisition Excellence Week: From Bureaucracy to the Battlefield [1].

These are the words of Donald Henry Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense, spoken one day before the September 11, 2001 attacks.