Contending with a World of disorder.

• Author: McKinley, Craig R.
• Position: President's Perspective

I have frequently criticized the lack of "regular order" that has come to characterize our governmental processes and witnessed firsthand the difficulties that result when we attempt to execute a defense budget that was not appropriated on time, leaving the service chiefs and others in the Pentagon charged with paying the bills, and wrestling with the uncertainties and limitations that result from continuing resolutions.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

We are now on a third generation of service chiefs who have never had a budget passed on time.

My past comments focused on Congress, which has a budget and management process that is commonly described as "regular order." But I have come to believe that the actual problem is much wider. We seem to be living through, and trying to deal with, an absence of "regular order" everywhere--in government, in society and in the international environment. Perhaps we have entered a global era when the lack of regular order anywhere means we are in a period of low-level chaos. This could be dangerous.

Within our legislative branch, we have seen considerable turnover. Since 2008, when partisan sentiments began to escalate, about 60 percent of House seats have been occupied by new members. Currently, half have served for less than eight years, meaning that we have seen the historical anomaly of freshmen representatives sitting on the appropriations committee, a key assignment that once took many years to secure. There are fewer members who have ever experienced regular order, and for them the current conditions are normal.

On the Senate side, there has also been a large turnover since 2008 and half of senators have served one term or less. The long-standing budget stability in the Senate that was provided by venerable veterans such as Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, and Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, is long gone, and along with them considerable institutional knowledge and respect for the old norms. This is reflected in the recent waiver of the 60-vote standard in approving the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch.

In the executive branch, we have a new administration that came into office pledging to make significant changes to government processes with which it was largely unfamiliar. Its foundational assumption was that experience in business offered a high degree of positive transference to managing government. In numerous areas, that assumption is currently being tested.

The Trump administration has just...