A good map can tell you where you are and show you how to get to where you want to go. What could be more important?
A recent U.S. Army Field Manual (large pdf) explains the rudiments of map reading. But distribution of the manual is restricted, and it has not been approved for public release.
To begin at the beginning: “A map is a graphic representation of a portion of the earth’s surface drawn to scale, as seen from above. It uses colors, symbols, and labels to represent features found on the ground.”
“All [military] operations require a supply of maps; however, the finest maps available are worthless unless the map user knows how to read them.”
A copy of the manual was obtained by Secrecy News.
See “Map Reading and Land Navigation,” Field Manual FM 3-25.26, January 2005 (change 1, August 30, 2006) (288 pages, 25 MB PDF file).
Using the NIST as an example, the Radiation Physics Building (still without the funding to complete its renovation) is crucial to national security and the medical community. If it were to go down (or away), every medical device in the United States that uses radiation would be decertified within 6 months, creating a significant single point of failure that cannot be quickly mitigated.
The federal government can support more proactive, efficient, and cost-effective resiliency planning by certifying predictive models to validate and publicly indicate their quality.
We need a new agency that specializes in uncovering funding opportunities that were overlooked elsewhere. Judging from the history of scientific breakthroughs, the benefits could be quite substantial.
The cost of inaction is not merely economic; it is measured in preventable illness, deaths and diminished livelihoods.