This thesis is an autoenthnographic study exploring ineffective practices of American information sharing and intelligence in a post-9/11 world. It answers the questions: 1) What is there to learn about the relationship between homeland security information sharing, leadership doctrine, and personal experience?, and 2) How does complexity science influence this relationship? The study combined personal experience with a methodological framework that leverages complexity science, social planning (wicked problems), and leadership doctrine to discover improved coordination between the federal intelligence community (IC) and state, local, tribal, territorial, and private (SLTTP) first responder levels. The analysis reveals virtually no interaction or understanding of the available resources occurred on either level before the 9/11 attacks. Pre-9/11, both entities were focused on their respective missions, the IC on post–Cold War Soviet issues, and state and local first responders on local criminal issues. After 9/11, both were forced to somehow coalesce, to mitigate gaps identified by the 9/11 Commission, which created a paradox of conflict and resistance within reform systems that would not have existed but for the efforts to coalesce them, within which this nation continues to flounder. The conclusion provides recommendations and potential solutions to remaining information gaps, as well as leadership doctrine that can provide a foundation for operating within the complex domain.

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