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I agree that the problem is solvable in an organisation that actually cares, although I disagree that it is easy. Banks (which probably care more about securing money than the military does about securing classified information) do in fact do all these things. And even they run into the problem that any system that requires busy executives to do their own admin will be circumvented. The US army (and, frankly, every peacetime army) is the type of organisation where every colonel has given his keys to the janitor at some point. Quora is absolutely full of "war stories" of the type "I, as a lowly PFC ordered to guard the outer door of a SCIF had to point my rifle at a colonel who was mishandling classified information, and the following morning the brigadier congratulated me." Colonels wouldn't do that if the more normal response was for the PFC to let them.
I never said it's easy. I deal with security professionally from time to time (though mode code security than people security) and I would never use the word "easy" when it comes to security. Yes, it requires effort, thought, careful application and the most important, as you very correctly noted - "organisation that actually cares". Of these, the US military has plenty of resources and access to plenty of smart people, more than capable to solve such problems - but as I suspect, it is just not that kind of organization. They say they care, but in the immortal words of Forrest Gump, careless is as careless does.
I have no doubts fuckups happened and will happen, now and forever on. Most of all in the military. What I am more interested in is what happens after. Does the colonel lose their chance to become general and gains eternal shame, demotion to managing the least important storage of old socks in the nation, and derision of all his peers - or he keeps failing upwards until one day he may become Chief of Staff? Is there some push to make it happen less often, on the usual SNAFU response?
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