alea, yup,
I expect that sovereigns, particularly clades within, are wildly (and demonstrably) over-impressed with their own competence and are willing to sacrifice benefit-maximizing in exchange for what they believe to be a unique benefit that only they can provide and that this is the way to do it.
Remarkable is the notion that the NSA seemed to think that they were somehow going to build a unified corrupted-only-by-them world network. Denser than lead.
The above content is my opinion.