That's why we have standards

There's a story in The Local, a web site that has news from Sweden in English, that talks about the problems that the Swedish air force is having with their new JAS 39 Gripen aircraft. Apparently Sweden uses a proprietary protocol to communicate with older aircraft, and the newer models use the NATO standard for encrypted communications. This causes problems because but no other equipment that Sweden uses supports the NATO standard. That means that the new Swedish aircraft can't communicate with Swedish units on the ground unless they do so in the clear. D'oh!

It seems that standards are only useful if you actually follow them.