You make it sound like the government acquisition folks are all naïve rubes continually duped by the evil contractors. You realize that the profit margins of government contractors on almost all types of contracts are limited by federal statute, don't you?
The large contractors that you bemoan have to invest their own R&D funds (to the tune of $billions of dollars) to develop the technologies, architectures, platforms, and systems the government branches say they want.
I know you were/are in the Navy, and I'm sure that there have been some very poor acquisitions in that branch. But you're painting with a very broad brush here. You're entitled to your opinion, but it doesn't mean you're right.
I'm painting with the proper brush. Yes, our acquisitions professionals are detached from the actual needs of field commanders, and make poor decisions based on shotty information usually informed by the contractors selling them proposals. More often than you apparently think, needs are written around proposals in order to funnel work to defense contractors. These are essentially sales calls. I am not accusing the acquisition corps of being dirty or underhanded. I am accusing them of being out of touch with what commanders actually need.
You are right. Defense contractors spend money on R&D, but it's more often than not funded by the government, and often results in limited practical utility to the military. There are only loose controls on this, and like everything else, are subject to political lobbies and sales pitches to politicians on the appropriate committees. The government shouldn't subsidize idiotic R&D ventures, but right now, those big contractors know that all they have to do is throw some stuff at the wall, and someone will buy it if they can produce a good enough sales pitch to the right politician. I'm speaking on this from personal experience. I have worked on mission systems which were purchased without a matching need, and then massaged into areas where maybe they could fit, until after about 20 years and billions of dollars spent it was determined that they were obsolete and did not fulfill the need. This happens all. the. time.
You're a conservative. You know about the importance of private industry. And you probably believe that private industry should be held to account for poor risk decisions... except, apparently, in defense, where you believe they should be given a blank check to do with as they please. Just yet another one of the great hypocrisies of conservatism these days...
We make ship building choices based on providing work to the shipyards that have the right politicians lobbying for them. We shoehorn systems developed by contractors at the risk of the contractor into defense uses in order to ensure that contractor doesn't lose too much money because they invested their own funds into it. In short - and you allude to this - we make acquisitions choices to keep the military-industrial complex running, not based on needs in the field. That's not right.
Do you know what a UONS is? Do you know how expensive it is to execute that? Are you aware that that's how we've fielded the majority of our active mission systems in the major theaters recently in order to react to threats we've known about for literally decades?
No, I don't think you have the first ****ing clue what you're talking about. But we can continue to do this if you want, and I can start listing systems and expenditures as examples while you spout off about generalities and other nonsense that has nothing to do with the acquisitions process because you're trying to equate it to a $1000 hammer. The system is broken. Period. McCain was right, but few other politicians are interested in fixing it because it's not in their best political or financial interest. Instead, the taxpayers pay for shit we don't need, add to the government debt, and idiots run around touting how great Trump is because he's given the DOD a blank check to continue burning tax dollars at a ridiculous rate because MAGA.
Come at me with your Wikipedia research and something you read on Fox News or talked to someone at the American Legion about, bro. You're out of your element.
