But before you unload all your buckshot on the Pentagon (which might be deserved but the fields have lots of bird species) Be certain that your favorite neighborhood Senator and House Rep aren’t beholden to the local neighborhood munitions company. They almost always are and that doesn’t get noticed because the issues they distract you with by claiming to support them are hot button social issues and as long as they hit your buttons, you vote for them. Bait and switch is not just for used car dealers.

Every time I’ve seen procurement reform come up, it results in another procurement of systems to control procurements. The long strange saga of CALS is one to study. It did have a spin-off: a lot of web tech.

But before you unload all your buckshot on the Pentagon (which might be deserved but the fields have lots of bird species) Be certain that your favorite neighborhood Senator and House Rep aren’t beholden to the local neighborhood munitions company. They almost always are and that doesn’t get noticed because the issues they distract you with by claiming to support them are hot button social issues and as long as they hit your buttons, you vote for them. Bait and switch is not just for used car dealers.

Every time I’ve seen procurement reform come up, it results in another procurement of systems to control procurements. The long strange saga of CALS is one to study. It did have a spin-off: a lot of web tech.

No unified procurement strategic plan, no way to reassess systems in the pipe by paying more of the R&D costs up front as part of the contract, instead of having the vendor build it into a volume run of exty ex units needed to recoup. A process that forces unrealistic gambling on contract projections to get some fly by wire system out the door only to find it sucks in turns due to aerodynamics and weight that have nothing to do with the fbw system.

I want to see our military operate like Halburton when it comes to heavy equipment procurement. They operate in very, very different ways, with only one buyer being on the hook for cost overruns, or production time tables collapsing. The vendors still service both.

But, it’s national security, so it’s premium priced. Horse pucky. I want independent review of systems, costs, contracts, and the potential conflict of interest of any one any where in the chain. And if your found cheating your government, it’s a felony (or treason, if military personnel are put in harms way as a result).

No unified procurement strategic plan, no way to reassess systems in the pipe by paying more of the R&D costs up front as part of the contract, instead of having the vendor build it into a volume run of exty ex units needed to recoup. A process that forces unrealistic gambling on contract projections to get some fly by wire system out the door only to find it sucks in turns due to aerodynamics and weight that have nothing to do with the fbw system.

I want to see our military operate like Halburton when it comes to heavy equipment procurement. They operate in very, very different ways, with only one buyer being on the hook for cost overruns, or production time tables collapsing. The vendors still service both.

But, it’s national security, so it’s premium priced. Horse pucky. I want independent review of systems, costs, contracts, and the potential conflict of interest of any one any where in the chain. And if your found cheating your government, it’s a felony (or treason, if military personnel are put in harms way as a result).

@ken: The kicker is the B-52 like the Saturn V is the result of teams having years and years of practice to get it right. Do we spend too much on arms? Yes. There is a tradeoff though in having to get and keep skills. If we had kept the Saturn V lines open, we would have heavy lift systems today instead of spending billions to reaquire skills and knowledge lost. We can argue the merits of the purposes, but I simply want to point out a reality of having capability. Just like the weekend warriors of music, practice makes the difference in first and second rate.

Star Wars would not have worked, BTW. The software engineering challenges alone made it a dumb bet, but it was never intended to work. It was intended to break Ivan’s economic back. One charm of Jon’s blog is he is knowingly or unknowingly reporting on the war of this century where the weapons are our economies.

And apparently, we are losing.

@ken: The kicker is the B-52 like the Saturn V is the result of teams having years and years of practice to get it right. Do we spend too much on arms? Yes. There is a tradeoff though in having to get and keep skills. If we had kept the Saturn V lines open, we would have heavy lift systems today instead of spending billions to reaquire skills and knowledge lost. We can argue the merits of the purposes, but I simply want to point out a reality of having capability. Just like the weekend warriors of music, practice makes the difference in first and second rate.

Star Wars would not have worked, BTW. The software engineering challenges alone made it a dumb bet, but it was never intended to work. It was intended to break Ivan’s economic back. One charm of Jon’s blog is he is knowingly or unknowingly reporting on the war of this century where the weapons are our economies.

And apparently, we are losing.