Could Air Force Bargain Hunting In Weapons Competitions Backfire? (From Forbes)

The Air Force seems to have gotten a good deal on its next-generation training system, awarding the program to Boeing for a price that is less than half of what the program was expected to cost.  It got a similar deal only days earlier from a Boeing-Leonardo team for helicopters used in securing missile fields.  But is there a danger is driving competitively-sourced weapons prices to the lowest possible level?  Boeing has barely begun to deliver the Air Force’s aggressively-priced KC-46 tankers, and it already has had to eat billions of dollars in unexpected costs.  Northrop Grumman bid so low on the contract to build next-gen bombers for the Air Force that it is easy to imagine the program going haywire once it reaches low-rate production.  The Air Force may be paying too much attention to price, and too little to risk.  I have written a commentary for Forbes here.