The Real Reasons Weapons Cost So Much Aren’t What You Think (From Forbes)

Everybody in Washington seems to agree the Pentagon’s system for acquiring weapons is broken.  Decades of throwing big money and talent at the problem doesn’t seem to have yielded an appreciable improvement.  That’s sort of odd for a government that landed men on the Moon less than 100 months after setting the goal, and developed everything from the first atomic bomb to the internet.  Maybe the real reason weapons cost so much isn’t due to corruption or mismanagement or contractor profits.  Perhaps the cause of the problem lies deeper — in the requirements generated by a very demanding national strategy, in the changing nature of threats, in the peculiar workings of the political system, and in the unintended consequences of excessive oversight.  I have written a commentary for Forbes here.