When the military has no control or very little control over how the weapon should be made. Who will make those decisions? The politician? The guy that can get a few more votes in his district if he builds more Sopwith Camels “five” which he miss understood to mean a fifth generation plane?
“When the military has no control or very little control over how the weapon should be made. Who will make those decisions? The politician? The guy that can get a few more votes in his district if he builds more Sopwith Camels...?” [Steve Van Doorn, post 89]
All excellent points.
In the United States military establishment, the uniformed military has very little control over design. And at the lowest ranks - where operators must use the stuff bought for them, putting their personal tails at risk, going into action - there is hardly any control at all.
Beg pardon for lack of clarity; I was thinking of “the military establishment” in broader terms: political leaders, senior civilian appointees, department functionaries, scientists and engineers (as government officials and contractor personnel both), technicians - in addition to everyone who does wear a uniform.
The superstructure exists not because evildoers are conspiring to victimize us citizens; it was built up gradually over generations - at first because the citizenry feared tyranny from an unaccountable military, and later because advances in science, industrial production, and technological specialization necessitated it. “The people” demanded that their elected representatives “do something.”
A large bureaucracy resulted.
Politicians do exploit it, and corrupt or divert much of it, including the acquisition process; officials tend, inexorably, to focus on one-upping and outmaneuvering each other at the expense of their primary duties. With the best of intentions, senior uniformed service leaders squabble and compete with each other, neglecting the main mission.
All very frustrating, to citizens more used to lack of government interference, and pleased with the way private business organizations can be more flexible and efficient. We Americans have always suffered from short attention spans; confronted with the glacial pace at which defense bureaucracies move, many citizens pitch tantrums, demanding deconstruction of the whole mess, a “return” to the Golden Age when everything worked better, or a redefinition of national interests to remove any need for power projection beyond our shores. Calls for better morals, enhanced devotion to duty, and suchlike abjurations reverberate.
Removing the mess might quell the average citizen’s sense of self-righteous outrage, but would render the nation impotent.
“Going back” to some point in time assumed to be “better” isn’t even possible: there was no Golden Age when things worked better. Besides, time’s arrow points only one way.
And national interests have extended beyond our shores since well before the Founding. Trading nations do not have the luxury of disengaging to flirt with isolationism.
There is no “answer”, no overarching, broad-based, politically painless solution agreeable to all. Things may be improved, but not perfected. And improvements don’t come along as quickly as we might like.
Interesting that you chose Britain’s Sopwith Camel as an example. Many history buffs believe it was some sort of magical fighter aircraft. They’ve seen too many episodes of Top Tens, Air Warriors, or Bullet Points. It was a hot performer, but so touchy the average RFC pilot could not handle it safely. The S.E.5a equaled or exceeded the Camel in most performance attributes and was more forgiving to fly - a better machine to put into the hands of pilots with scant experience. Overall.