Haunted by the spectre of over-study in weapon needs

At OSD level, they really don’t do much systems analysis. What they do mostly, endlessly and in almost excruciating detail is weapon requirements analysis.

Summed up one Air Force general, “The redundant study goes on not just at the OSD level; but there is where the imbalance is most critical. We are haunted by the spectre of over-study in weapon needs; while at the same time much of the influencing analysis and basic knowledge upon which weapon development decisions are founded is superficial and shallow.”

… top scientists and engineers (with a voice for executive leadership) have voiced for decades: “No nation ever gets very far ahead of any other in scientific and engineering knowledge. Where the leads and breakthroughs come is in what management decides to do with that knowledge.”

That was written more than 50 years ago now as a backlash to Robert McNamara’s policies in the 1960s. It highlights the “valley of death” problem, or what management decides to do.

Robert McNamara

They were “haunted by the spectre.” But for us, we have grown up in the system basically unchanged from that time. It is what we know.

Borklund, C. W. “Cost-Effectiveness’ vs. Creativity: Part 2, A “Wait-and-See” Philosophy Can Squelch Initiative.” Armed Forces Management, September 1967, pp 57 – 59.