Consequently, a good technical feasibility evaluation must consider not only the state of the art in a very objective sense, but also the competence, insight, motivation, and other characteristics of those who propose to develop the weapon. By failing to include these latter subjective elements, some scientific advisory committees have missed the mark badly in their evaluations.
What this observation implies is that when technological uncertainty is substantial, it may be desirable to base weapons program decisions on something resembling interpersonal confidence rather than, or as well as, on objective analysis. The history of technology is replete with examples of innovations which were supported, not because the logic behind the idea was overwhelming, but because someone with funds believed in someone with an idea.
That was from Peck and Scherer’s 1962 classic, The Weapons Acquisition Process: An Economic Analysis. No doubt they are right, but today’s acquisition process doesn’t really permit that kind of decision making. This is a result of the McNamara revolution in planning-programming-budgeting, itself a consequence of the post-WWII fixation on objective analysis as a single source of truth.
The authors point to the fact that even for scientific developments like in ballistic missiles, scientists had no basis to judge the soundness of a program schedule. But this reassurance is precisely what defense leadership wants. It absolves him or her from blame.
And if these famous people then sign a final recommendation, the executive feels, “Now if something goes wrong, nobody can blame me for not having asked the smartest men in the country what they think about this.”
Thus we have a culture where the checkers out number the doers in an effort to objectively “prove” a program’s feasibility, cost, and schedule.
The authors said it best, that the most successful projects happened “because someone with funds believed in someone with an idea.” That outcome is common practice in the commercial sector, but is impossible in DoD’s acquisition and budgeting system. Even the flag-officers who run Program Executive Offices cannot make such decisions without running the bureaucratic gauntlet.
Of course, DoD funds are not private funds. They are spent on behalf of the taxpayer. Yet the traditional system of budgeting — pre-McNamara — provided executives with a great deal of discretion. The United States has some of the most competent and trustworthy officials in the world. The benefits it gives up with tight lockdowns of money likely far outweigh the costs of abuse.
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