The choice between unique and diverse actions in weapons acquisition
For some problems, great gains will come from unique binding choices resulting from systems analyses; for others the gain will come from diversity of actions… […]
armen alchian
Risk mitigation and the question of Chinese anti-stealth radar
Here’s the excellent Chad Millette, the chief learning officer at Space System Command, on LinkedIn: Eric Lofgren, you suggest in reference to the story about […]
Defense management is killing competition
The genius of the capitalist system is that it has no pretensions about prediction: It does not preselect winners and losers but instead facilitates competition […]
Two definitions of weapon systems “concurrency”
Because of the uncertainties and perceived criticality of ICBMs, the WDD and Ramo-Wooldridge believed it unwise to rely on only one approach. If it did […]
Roper on opportunity- vs. requirements-based contracting
Here’s Air Force acquisition chief Will Roper making a very nice distinction between a “requirements” and an “opportunity” approach to defense programs. At the Strategic […]
Can Roper break the link between R&D and production? The case of NGAD
“NGAD could take the form of a single aircraft and/or a number of complementary systems – manned, unmanned, optionally manned, cyber, electronic forms that would […]
Role of competition in the economy and in government
In the private economy other competing firms can duplicate or take different points of view about the nature of desirable products. But there are not […]
Armen Alchian’s radical proposal for military R&D — will we ever take heed?
When analyzed together, they confirmed the hypotheses that Armen Alchian had first made in 1953 about the dangers of applying systems analysis to weapons acquisition […]
Alchian discovers classified nuclear data in 1954 using stock prices
At RAND in 1954, Armen A. Alchian conducted the world’s first event study to infer the fissile fuel material used in the manufacturing of the […]
Are 80 percent of lifecycle costs predestined by PDR?
One of the potential pitfalls of the rapid prototyping path could be the neglect of production and sustainment costs in the effort to ensure that […]
Aircraft sustainment costs, inventories, and implications for design choices
The “digital century series” approach for the next-generation fighter could leave the Air Force with more costly small fleets of aircraft that exacerbate growth in […]
Will Thomas on the history and sciences of R&D policy
I was pleased to speak with Will Thomas on the Acquisition Talk podcast. He is a senior science policy analyst at the American Institute of […]
Podcast: Todd Harrison on the military space reorg. and everything else
Todd Harrison joined me on the Acquisition Talk podcast to discuss a wide range of issues, including how the reorganization of defense space forces is […]
Improving system resilience through falsification
In a previous post, I discussed system resilience and its relationship to risk. Here, I want to provide a way of building systems that are […]
Solving defense problems with Sophomore economics
Some confusion appears to exist about the relationship between quantitative analysis and subjective judgment in the practice of systems analysis. Partly responsible is the improper […]