How weapons become overoptimized to the point they become brittle
Here is Roland McKean, one of the founders of the DoD’s Planning-Programming-Budgeting system, who later in the 1960s saw the errors of what he helped […]
cost-effectiveness
The false efficiency of systems analysis
The revolutionary manner in which McNamara made his decisions… transformed the “expert” career bureaucrat into the “novice” and the “inexperienced” political appointee into the “professional.” […]
Trends in technical performance, effort, and cost of being wrong
During the 30 years that our company has been in existence… we have seen air vehicles advance front the 100- to 200-mile-per-hour speeds characteristic of […]
Clearing obstacles to defense budget cuts
Several weeks ago I discussed various strategies for cutting $1 trillion from defense spending over ten years. In this post, I want to address the […]