The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed

As someone who has some familiarity with this process, just like safety regulations are written in blood, Federal Acquisition rules are written in misuse of money, sometimes criminally.

Yes, we have swung too much towards the bureaucrats but I'm not sure throwing out everything is solution to the issue.

Move fast works great when it's B2B software and failures means stock price does not go up. It's not so great when brand new jet acts up and results in crashes.

Oh yea, F-35 was built with move fast, they rolled models off the production line quickly, so Lockheed could get more money, but it looks like whole "We will fix busted models later" might have been more expensive. Time will tell.

The F-35 was Lockheed's entry in the Joint Strike Fighter program. The JSF has roots going back to 1996. The X-35 first flew in 2000. The F-35 first flew in 2006, and didn't enter service until 2015(!!).

That's nearly 20 years to develop a single airframe. Yes, it's the most sophisticated airframe to date, but 20 years is not trivial.

The F-35 had many issues during trials and early deployment - some are excusable for a new airframe and some were not. I suspect the issue wasn't "move fast, break things" but rather massive layers of bureaucracy and committees that paralyzed the development pipeline.

The F-22 was part of the Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) program which dates back to 1981. It's prototype, the YF-22 first flew in 1990, and the F-22 itself first flew in 1997. It entered production in 2005. Again, 20+ years to field a new airframe.

Something is very wrong if it takes 20+ years to field new military technologies. By the time these technologies are fielded, a whole generation of employees have retired and leadership has turned over multiple times.

> but rather massive layers of bureaucracy and committees that paralyzed the development pipeline.

They decided to make one airframe in three variants for three different branches. They were trying to spend money they didn't have and thought this corner cutting would save it.

> Something is very wrong if it takes 20+ years to field next-generation military technologies.

It's the funding. The American appetite for new "war fighters" is exceptionally low when there's no exigent conflict facing us. They're simply building the _wrong thing_.

The problem clearly is, once a need is identified - it can be costly or ruinous to wait 20+ years to realize the solution. The DoW is clearly signaling they want the "Need -> Solution" loop tightened, significantly, sacrificing cost for timeliness.

That puts the US on good footing, ready to face peer and near-peer, next-generation warfare.

If Ukraine has taught us anything, it's off-the-shelf - ready today - weapons are needed in significant quantity. Drone warfare has changed almost everything - we're seeing $300 off-the-shelf drones kill millions of dollars of equipment and personnel. If the military needs anti-drone capabilities, it can't wait 20+ years to field them.

We don't just need to pick on new/next-generation military technologies either. The US currently produces between 30,000-40,000 155mm artillery shells a month, but Ukraine (at peak) expended 10,000 per day[1]. The loop is far too long...

[1] https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/ukraine-...

Sure because we decided to gut manufacturing in this country. It was deliberate decision made not by DoD following Federal Acquisition rules but by beancounters who didn't want to spend money on keeping manufacturing alive. Since we don't have civilian manufacturing base in this country and military does not want to buy a ton of artillery shells just for them to go idle, here we are.

Manufacturing in western countries was gutted by treasonous politicians bribed by corporations to do an end-run around the environmental laws, workplace regulations, and human rights that had been hard-won by the people over the previous 50-100 years, by allowing these abuses to continue elsewhere without even being required to pay commensurate tariffs or penalties.

Manufacturing in western countries was gutted by the price of labor (read: rising standard of living relative to global averages).

1. It's difficult to manufacture competitively when a local living wage is in the upper echelons of global wages.

2. It's often cheaper to manufacture something semi-manually (e.g. 80% automated) than invest in buying and maintaining full automation.

No, it was gutted by what I said it was gutted by. The price of labor I include in workplace regulations but I could have called it out on its own too.

If corporations could not have moved operations offshore to exploit workers and the environment in other countries for lower cost, then they would not have. They were permitted to.

Where the old "labor costs did killed it" canard really falls over is when you look at primary industry and things that physically can't be packed up and moved off shore in western countries. Mining, farming, forestry, fishing, things like that. Traditionally a lot of those industries have had high labor input costs too. They miraculously didn't all fall over like manufacturing though.

Labor costs are a cost, same as compliance with other workplace regulations and environmental laws of course. They are not the reason manufacturing was offshored though, they are the reason that corporations bribed treasonous politicians to allow this offshoring to occur with no penalty. As I said.

> Mining, farming, forestry, fishing, things like that. Traditionally a lot of those industries have had high labor input costs too. They miraculously didn't all fall over like manufacturing though.

Mining has been dropping since the 80s [0].

Farming, forestry, fishing are estimated to decline by 3% in the next 10 years [1]. After having fallen from ~50% of the US population in 1870 already.

It's cheaper to do things where labor is cheaper, then ship them around the world by sea.

[0] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IPUBN212W200000000#:~:tex...

[1] https://www.bls.gov/ooh/Farming-Fishing-and-Forestry/Agricul...