Too Much Butter on the Guns?: The Wall Street Journal’s Brendan Miniter has a novel approach to building a better military—cut the budget on weapons programs. Miniter argues that expensive weapons systems are often more expensive and not nearly as effective as they could be because “major military programs are forced to buy every bell and whistle on the market.” He singles out the Global Hawk UAV—saying its designers have had to “go back to the drawing board more than the Wright Brothers” while planners and Congress can’t agree on what they want from the aircraft. Tell that to the airmen flying the high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft. A 94 percent combat mission effectiveness rate for the RQ-4A must not be good enough for Miniter. (DR, 09/14/05).
The Space Development Agency says it’s on track to issue its next batch of missile warning and tracking satellite contracts this month after those awards were delayed by the Pentagon’s decision to divert funds from the agency to pay troops during this fall’s prolonged government shutdown.
