:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/archetype/TU77Y6ZFFRDPDJLNDJHNZGENBI.jpg)
The Pentagon is to blame for industrial base failures – By Maj. Gen. John Ferrari (ret.) and Charles Rahr (Defense News) / June 5, 2023
In April, the Department of Defense released a report on the financial health of the defense-industrial base, spelling out three key findings: the defense industry is financially healthy, the DoD does not need to change its profit and incentive policy, and the Pentagon can procure the goods and services that the American warfighter needs to effectively defend our nation.
Talk about missing the forest for the trees.
The report’s finding should have instead been that America’s defense-industrial base is failing our warfighters and taxpayers, as the Pentagon has willfully and with foresight created today’s monopolistic, overregulated and costly defense marketplace. That marketplace has left the DoD without the ability to procure at scale the goods and services it needs to fight a major war, demonstrated by munitions shortfalls from the conflict in Ukraine. It’s also left the Pentagon in need of a change to its profit policy as CBS’ “60 Minutes” segment on price gouging in the defense-industrial base recently showed.
