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Monday, August 31, 2009

Britain's Defense Industrial Complex




















Prince William (left) and Prince Harry are feeling the effects of Great Britain's defense industrial complex... Harry Wales can't even afford to get his haircut!


Good news! We aren't the only country with a "broken" defense industrial complex... or does "broken" (in a good government sense) mean that the defense industrial complex is actually healthy (in a "business of America is business" sense)?!

Anyhow, Great Britain's defense procurement process is broken too! The "United" Kingdom, who only spends about 2.4 percent of their GDP on their war machine, has new equipment arriving five years late and 40 percent overbudget and "the incompetence is helping enemies who "are unlikely to wait for our sclerotic acquisition systems to catch up."
"How can it be that it takes 20 years to buy a ship, or aircraft, or tank?" Gray wrote. "Why does it always seem to cost at least twice what was thought? Even worse, at the end of the wait, why does it never quite seem to do what it was supposed to? The issue is a mystery, wrapped in an enigma, shrouded in an acronym."

The report warned of "too many types of equipment being ordered for too large a range of tasks at too high a specification". It said delays in the shipbuilding programme meant Britain could not have fought a Falklands-style campaign in the last 20 years. "We would have risked significant casualties, the very significant costs of acquiring adequate equipment at short notice (if available) or the embarrassment of not fighting at all."

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