Weapons will always be made by weapon-manufacturing companies. What you’re proposing is basically for the government to own a weapon-manufacturing company. Even if you call it a government department or whatever, that’s what it’s going to be. And then you have to ask what the benefit is to the government owning the company instead of it being privately owned.
That’s true and therefore arms sales to ‘undesirable’ countries is a pretty weak argument against the existence of private sector arms making companies. The argument isn’t 100% false though because in some cases lobbying with respect to the local economic benefit of manufacturing the arms is at least one factor getting controversial arms sales over the political finish line (major arms sales by the US to Saudi Arabia would be an example). However even in those cases, a lot of the political pressure and lobbying comes from the people who work in the arms factories or the localities which indirectly benefit from those jobs. It’s not just coming from the managers or shareholders of the companies which run the factories.
One can be as cynical as one wants about elective politics but the fact is that in the end votes talk most loudly. Money talks mainly insofar as it relates to using it to get votes via campaign ads, except where politicians are just literally paid money in paper bags for their personal use, which happens in the US but is the exception rather than the rule. It’s a real problem to get re-elected if you were the guy whose policies shut down the plant by eg. not extending the production run of the F-15 with the recent sale to Saudi Arabia. That political calculus wouldn’t entirely change for Missouri lawmakers just because the US govt owned and ran the plant. It might change partially in that politicians would have additional leverage to say, demand that a govt owned plant keep all its workers even though it didn’t need them because the sale was cancelled…which gets around to the very real reasons it would cost even more to buy weapons if the government made them itself.
I don’t agree with the idea that the government isn’t capable of building weapons that are just as good as private businesses build. The idea that private businesses automatically do everything better is just a article of faith with some people.
But there are good reasons to contract out weapons building. It allows the government to act as an impartial arbiter without having a stake in the outcome. The government can look at fighter jet prototypes developed by various companies, for example, and buy the best one. If one fighter jet was being build by the government itself, it would have an unfair advantage over competitors.
And, yes, I realize in the real world the process often gets complicated by factors that have nothing to do with the quality of the product and falls short of the ideal. But at least the problems aren’t institutionalized into the system.
Because the government recognizes that competition is the best and most efficient way to get something built.
You see, if the government was responsible for building something, the job would be left to a bunch of lazy, government engineers who have little incentive to produce a quality product in a timely manner. The government knows this, so it instead utilizes a competitive acquisition and procurement process to get stuff built. It puts out a Request for Proposal (RFP) for the world to see, and allows anyone to submit bids. Proposals will come in, and the government will select the best proposal based on cost, performance, risk, etc.
This is an gross oversimplification, and I’m glossing over a lot of details, but this is essentially how it’s done.
What competition? How many companies could realistically be trusted to build a cutting edge drone, or to do a number of other things? There is almost no competition, and very little accountability because of that fact. Even if I could personally design the best tank or radar system that ever existed, there is almost no chance I could get the government to buy it even if I had billions of dollars to make it.
Additionally, there are a number of studies that conclude that, in general, government contracting costs MORE money. Please explain why you think those studies are wrong?
That’s the kind of unexamined assumption I spoke of.
Why assume that engineers working for the government are any lazier than engineers working for private businesses? Why assume that engineers in private businesses have greater incentives to do good work?
Did’nt Mare Island Navy yard make a few nuclear attack and missile submarines at one time?
Going back to the premise of highly skilled government workers: If they were really an expert in designing firearms or aircraft or whatever, for what possible reason would they choose to work for the government?
I think there’s a significant degree of back-justification going on here. For example, while weapons systems are farmed out to private contractors by default, signal intelligence is an area which is mostly run inside of the government.
As the Snowden leaks have revealed, the NSA has had no problem
- Sourcing, recruiting and utilizing talent effectively.
- Establishing research programs that are at or above the state of the art in industry.
- Developing systems that deliver value on a relatively cost effective basis.
Sure, some things are run poorly and there’s massive amounts of waste and stupidity but that’s universal across all programs of this size, whether public or private.
In an alternate universe, the government could have established a National Weapons Agency that has a sole monopoly on developing weapons systems and we could be arguing on this board about why that’s better than farming weapons out to private contractors, with the same lazy stereotypes applied in the opposite direction.
And over the long run we would be paying even more money if things were designed and built directly by the government.
I’ve worked with the federal government and contractors over my entire professional career. This is a gross oversimplification, but the process goes something like this:
When the government wants something done, they put an RFP out on the street. Companies will bid on it, with the idea being that the lowest bidder who promises to meet all the deliverables will be given the contract. Once work has started, the contractor must submit progress reports that contain very detailed data on technical progress and expenditures. If there are problems, the contractor must fix them or else they don’t get paid. If there are cost overruns, the company will incur penalties. There are frequent face-to-face meetings. If the equipment doesn’t meet spec or doesn’t pass qualification testing, it is the company’s responsibility to fix the problem. And the company must stand by a warranty after its delivered.
It’s a business and legal arrangement.
Now contrast that with the government directly building something. The government tells its engineering group, “Go build this.” What incentive is there for the engineers to roll up their sleeves and get the job done? None, really. You can’t hold their feet to the fire; it’s next to impossible to fire a federal worker. The government has nothing to go back on if the project is way behind schedule or there are cost overruns. What’s the government going to do when things go wrong? Penalize itself? Lots of laughs.
Competition during the bidding process, along with a wall of separation between the government and contractors, is the only practical way for the government to get “big” things done.
I haven’t been following every little twist and turn of the story, but wasn’t one of the major issues with the leaks the fact that most of the actual data analysis for the program was being done by independent contractors? It sounds like it was partly the poor coordination of security measures between the NSA and the various contractors that enabled Snowden to get away with as much classified material as he did.
Yes. Under management by General Dynamics, a private defense contractor which designed the vessel, employed most of the actual workers, and was paid handsomely for the work.
You do realize that Edward Snowdon, like much of the intelligence service workforce, worked for a private contractor (Booz Allen Hamilton in his case), right?
Stranger
“The federal government is less efficient” is a political idea, not a factual statement.
Then again, I’m not sure this question can really have a factual answer unless we can find some citation explaining why the government says they buy from private corporations. Hence I reported this thread to be moved.
We are really talking about two things: efficiency and accountability.
If the government writes a RFP that contains a list of hard requirements that must be met, and three qualified contractors submit bids, then it can be assumed that the lowest bidder has the most efficient approach for meeting the deliverables. This is a good thing for the taxpayers.
After this contractor wins the contract, the contractor is then legally accountable to deliver the goods. This is also a good thing for the taxpayers.
More info here:
Except they aren’t, because defense contractors never get sued. The government doesn’t want its multibillion dollar procurement failure publicized, and it certainly doesn’t want the development process in the public record.
The same factors that keep the government from laying off its own (hypothetical) weapons manufacturing personnel also keep it from having any real control over the private process.
The procurement may be merit-based at the outset, but we all know programs only get killed if their local senators aren’t influential enough to prevent it.
Pretty much none of what you said actually happens. But I would love to be wrong about that. Please provide a cite that demonstrates outsourcing is cheaper.
This isn’t true in the general sense. There are contract penalties that often come into play - often for significant money. But the reality is that once the contracts like these are signed both sides have made a major commitment and can’t easily back out.
The lowest bidder does not always get the contract. The current contracting process is to return the best value to the taxpayers. So says my contracting officer with a personal contracting authority in excess of eight figures.
You’re correct that’s it’s rare. But the government will use the contract to withhold milestone payments. And if the equipment turns out to be a piece of crap after it’s put into service, there will be warranty claims. Most importantly, though, if a contractor doesn’t meet its obligations, it will have a hard time getting its contract renewed, and will have a difficult time wining future contracts.
Of course, this is how it’s supposed to work. Reality is a bit different, obviously. No system is perfect. There will never be a perfect system.
Yes, I am aware of that. But I was trying to keep things simple. As I mentioned, my description of the process was a gross over simplification.