Explaining Weapons Procurement: Matching Operational Performance and National Security Needs

Abstract

The central concern of this paper is with what factors give momentum to the chain of decisions which result in a weapon that goes against the standards of performance. The defense policy literature suggests that the variations in the performance of American military hardware are tied to the government's difficulties in resolving fundamental disagreements on strategic and doctrinal matters, variations in the technological demands of military projects, and the need for bargaining and coalition building. These relationships yield three hypotheses which are tested using simple bivariate analysis. With the caveats appropriate to a small sample of cases, the hypotheses are stated as relations between conditions rather than as correlations, and the findings are suggestive. The data support all three of the primary hypotheses. The study concludes with reform recommendations.