https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a475971.pdf https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a475971.pdf Massive consolidation within the defense indust

https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a475971.pdf https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a475971.pdf Massive consolidation within the defense industry began after the end of the Cold War. According to the Department of Justice (DOJ), the majority of the mergers occurred between 1990 and 1998. [...] In 1993, then Deputy Secretary of Defense William Perry held a meeting with defense industry leadership to inform them of drastic reductions in future defense expenditures and to encourage them to consolidate. That meeting earned the sobriquet "the Last Supper." [...] The DoD had a policy that paid restructuring costs to consolidating companies, which allowed government and the company to share in the savings realized to the government. The policy gained congressional and public scrutiny because it seemed to reward contractors for undergoing large-scale downsizing or streamlining of the workforce in the name of cost savings (GAO, April 1996, 3). This procedure earned the stigmatizing label "payoffs for layoffs" from the media. That consolidation was their own doing.