> With the typical Western "overpay for a modern tank/gun/piece of equipment by a factor of 2" style you still get a modern tank/gun/piece of equipment in the e

> With the typical Western "overpay for a modern tank/gun/piece of equipment by a factor of 2" style you still get a modern tank/gun/piece of equipment in the end. Many studies have been done and this isn't really a thing. The government isn't paying 2x (or 100-1000x as is often the rumor) for a given thing. What they're paying is the price of certification and guarantees. If the law requires that a procured item be guaranteed to NOT catch fire in an oxygen-rich environment (because it could be used in space) then the price of that product--no matter how seemingly mundane--is going to be more expensive than if you "just bought it from the store". Because someone had to setup a complicated bureaucracy and certification testing process to cover that product and actually carry out the testing. There's also product availability guarantees that add to the price of government-procured things: A lot of stuff the government buys must continue to be manufactured for the effective life of the product in the government. This means that companies supplying stuff need to stock and maintain replacement parts for lifespans that would normally be vastly longer that a typical product cycle. They may even need to keep people trained at making and repairing these goods. That costs a lot of money! If you're looking for corruption in Western governments it's in the form of paying political campaigns (or entire parties) to get specific laws passed or not passed. That's the big one that causes basically all the major problems in Western politics. To a lesser extent there's also corruption involving decision-making bureaucrats getting hired by the industries they regulated after their time in office is over (this should be illegal) and politicians with insider information trading stocks. Taking direct bribes also does happen but it's rare because it's too easy to get caught and the consequences are high (high risk, low reward most of the time).