I've worked in this sector for . . oh lordy . . twenty years now, and in that entire time the number of projects that could be called unequivocal successes amou

I've worked in this sector for . . oh lordy . . twenty years now, and in that entire time the number of projects that could be called unequivocal successes amount to . . five. The remainder, an average of ten programs per year for twenty years, went absolutely nowhere, each a black hole sucking your tax dollars. Some of them were worse than nowhere, as they were projects that were intended to optimize other programs, but then ruined them in the process. Sometimes it would take down the whole org, and then it would get gobbled up by LockBoNorthRay, which, looking back on it, might have been the intention all along. As a laborer in the trenches, I don't have any big ideas of how to fix this. I just have small ideas, but the most important one is this: don't let contracting officers get jobs in industry, for N or however many years. Every single place I have ever been or heard of has business development absolutely packed with worthless VPs who were chucked a title and a salary because as a KO/CO they bought whatever horseshit the company was selling, having signed waivers for this requirement or that requirement ("Built In Test code review? Naw, I know BigDefCorp's good for it"). And, zoom presto, then they have a salary and a pension, the lazy and uncreative man's road to being a millionaire. Unfortunately , I think we're going to need to see the US military machine positively humiliated before effective changes can be made. This nonsense is all far too entrenched to be taken down by anything but a vast national shame. My great fear is that we won't be able to suffer humiliation without hawking a nuke at someone.