Let’s just look at the carrier fixed wing aircraft of 1993 for a second;
F-14: Grumman
F-18: McDonnell-Douglas
A-6: Grumman
S-3: Lockheed
EA-6B: Grumman
E-2: Grumman
Today;
F-18: Boeing
EF-18: Boeing
E-2: Northrup-Grumman
C-2: Grumman (legacy)
A smaller toolbox, that is clear. How did it get that way? Books have been written and there are many causes, but no small part of that was a byproduct of a dinner and the secondary effects the Cult of Efficiency brought afterwords.
From WaPo back in’97 when the memories were still fresh;
The frenzy of defense industry mergers can be traced to 1993, when then-Deputy Defense Secretary William Perry invited executives to dinner. At an event now referred to as “the last supper,” Perry urged them to combine into a few, larger companies because Pentagon budget cuts would endanger at least half the combat jet firms, missile makers, satellite builders and other contractors represented at the dinner that night.
Perry’s warnings helped set off one of the fastest transformations of any modern U.S. industry, as about a dozen leading American military contractors folded into only four. And soon it’s likely only three will remain, with Lockheed Martin Corp.’s announcement yesterday that it plans to buy Northrop Grumman Corp.
For those who weren’t there, the numbers were shocking;
The military procurement budget has plunged 67 percent since its height in 1985, forcing defense contractors to lay off workers and close plants at a pace perhaps unmatched in modern U.S. corporate history. Both the Pentagon and industry executives believe that larger companies will be more efficient at stretching that limited budget and carrying out the big-ticket projects that characterize defense spending in the late 1990s.
By the end of his second term, it may emerge that President Clinton’s most enduring legacy in national security will be his role in creating a handful of extraordinarily powerful defense contractors.
Read the whole thing, but when you look at how narrow the options were and when seasoned with a spotty program development record of the last quarter century – were there other viable options that could have produced, if not more efficient, but perhaps a more effective record of progress?
