The Bang-for-the-Buck Crisis

There's a new arms race afoot.  It’s a race between China, Russia, North Korea, Iran and the USA. Vladimir Putin unveiled a handful of new weapons four days ago that he says will make all of our defenses useless. China just upped its military budget 8.1 percent and said it is going to outcompete us. We’ve seen the nukes and missiles that North Korea has tested. And anything North Korea has, Iran can have in months. Meanwhile, North Korea, China, Iran, and Russia have all mounted cyber-attacks against us and have all succeeded. With no punishment. 

But the real problem is that we are shooting ourselves in the foot.  We are acting as our own worst enemies. It’s true that we are outspending our rivals on defense. We outspend China by more than three to one. But there's a problem. We are getting less and less bang for the buck. In other words, for every one of our most advanced fighter jets, the f-35s, the Russians can put up seven stealth fighter jets, their su-57s.  One against seven will never win. And for every one American development program for a new weapons system, the Russians can afford to develop 150 weapons systems. Yes, the Russians can afford to develop 150 new weapons systems for what it costs us to create one. How many soldiers could win if the cost of their equipment meant they'd be single-handedly facing 150 equally equipped Russians? 

You can see the problem at work in the space program, which uses military procurement methods. NASA plans a really big rocket called the Space Launch System, the SLS. NASA started on the SLS in roughly 2008, ten years ago. The total development cost is estimated to be $30 billion. What’s more, the cost for each SLS launch is expected to be over a billion dollars. Let me repeat that. Over a billion dollars for just one launch. And the SLS rocket has never flown. 

Meanwhile, SpaceX, Elon Musk's company, flew its first really big rocket, the Falcon Heavy, a month ago. The Falcon Heavy cost less than one billion dollars to develop. And it costs $90 million per flight. In other words, you could fly eleven falcon heavies for the cost of one NASA SLS rocket launch. And you could develop 30 entire new space vehicles for the cost of developing the space launch system. 

Look, if you send our pilots and warriors into battle against seven to one odds, you are dooming Americans to lose. You are killing American boys and girls. No matter how much you increase America’s military budget. The greatest enemy of America may be its bloated defense companies—companies like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrup Grumman. And the second biggest enemies may be the Pentagon generals who stuff money into the defense companies’ wallets.

It's time to get lean, mean, and smart. It's time to learn from Elon Musk.