CDR SALAMANDER: Kendall, NGAD, & the Acquisition Mindset that Must Go.

Why did we build LCS around the never-was-has-been NLOS? Why do we have three white elephants in the fleet? Why, four decades after the end of the Cold War, are all our tactical aircraft derived from Cold War era designs? Why, when we find ourselves needing the ability for submarines to be able to lay mines and fire anti-ship cruise missiles, the submarines that we have in production can do neither?

Simple, a mindset. A self-destructive mindset that not only thinks it knows what the future is, it is terrified into paralysis to do anything to prepare for it today. If you take arrogance and blend it with insecurity, you about have it.

The US military can be a learning institution. The US Navy and USAF years ago decided to part ways for their next fighter aircraft. In a way, it is a confession of what most will admit in hushed tones: we don’t want a repeat of the less-than-optimal result from the F-35A/B/C. In the end analysis, the product was the result of a cascading series of compromises that begat the flawed but still pretty good.

We were lucky in that history gave us a bit of a holiday from serious competition.

The holiday is over — and do read the whole thing.