Change orders and mission creep is a two way street.
That is certainly true, but change orders often are targeted to encourage mission creep.
There are other problems with government procurement — it is not only the Military that gets screwed — civilian agencies also suffer FRom the many “loopholes” in the system. And, of course, the ultimate screwee is the US Taxpayer!
HSAT, my experience was that the government contracting officers are generally very junior, and can be “out-ranked” by contractors and their own seniors into approving changes that are not necessary, except in the political sense.
Also, government contractors seem to have a high turnover in management, as do the Program offices. All this turnover inevitably leads to “better ideas” and more cost to the taxpayer and profits for the contractor.
In short, it is an insane system and it doesn’t work to anyone’s advantage, although the players will tell you different. They all are playing a “wink-wink” game, until the corruption and/or program cost really get out of hand.
And then, once the jig is up, it becomes a blame game. But no one really suffers too much, except the poor suffering taxpayer.
As you can tell, I am a disgruntled taxpayer who spent too much time in government contracting trying to weave a fine line between fiscal responsibility and conflicting contractual and performance demands.