Once upon a time, Gov’t spending on R&D dwarfed the commercial spending, and the technology found in NASA and on our fighters was a good as it got.
That is NOT the situation anymore. Want to see the latest on quantum computing, it’s not Uncle Sam. The fastest chips on the planet? Not Uncle Sam. Most complex communications, don’t look to Uncle Sam - look at Industry.
Uncle Sam may “specialize” in a few area, but from what I am seeing, Industry has outpaced Government and Military for decades.
Industry came to specialize on making money, government came to specialize on paper work ...
I’ll grant you the U-2 and SR-71. But the prowess of USAF/USN fighters during the Vietnam War was pretty poor in A2A until about 1972. Missiles didn’t work. Radar were effective. The Phantom’s engines smoked and ‘pointed’ at the jet-without-a-gun.
Because of FOIA most black projects and research has been offloaded to private industry which is not subject to FOIA requests.