Weapon System acquisition is hopelessly FUBAR’d.
Everything costs too much. Everything is behind schedule. Sustainment isn’t really planned for.
You’re looking at companies like Boeing and Raytheon to do excellent work. They can’t. And the DOD does not really care, at a fundamental level. It’s all about money flowing from this place to that place.
DEI is part of this problem, but this goes back at least to the mid 1990s and Defense Secretary William Perry’s decision to ban military specifications and standards. It’s been downhill from there and it gets worse all the time.
We may no longer have a US Navy capable of taking on China, and “hating
whitey” is de rigeur, but at least everyone is respecting everyone else’s pronouns.