Some quick thoughts on the US Department of Defense (DoD) and Return on Investment (ROI).

First, the DoD has clearly had immense ROI for the US over the long term. The US is the richest country in the world by a huge margin, and some portion of that is due to military supremacy.

However, you can break this down a little and look at effectiveness of DoD acquisitions in various periods. Prior to 2000, programs like the F/A-18, and Arleigh Burke have been extremely efficient.

DDG-51 apparently cost ~$2.3bil in 2012 dollars. Further units costing ~$1.8bil.

Looking forward from ~2000. The Zumwalt is extremely expensive at around $7.5bil/ship, and there are only three.

The F-35 program is notoriously expensive, and continues to have poor overall availability a decade later.

DoD seems to be chasing hypersonic boost-glide, too.

But this is a new era, with new battlefields. The new weapons that have been effective are drones, satellites, and hackers. And they’re all cheap.

I’m not telling with this thread, I’m asking as a citizen and a voter. Does the DoD acquisition model make sense?