The (U.S) Defense Dilemma: Finding Growth Opportunities
Courtesy- Booz and Company www.booz.com Posted by-Neelam Mathews Dec 11, 2011 In defense, large segments of the industrial base may disappear as spending shifts from investment in research, development, and production of new capabilities toward services and support for older platforms and systems. "Our analysis suggests there are scenarios in which military investment spending on new acquisitions and R&D could decline from $253billion in 2008 to as low as $150billion in 2016," says Booz. With backlogs continuing to erode, underinvestment in R&D threatens to create a hollow industrial base lacking the essential capabilities to develop innovative technologies and build new weapons systems. As the defense industrial base weighs the implications of these changes, four capabilities will be necessary to establish essential advantage. First, the Pentagon's emphasis on affordability for developing and acquiring new systems has attracted an influx of nontraditi...