[drewpc]

"the government is completely incompetent and relies on the huge defense contractors for guidance"

This is the catch 22 of any business. If you don't know something, either you hire people with that knowledge or you contract it out. If you can't properly supervise the work/project/acquisition because you don't have enough depth of knowledge, then it's very hard to get a good solution. In the end, the government is at the mercy of private industry because the government can't be the best at everything.

[something123]

I don't really see the catch 22. The gov't could have the best if they payed appropriately (which they don't, and they end up with a lot of lazy people that are there for the retirement benefits)

The governement ultimately does have experts, but there are too few and they're spread too thin. They end up not having enough knowledge to make unilateral decisions

They also are often in semi-indepedent roles competing again the small businesses. Think of the JPL or all the "Labs" (Lincoln, Lawrence etc.) or the teams at MIT. They have their own agendas which doesn't hold technology acquisition as it's focus ( it's more about supporting the funding of their lil corner)