[jakeinspace]

Boeing, Lockheed, Northrop, RTX (Raytheon), etc are essentially subsidiaries of the DoD, with privatized returns. They are too vital to the US military to be allowed to fail. Many countries like Russia and China have more overtly state-owned weapons manufacturers, whereas the U.S. pretends that theirs are legitimate free-market suppliers. When your business is deemed essentially to national security, and when the government signs trillion-dollar multi-decade contracts for equipment and maintenance, market forces no longer apply.

[ethbr1]

There is no guarantee that a country has to have a leading-edge aircraft manufacturer. On either the civilian or military side.

If companies lose too much money and don't receive bailouts, they simply cease to exist.

And you can't magic a new one on demand, given the specialized expertise and subcontractor requirements for something this complex.

So the reality is the government is stuck with a multi-variable optimization problem -- what combination of price, competition, and sustained R&D/production capability is best?

There is no easy answer. The modern, less-competitive, merged market is a deliberate consequence of the US refusing the spend Cold War levels of money to keep a larger number of manufacturers afloat.