tucumseh
I would certainly agree with you that the military safety system has historically let us down. I think one of the areas where it has struggled ( as do many of us on Pprune) is in determining a senible balance between war and peace, especially when that war is undeclared.
Perhaps one of the reasons for this is simply an absence of balls. I think it would be entirely appropriate for a VSO to say:
"That aircraft is not as safe to fly as it should be and no short term fix is available, unfortunately the crew are taking a higher risk than I would normally accept. However in doing so they are saving many lives on the ground so it will continue to operate."
Conversly if the only reason an aircraft does not have an appropriate level of IFF and a box is available that could fix the problem fairly quickly but we are saving cash then the VSO should perhaps say " Cash up or the boys are off to the bar"
It seems that all too often VSOs are less than upfront because they fear the public consequences of command decisions.
So reviewing the various accidents over the past few years to try and determine the occassions where money invested, or decisions not taken might have saved lives is a good thing. Attempting to reduce risk to the levels of an airline would be a bad thing.