In a fit of extreme cynicism I am wondering does:
- NATO Test = to ensure the avoidance of increasing defence funding the incoming Labour government will say bye-bye to any out of area commitments, including ignoring the China and North Korea threats, no SSN deployments to Oz, end of LRG(S), and most T31s and all T32s going the way of T43 and T44. Maybe a few more F35s?
- An MoD spokesperson said: 'The Public Account Committee’s assessment that our equipment plan does not align with the lessons learnt from the Ukraine conflict is unsubstantiated.' = you asked the wrong questions and we hid stuff from the NAO?
- The lessons we have seen from Ukraine have largely confirmed our 2019 warfighting analysis, which underpinned our subsequent investment decisions, meaning we have not needed to substantially reform our equipment pipeline. = we have only looked at what we wanted to?
- 'Nor do we recognise the broken procurement system painted by this report. The department routinely assesses time, cost and risk factors on all projects, and delivers the vast majority on time and in budget, and we have made numerous changes to improve procurement practices where projects have fallen short. Some of these projects are decades long, and many of our reforms will take time to deliver results.' = we have carefully avoided setting any meaningful targets and standards, and anyway we will have all moved on before you can disprove this waffle?
From time to time I have toyed with researching for a PhD on defence procurement effectiveness but sober up and realise it would be difficult to get any reliable evidence - pinched the title though: On the Psychology of Military Procurement Incompetence.