Since the close of World War II, the United States has spent some
$1.3 trillion on military R&D (equivalent to $2 trillion in year 2000
dollars). Procurement outlays––expenditures for equipment and systems
based on that R&D––added another $2.3 trillion (about $3.4 trillion in
2000 dollars). Defense acquisition––the term encompasses both R&D and
procurement––has thus consumed about $3.6 trillion, more than one-third
of postwar U.S. defense spending. And over the first decade of the twentyfirst
century, the United States will spend nearly $1.5 trillion on new
weapons systems.1
This book is concerned with where that money goes. As we will see,
the Korean War was the primary impetus behind the U.S. military’s
embrace of high technology. During the 1950s, the services sought new
weapons in profusion––jet-propelled fighters and bombers, nuclear-powered
submarines and nuclear-powered aircraft, a space plane called Dyna-Soar
intended to skip along Earth’s outer atmosphere. Not all were built, but
they pushed R&D spending ever upward and testified to the commitment
of the United States to do almost anything to establish technologically based
advantages over the Soviet Union