... It was a different story just two decades ago. In the 1980s, 20 or more prime contractors competed for most defense contracts. Today, the Pentagon relies primarily on six main contractors to build our nation's aircraft, missiles, ships and other weapons systems.

It is a system that largely forgoes competition on price, delivery and performance and replaces it with a kind of "design bureau" competition, similar to what the Soviet Union used -- hardly a recipe for success.