> A February 2022 study by the Department of Defense (DOD) found that after decades of consolidation, the number of defense prime contractors had shrunk from 51 to fewer than 10. Further, many segments of the defense market have become controlled by companies with monopoly or near-monopoly positions.
This consolidation was explicitly promoted in the 1990s. This promotion and the permission for the mergers was a choice on the part of the US gov't and DOD. This isn't an accident of history, there was no decline in military spending that caused companies to fail and merge like this. It was a deliberate choice during decades of increasing defense spending to promote and permit consolidation of the defense industry.
If you're talking about manufacturing, that can be hard. But the US is the world's largest arms dealer, and pretty much all of that goes through DOD. Need missile production to be at the ready? Find a buyer who needs missiles. DOD gets priority should a war arise, missiles are constantly going to Ukraine and other countries. Other systems will vary, but obsolescence is a real problem but also one you can invent to motivate decommissioning one system and bring up another. You can also ride on top of commercial production lines. Boeing 7x7 aircraft are used as the basis for a variety of DOD platforms, DOD is just one buyer among many, no need to do anything special just make sure DOD gets priority when appropriate.
With software, it's easier. DOD is so bad at managing software projects the contractors will never be done because they never have to deliver and can receive hundreds of millions of dollars for their non-work.
At the same time, don’t underestimate newer companies like Anduril or SpaceX.
