Unguided Missiles: How America Buys Its Weapons

"[A] very useful book . . . Written for the general reader, it brings into clear relief the complex relationship between weapons procurement and the forces of technology, service parochialism, the arms race, military strategy and arms control. More significantly, it reveals that weapons acquisition depends as much on political compromise as on superpower parity, military doctrine or even plain logic.” ―Publishers Weekly

The B-1 bomber…the cruise missile…the Trident submarine…the Trident missile…the M-1 tank…the MX missile… Why were these weapons built? Why are they so expensive? Why don’t they work as promised? Americans are generally aware that a huge problem exists in the ways and means of defense procurement. What few understand, however, is the actual process of buying a weapon. Unguided Missiles is the fullest and best description of this process yet published, from milestone zero, the determination of need, to actual production of the piece of hardware.