An Immodest Proposal: Making a Profit on Defense Programs

Abstract

Faced with declining budgets and the spectre of sequestration under the Budget Control Act, the Department of Defense must do much more than it has ever done in the past to get more bang for the buck. This is usually translated to mean greater quantities for the same funding. How do we do that? In 1729 Jonathan Swift wrote a satirical essay, A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People From Being a Burden on Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick, which has come to be called A Modest Proposal. In Swifts essay, the "modest proposal" was for the Irish to raise themselves up from poverty by selling their children as food " to the persons of quality and fortune through the kingdom." As that title was already taken, we have called this piece An Immodest Proposal which next to Swifts this is very much so. The other choice would have been A Truly Modest Proposal, which this certainly is.

Open PDF

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Oct 01, 2012
Accession Number
AD1016079

Entities

People

  • John Krieger

Organizations

  • Defense Systems Management College

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Space
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Acquisition
  • Aircrafts
  • Commerce
  • Contracts
  • Defense Systems
  • Department Of Defense
  • Global Positioning Systems
  • Governments
  • Ground Control Stations
  • Law
  • Marine Corps
  • National Governments
  • Navigation
  • Satellite Constellations
  • United States
  • Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
  • Vehicles

Readers

  • Economics
  • Military History of the United States in the 20th Century.
  • Small Business Innovation Research Program (SBIR) EDI Research and Innovation.