Decades of mergers in the American defence sector have left the US military less well-equipped and needlessly overburdened taxpayers, according to a Pentagon report aimed at reversing the consolidation trend.
The Department of Defense report, released on Tuesday, detailed the post-Cold War surge in mergers which has shrunk the number of American defence prime contractors from 51 in 1990 to 5 today: Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman and Boeing.
“Since 1990, there have been extreme levels of consolidation in the defence industrial base,” a senior Biden administration official said. “That has grown to threaten national security and taxpayer value.”