The establishment of the Director, Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) as a statutory position reporting directly to the Secretary of Defense in September 1983 represented a hollow victory for both critics of wasteful spending and advocates of effective and reliable weapon systems. Prior to the establishment of DOT&E, a Director, Defense Test and Evaluation oversaw all elements of the testing process: developmental testing prior to initiating full-scale development; initial operational testing prior to full-scale production; and then follow-on operational testing of a system in production. What the new position gained in stature, it lost in scope of responsibility and oversight ability. The most important elements of the weapons testing program, developmental testing and initial operational testing, were moved further down the chain of command.

Developmental testing fared worse in the 1990s, a casualty of reforms aimed at promoting commercial practices and reducing red tape. The end result was the downgrading of test and evaluation capabilities throughout DoD. The Army and Air Force largely ceded responsibility for developmental testing to the contractors who built the weapon systems. The Pentagon’s developmental test and evaluation office was dismantled in 1999. Problems abounded in subsequent years, with defense officials reporting in 2007 that half of all programs failed their initial operational test.

This paper explores how a series of well-intended reforms undermined the ability of defense officials to evaluate and exercise control over the weapons programs for which they had ultimate responsibility. It serves as a cautionary tale for policymakers who advocate ceding responsibility for testing to private contractors and limiting government oversight to judging final products. In the worst cases, allowing contractors to conduct their own tests with minimal government involvement resulted in weapons entering production long before development objectives had been met, generating massive cost overruns and leading to the cancellation of a few significant weapon systems. This paper seeks to explain how efficiency efforts of the 1990s set the stage for cost overruns and how ideas about the responsibilities of defense contractors shifted in the face of evidence that the lack of government involvement in testing undermined the weapons development process.