Assessing Competitive Strategies for the Joint Strike Fighter2001

Defense policymakers in the United States expect that the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) will play a critical role in U.S. and allied military forces through the first half of this century. The Department of Defense's current JSF acquisition strategy is a "winner-take-all" competition pitting Lockheed Martin against Boeing. This strategy has raised concerns of whether competition should be retained after Lockheed Martin or Boeing is selected to begin engineering and manufacturing development. In July 2000, the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics asked RAND to explore and identify opportunities and options to introduce competition during the production phase of the JSF. In their 4-month-long study, RAND researchers used as their principal criterion the...