There is a simple test a defense solution should be able to pass, and most can’t: it should cost less than the threat it solves.
Not less than the program of record it replaces. Not less than the competitor’s bid. Less than the threat itself — the thing you are actually trying to counter, measured in the terms that matter to the people who have to fight with it and the people who have to pay for it.
Why the test matters
Deterrence is an economic argument as much as a military one. When the response costs an order of magnitude more than the provocation, you have not deterred an adversary — you have handed them a strategy. Cheap threats that force expensive responses are a business model, and a lot of modern defense procurement subsidizes it.
The discipline is not new. It is the oldest logic in conflict: impose more cost on the other side than you absorb. Somewhere along the way, “requirements” stopped asking whether the math still worked.
What it looks like in practice
- Start from the effect, not the catalog. What are you actually trying to make happen? Size everything to that.
- Refuse inherited assumptions. A requirement written a decade ago against a threat that no longer exists is not a requirement. It’s a fossil.
- Count the whole cost. Acquisition is the down payment. Sustainment, training, and opportunity cost are the mortgage.
Solutions should strive to be cheaper than the threat they solve.
That’s not austerity for its own sake. It’s the difference between a tool that serves the mission and one that becomes the mission.
The bottom line
If a proposed solution can’t clear this bar, that’s not a reason to lower the bar. It’s information. Measure the response — then build the one that makes sense.