Sources of Weapon Systems Innovation in the Department of Defense Role of Resh and Development

Overview: Since the end of World War II, civilian and military policymakers have sought to understand and improve the institutional processes involved in the development of modern weapons systems. The persistent calls for institutional, managerial, and organizational reform suggest that such tasks have not always been easy nor clearly defined. This study is intended to bring some historical clarity to that problem by identifying and examining the patterns of organizational and institutional change that guided in-house weapons research and development (R&D) over the course of the past six decades. Specifically, it details the history of weapons R&D in the major laboratories owned and operated by the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force between 1945 and 2000. At the same time, the monograph complements a larger multivolume historical effort that is currently analyzing the policies, procedures, and institutions that guided the development, production, and procurement of major weapon systems during the same period. Together they constitute the on-going Defense Acquisition History Project.