You should be warned, Pentagon Wars is mostly fiction and written by a guy who had a serious bone to pick. He's a member of a troublesome ground known as the reformers who get an outsized share of the attention in popular media while being pariahs in the defense industry.
Source, I used to work in the defense industry and people like Burton and Sprey are loathed.
Such is the nature of any sort of reformer and institution. You wouldn't be a "reformer" unless you thought the institution needs to be "reformed". That sets you up in opposition to everyone inside the institution, who are presumably inside the institution because they believe in the goals, processes, and structures of the institution.
Having watched Russia completely fail to execute complex air combat operations in Ukraine of the sort we take completely for granted from the US, I think maybe you are underestimating US air combat performance?
EDIT: Hmm I guess you edited out the part about saying the US has been losing for 60 years.
Yeah, I edited it out because I knew discussion would rathole on whether or not the U.S. military is effective, while the larger point I'm making is about institutions (in general) and their ability to change. Russia's performance in the Ukraine war is a good example: they have all the war materials [1], but they suck at waging war because the institutions are so corrupt that they suck at waging war [2].
The problem is that the "reformers" were trying to go back to the previous paradigm. They thought that putting in expensive electronics and radar into the F-16 was a waste and that instead it should rely on guns. They loathed the M-1 Abrams and instead called for a return to the M60's for which they could buy 3 for every one. They advocated for effectively a return to WW2 style of things, generally having a distaste for technological developments which have since arrived. The Gulf War with America's high tech superiority completely and utterly refuted their core thesis and they're basically considered jokes who in their late years would show up on Russia Today to spout the same nonsense they previously had against now battle proven systems but this time about the F-35.
The reformers actually weren't about reform at all really. They didn't have new, innovative ideas that were shunned for being dangerous.
They were and are luddites who thought warfare hadn't moved on from the 1950's and investing in new technology and capabilities was a waste of time. They claimed the M1 Abrams was less effective than previous tanks such as the M48 Patton. They though radar and guided missiles were useless to put on a plane and that the ideal fighter had more in common with the F-86 than the F-15. While at the same time claiming credit for designing the F-15 when they didn't have a thing to do with it.
I did not know that. I thought the book was mostly factual, as far as these things go. The program he references though, are real programs. The budgets and overspending were also correct (where I checked). Do you have a link to any rebuttals? I will google myself, but if you have something that you find convincing I'd love to read it.
> The budgets and overspending were also correct (where I checked)
I haven't read the book, but in the movie, it claims that the army had spent $14 Bn at the time of the Congressional Committy on April 24th, 1987 where as it had only spent $8Bn out of the $12Bn allocated.[1]
Beyond that simple fact check, sure the programs did exist but there are numerous other issues.
The most significant were the subjects of the destructive tests, in which Col. James Burton insisted on destroying many fully functioning combat loaded Bradleys by firing RPG's at them from multiple different angles. The Army thought it would be worth while to do some tests but not to the extent which Burton demanded. The Army filled the ammo shells with sand and the fuel tanks with water as to be bale to measure damage done to them from sharp metal. That way you could actually account for the damage done.
According to the Col, this was a bad faith cover up that the Bradley wouldn't survive and instead be a flaming wreck. A Bradley would indeed blow up and be turned into a flaming pile of melted aluminum from an AT weapon hit, but that was always known - it wasn't designed to be able to resist such weapons. Neither did the previous troop carrier it was replacing. Nor did the Russian equivalents do so either.
[1]:
Capability of the Bradley fighting vehicle : hearing before the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, House of Representatives, One hundredth Congress, first session, April 24, 1987 (EBook version): https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=6VhyQC11xEAC&pg=GBS....
The Bradley program is real and Burton was briefly involved. That much is true. The sequence of events and the actions of the characters in his story are fictional.
The oft referenced scene from the film where Army Generals keep sending the designer back to make stupid changes is completely fictitious. The book and film portray the Bradley as a victim of design by committee and the whims of out of touch generals.
The couldn't be more far from the truth. You see, Burton thought the Bradley was a replacement for the M113, an armored personnel carrier. But it wasn't and was never supposed to be. It was supposed to be an Infantry Fighting Vehicle.
This is a class of armored fighting vehicle that the Soviets introduced with the BMP-1. Instead of being a battle taxi that would drive the troops to the front and then leave like an APC, the IFV would stick around and fight with the troops. Adding more firepower.
This is a good idea and the US Army wanted one of their own. They had several successive projects starting in the 1960's that culminated in the Bradley in the 80's. It was always meant to have a cannon and ATGMs. It was always going to carry fewer troops.
Well whistleblowers in banks are loathed too (and pharma, oil, government etc.), exposing and destroying a very finely balanced machinery of theft, corruption, bribery, massive egos, big cocaine/prostitute parties, you name it.
Source, I used to work in the defense industry and people like Burton and Sprey are loathed.