Think We Have Troubles

We are often quick to criticize the US Military's procurement troubles, such as getting new armor to Hummers in Iraq. According to this article from Canada, things could be worse!

What the chief of defence staff must do now is persuade his political masters that while our troops are facing these wartime risks, the corrupted, incompetent and woefully backlogged procurement system cannot continue to idle along at the present pace.
At a morale-boosting speech to service members in Moose Jaw, Sask., recently, even Defence Minister Bill Graham admitted the present situation is unworkable. One of the problems of procurement in the military is that it takes too long, he said. To emphasize this understatement, he explained that the average military acquisition of any significance in this country takes 12 years...Over the past 12 years, Canada has had no fewer than nine defence ministers and seven chiefs of defence staff. With government white papers being drafted in 1987, 1994 and 2005, the trend has been to rewrite our defence policy every seven to 11 years, which is notably less time than the average equipment purchase. Coincidence?

There's Good News: For us. Read on:

For a more current example of the old axiom Where there's a will, there's a way, one need only look at the U.S. example on Iraq. Since its virtually unopposed intervention devolved into a bloody insurgency in the summer of 2003, the American military has designed, tested and built new armoured truck cabs and retrofitted all of its support vehicles in theatre, providing soldiers with better protection against roadside bombs and rocket-propelled grenades. In contrast, Canada's entire fleet of 24-year-old army trucks has been overdue for replacement since 2001.

I started to post about America's Medevil Shipbuilders, but I'll wait, for now.