In many countries, defense acquisitions comprise the largest component of all government procurement and in most, equipment acquisitions alone account for 25-30% of defense budget.
The products purchased vary from simple staple products (e.g., small arms munitions) to technologically sophisticated and complex systems (e.g., aircraft carriers and space telecommunications). Acquisition entails difficult choices to determine what to buy, who to buy from, and how to go about buying. For many defense producers, their home government is the major, and frequently the only, buyer of their output....