> is it any wonder we see mainstream media enthusiastically endorsing more and more weapons for Ukraine? this is your "textbook" demonstration of the military-industrial-complex

I love how people are so jaded when America is on the right side of a conflict for the first time in a long time. America is supplying aid to a country to defend itself from an imperialistic invader, it gets to get rid of its expiring weapon stocks by donating them to a country that is decimating their biggest military rival.

This arrangement is win win win for everyone involved.

Looking at what the US has sent to Ukraine, though, nearly all of it has been second tier equipment that was nearing retirement/replacement due to either being close to time expiring or because it was nearing obsolescence. The same is true for other countries. Even the F-16s being mentioned at the moment will be recently retired ones, not aircraft drawn from front line fleets. Javelins are one of the only front line systems, and not that much of a profit maker for the military industrial complex given the relatively low per unit price and according to reports it was the oldest in the inventory that were sent.

The Raytheons and Boeings of the world would much rather the US be buying big ticket items like ships, fighter aircraft, and AMRAAMs than lower margin items like Javelins and 155mm artillery ammunition.

Military systems go through a constant cycle of acquisition, usage, upgrades, retirement, and replacement. Some systems, like big aircraft with relatively undemanding flight and usage profiles, can be kept operational and upgraded for a long time. Others, like missiles, have shorter lifetimes and are less worth refurbishing and upgrading after a point. A certain proportion of what the US has donated was going to have to be retired, disposed of, and replaced in the next few years anyway.

Isn't this basically what the defence production act was made for? Unfortunately, it would take a president that doesn't care about their opponents getting a huge campaign finance windfall to use that capability to restore competitive bidding.

And with the current Supreme Court, I expect that opening the designs for competitive bidding would be considered a "taking", so it would be a matter of time before the changes get reversed or weakened.

Exactly it's way easier for the socialists to take over when there are only a couple of monopolies to take over instead of a bunch of smaller businesses.