Do the acquisition professionals and senior executives in government understand engineering principles well enough to manage big programs?

Designing a simple platform that meets a specific operational need is difficult enough. But when the scope of operations or the complexity of the system design exceeds current management and engineering skills, conflicts will emerge between the performance capability of the total system and the ability of individual components to satisfy operational demands regardless of how good those components perform. Is there a lack of skilled engineering competence within the Defense Department?