Quantifying the "Silicon & Steel" asymmetry: Why US prime contractors and enterprise tech vendors capture modest single-digit budget slices while generating profound tactical, operational, and data switching barriers for allied nations.
As noted in The Economist, substituting US prime hardware involves steep multi-billion outlays, but substituting proprietary US mission software, sensor fusion engines, and cloud networks generates an exponential operational penalty. Even a complete domestic software substitution risks tactical blindness within NATO JADC2 battle networks.